Wall Louisa: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWall Louisa: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 29 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15646. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): It is my pleasure to take a call in this debate on the state of the nation. I guess we have already seen the territory be defined by some of the realities of our country. We have growing inequalities in New Zealand. We have children living in poverty and as a consequence of that reality we have seen the Prime Minister announce a policy that is really trying to say that the Government cares about children. The reality is however that under this National Government more families and more children are in poverty because the priority of the Government has been about giving tax cuts to the rich and it has been about ensuring that its mates are better off. So I think that the big challenge for New Zealanders is to see past the policies that have been announced and really look at an alternative which is what we in the Labour Party want to present. We make no apologies for prioritising children. We make no apologies for ensuring that those most in need receive the services that they need to run their families in a way that means that ultimately our children will have the best start in life.I want to highlight particularly our Best Start policy and our focus on mothers and children. One of the policies that I particularly want to talk to is our antenatal initiative which will see us provide free antenatal classes for every expectant mum and also ensure that 80 percent of pregnant mums are booked in for antenatal checks by 10 weeks. Why is that relevant? Well it is incredibly relevant in South Auckland wherewe have approximately 13.5 percent of births of children in this country. That is over 9000 of the babies who are born in this country every year are born in South Auckland. I want to congratulate Ron Paterson and the Counties Manukau District Health Board on their report and inquiry into maternity services because the reality in South Auckland is that only 16 percent of expectant mothers actually have that 10-week antenatal check.People make assumptions and judgments on the face of it about why mothers do not go to see a lead maternity carer—so either a midwife or a general practitioner. What we found out through the inquiry before the Health Committee which was focused on improving health outcomes and preventing child abuse with a focus on pre-conception until 3 years of age was that in fact in South Auckland we have only 5.5 percent of the midwives in New Zealand. What does that mean in reality? It means that we are 200 midwives short. So when I look at initiatives like setting a key performance indicator for the health system to ensure that 80 percent of pregnant mums have an antenatal check the relevance of that particular policy is that we are going to see the distribution of midwives and of general practitioners into areas where we most need them.Why should we care as a country about setting policies with that aspiration? Well what we know is that in South Auckland over 110 babies die every year before 28 days of life. That is called perinatal mortality. What we on this side of the House know is that unless you redistribute resources—midwife and general practitioner resources—those statistics will continue to be negative. So we will set this policy agenda based on that evidence because for us evidence is what drives the policy that we will take to the electorate.In terms of addressing the whole inequality that is currently faced by some members of our community the way that we have seen fit to do that is obviously to have initiatives such as this one providing for 80 percent of pregnant mums to be booked in for antenatal checks by 10 weeks but also to have an emphasis on early childhood education. I want to focus on a quote from Professor Mike O’Brien who is the spokesperson for the Child Poverty Action Group where he talks about the Better Public Services outcomes framework and this obsession by the National Government for home-based care or playgroup services which is somehow supposed to mean that every child gets a good start in life in terms of their education pathway. What we know because the City of Manukau Education Trust has done some research is that we have only 34 percent provision for under-5-year-olds in South Auckland. We do not have quality early childhood education opportunities for all our children.What does that mean? It means that a lot of our children are going to school and they are already in deficit—5 and 6-year-olds who have had no early childhood education and who in terms of the national standard are already 18 months to 2 years behind. If this Government were really serious about improving educational outcomes it would be providing quality early childhood education opportunities for all New Zealand children. The reality is that it does not have the solutions and it does not understand the circumstances of a lot of our communities and so it has not got the solutions to help us address the growing inequality issue here in our country.Before Christmas I made an appointment to see Professor Graeme Aitken and Professor Elizabeth McKinley. I wanted to go and see them specifically because they run an initiative calledStarpath.Starpath is an incredibly ambitious but also concentrated and targeted initiative because what it does is fundamentally accept that the biggest obstacle to student achievement is social inequality. So what do they do? They work with decile 1 and 2 schools to create opportunities for students at those schools to get into university. What is the relevance? Well actually if you want to move the agenda from identifying what the problems are you actually have to createsolutions and you also have to look at equality of outcome which is also something that this side of the House is preoccupied with. It is not good enough just to identify that we have problems; you actually have to have solutions.WhatStarpath does is work with principals and work with students families and communities to provide clear pathways into university. The relevance of that discussion to the Government’s prioritisation of the teaching profession and creating more bureaucracy is that the reality is that if you come from a decile 1 or 2 community one of you will go to university for every three students from a decile 9 or 10 community. So if we want to fundamentally address social inequalities then we actually have to look at equality of outcome.Starpath has been created specifically to address the underachievement that I believe comes from the lack of clear pathways to university for children from decile 1 and 2 schools. So we are committing to continuing to work with initiatives likeStarpath. Actually I think thatStarpath as a specific initiative currently concentrated at the University of Auckland is something that we should be looking at rolling out to other universities and to other communities.I would also like to talk about the teaching profession and also the principals and teachers in communities like South Auckland and Manurewa specifically who I know are excellent teachers. They are passionate and committed to their students but the reality for those teachers in some communities is that addressing the social determinants of educational achievement is actually about making sure our children are fed. There is without question a direct and clear correlation between our children fulfilling their potential and within the context of all schools in my electorate those schools providing some form of nutrition for children. Whether it be breakfast clubs that are provided by external agencies—a lot of church groups and other community groups in the community—or the schools taking responsibility themselves the reality is that that is the biggest issue for a lot of our families.So that side of the House may make light of the fact that we want to commit to every parent of children in their first year getting the $60 a week payment—and for some families it will extend to years 2 and 3—but we know that parents need support and that $60 a week will go a long way to ensuring that our children have a better start in life. I am incredibly proud to belong to a party that has prioritised children and we will go into this election being very clear that our biggest challenge into the future is addressing the inequality the growing inequality that we have particularly seen under this National Government. So yes I agree with the previous speaker Jonathan Coleman: bring on the election and let us fight it out in the communities. Kia ora.