Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Madam Chair and I'm pleased to rise and speak in Part 2 of this Child Poverty Reduction Bill on behalf of the National Party who of course will be supporting this legislation. One of the reasons that we are supporting this legislation is the fact that we've had the opportunity to improve the bill on its initial drafting.The reality though in terms of the intention of this legislation is that supporting any attempt to lift children out of poverty is of course important for any parliamentarian. If we look at what National achieved in our previous term particularly highlighting the time coming out of the global financial crisis we actually shifted and lifted 130000 children out of poverty during that time. So we do recognise as a Government it's important—as this part does—to measure to have targets and to have reports and one of the areas that I want to come back to is the issue of indicators and of course monitoring.We had a really interesting select committee process. I think it's fair to say that the majority of submitters had lots to say—in particular about the measures. Some agreed with all of them but most of them agreed with some of them. There was quite a debate around whether the percentages were set at the right level and I do want to say that in terms of the process in the Social Services and Community Committee it was a thorough one and I want to acknowledge the efforts of the officials during that process. There were a large number of submissions and there were a number of suggestions that were incorporated into what is now the final bill.Just coming back to some of the concerns that National originally had though with the bill as introduced—one was the concern about whether or not the targets set by the Government were actually ambitious enough. Part of that was based on the 10-year horizon and 70000 children being lifted out of poverty when actually in the last five years National lifted 85000 children out of poverty. So that was a concern that we expressed throughout this process. I think where we landed though—and this is where I want to put some of my focus—is on the inclusion of the Supplementary Order Paper around child poverty - related indicatorsJust as the speaker before me David Seymour spoke about it is a lot more than income. We want to look at what some of the issues are that indicate to us that there's a challenge for that child—and coming back to another speaker the child obviously doesn't exist without a family. So it's being able to look at what some of those other indicators are that tell us useful information and provide us the ability to intervene much earlier with that child or children and with that family. So I do want to thank the Prime Minister for working with leader Simon Bridges and for the opportunity to meet in person and to work through these particular indicators.Clause 36A includes child poverty - related indicators which actually require the Minister to identify one or more indicators. They are not specified in legislation so there is some flexibility for the Minister but it's in one or all of the following areas: income and employment housing education and development health and disability and any other areas. I would've thought that that inclusion of the child poverty - related indicators would have satisfied Mr Seymour in some of the concerns that he raised.Part of that comes back to the area of focus in the National Government's time around Better Public Services targets and being able to set targets and to measure to report to the public on what the progress is and then the ability for a whole-of-Government approach to intervene earlier to get and to change the trajectory of those outcomes. So I am pleased that we have managed to get the inclusion of those child poverty - related indicators.This legislation has been a good example of cross-party work. At the heart of it is the commitment of both the Government and National as the major Opposition to lift more children out of poverty. It continues the track record that we were on. The baton has now been passed to the current Government and I acknowledge you for your efforts.