Turei Metiria: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20438] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. I first acknowledge the reference made by the Minister in the chair the Minister for Social Development and Employment to the work of the Green Party. It is certainly true that the Green Party has put the issues of income inequality—the widening gap between rich and poor in this country—on the political agenda and we are very proud to have led that work in Parliament and in the community. 
I will address some of the solutions to child poverty that are available to us as parliamentarians and as a community and talk about the solutions that the Greens have for dealing with the child poverty issues that the Minister has touched on this evening. Last week the Green Party launched its solutions to bring 100000 children out of poverty in just 3 years—by 2014. I acknowledge those who supported that work: the various non-governmental organisations around the country and Nicole Whippy Cindy Kiro and Courteney Moloney. Courteney Moloney is a young woman who was studying at law school while on the domestic purposes benefit and while taking care of her baby. She was prepared to talk about her story and the difficulty that she has in terms of having sufficient resources to take that next step for her into better education and caring for her child. 
There are 270000 children who live in poverty in this country. That is one in every four—a quarter of all of our children. These are not nameless or faceless kids; these are kids that we know. They are our friends’ children they are our neighbours’ children they are the children of our colleagues and our acquaintances they are our nieces and our nephews and they are our mokopuna. They are our children and they deserve better than that. They deserve the best possible start in life and they deserve to be guaranteed the essentials because when we guarantee our kids the essentials we guarantee them the opportunities for the best possible life. 
We need to take action to bring these children out of poverty for their sake and for our collective future. International research particularly in the UK recently has shown that the cost of not addressing child poverty is around 3 percent of GDP—3 percent of GDP. In this country that means some $6 billion lost in health justice education and welfare spending that could be saved if we chose to do something—if we chose to take action and invest a little bit now in these kids so we do not have to spend that later. Bringing children out of poverty does not just make humanitarian sense; it makes economic sense as well. 
We have developed four costed solutions that will bring 100000 children out of poverty and they address a number of the inequities first put in place I have to say by the Labour Government under Working for Families and exacerbated by the decisions of the National Government particularly around welfare spending and the training incentive allowance. Our solutions are achievable and they are affordable. They will work to bring those kids out of poverty and that is what we need to do. 
We have four solutions. The first is to make Working for Families fair for every family. Children have the same needs whether their parents are in paid work or not. Working for Families helps low-income families to make ends meet but parts of it do not apply to those families who are reliant on a benefit. We would incorporate what is now called the in-work tax credit into the family tax credit and extend it to 140000 of the poorest households in this country. That means an extra $60 a week for those 140000 New Zealand families. 
That alone would bring at least 100000 children above the poverty line. That poverty line is at around $14000 a year so it is a very miserable income that those families have to live on and that those kids have to live on. For those families every week it is the difference between paying the power bill and having enough food. These choices are real for our families and they need to be made real for the politicians and for the Government which makes the decisions about whether those kids get the money they need to have just a decent life. 
Our second solution is to provide better study support for sole parents and for sickness beneficiaries. We know that kids do better when their parents are better educated. The training incentive allowance is designed to help sole parents on the domestic purposes benefit to upskill and retrain.