6. Child Poverty—Unicef Report Measurement and DefinitionJACINDA ARDERN (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister for ChildrenChild Poverty—Unicef Report Measurement and Definition6. JACINDA ARDERN (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister for Children: Is it acceptable that New Zealand has been ranked 34th out of 41 high-income OECD countries for child well-being in the UNICEF report - Building the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in Rich Countries?Mr SPEAKER: Before I call the Minister my office was advised that this answer may be longer than normal.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Children): Whilst in relation to this report I have ministerial responsibility only for the indicators of child poverty and child abuse in goals 1 and 16 and not the well-being of all children I have no responsibility or control over how UNICEF determines its rankings. But I would note that the report itself states that it is limited by the lack of comparable data in some domains and The Report Card cannot provide an in-depth analysis of the reasons behind differences". However this Government is absolutely committed to child well-being which is why we have increased childcare support for low-income families; increased benefit rates for families with children for the first time in 40 years; increased Working for Families for low-income working families; and introduced a $2 billion-a-year Family Incomes Package in Budget 2017 which will lift families' incomes by an average of $26 a week and reduce by 50000 the number of children living in families receiving less than half the median income. We have introduced free doctors visits and prescriptions for children under 13 extended paid parental leave and increased parental tax credits—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Bring the answer to a conclusion.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: —as well as helping to serve an average of 125000 KickStart Breakfasts a week to schoolchildren across the country.Jacinda Ardern: Why did she state yesterday that "it is simply not possible to measure poverty"?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I do not think that characterises my answer. I was talking about a single measure of poverty. I recall explaining that hardship and poverty are on a spectrum that we use multilevel multimeasures and that there was no country that I was aware of that had successfully used one measure to measure poverty.Jacinda Ardern: When her Government signed up to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and pledged to halve poverty according to national definitions what was her national definition?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Again I can respond only with my ministerial responsibilities but I am aware and I have stated in this House before that a whole-of-Government cross-Government group is working on how we define those goals. There are a number of them—16. The group does not have to report until 2030 and the countries have to report twice between signing and 2030.Jacinda Ardern: Is New Zealand on track to halve poverty by 2030 as her Government has pledged to do when she cannot even tell this House what poverty is?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: We do not have to define it any more than is done on an annual basis by the Ministry of Social Development over a number of measures. Whether it is by income whether it is by household income before and after housing or whether it is by hardship this Government—and the previous Government—probably has some of the best data to get underneath the causes of poverty. As I said in the House yesterday we are using those measures consistently over Budgets as the economy grows and gives us the ability to invest back into our low-income households to help those children and those families.Jan Logie: Was the Minister embarrassed to read about New Zealand being singled out in the UNICEF report as "proof that high national income alone is no guarantee of a good record in sustaining child well-being;"?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: The difficulty with the UNICEF report is that it does rely in its conclusions on a number of measures that New Zealand was not able to provide data for. New Zealand was not the only country in some of those measures. In fact one of the measures that were used I am aware was developed only for the EU. So that means that countries like Australia the USA New Zealand and a myriad of others outside of Europe were not able to comply with them.Jan Logie: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was a very specific question in relation to a quote in that report about high national incomes and poor outcomes for children. The Minister just—Mr SPEAKER: The question was very much an opinion question: would the Minister be embarrassed by such a statistic? The question was addressed.Jan Logie: When the Minister spends all this effort on defending the poor outcomes for our children is she seriously saying that this is as good as it gets; if so where is her aspiration for our children?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: This Government does not rest and has not rested and Budget 2017 showed exactly that with a $2 billion investment in those families on the lowest incomes. We will continue with the myriad of policies and programmes that we have put in place but they are guided by the tremendous data that this Government has—that this country has—to get underneath the drivers of poverty. It is not enough just to talk about it; this Government is doing something about it.Jacinda Ardern: As part of the sustainable development poverty goals what is she halving by 2030?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I am one Minister of a number of Ministers who have responsibility for this sustainability goal. As I said there is a cross-Government working group looking to define what that will look like. But in the poverty area there will not be one simple measure. There cannot be because poverty cannot be defined by that. There will be a number of measures by which we will define it.Question No. 5 to Minister—Amended AnswerHon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): I seek leave to correct an answer that I gave to question No. 5. I said—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I need to put the leave. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is none.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I said that the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) is up later today. That is not the case. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! There will be substantially less interjection please."