First step needed to tackle child poverty

Paula Bennett’s continued ‘she’ll be right’ response to calls to officially measure child poverty reinforce concerns that National doesn’t see it as a problem or a priority, Labour Children’s spokesperson Jacinda Ardern says.

“That the Children’s Commissioner has taken it on himself to provide an annual stocktake of the levels of child poverty in this country demonstrates just how wrong Ms Bennett is on this issue.

“If we are to make any real inroads into tackling child poverty then we need to collect the necessary data.

“New Zealanders deserve to know how well the government is performing in this area, and that means openly measuring, setting targets, and having a strategy to reduce it.

“Our lack of child poverty measures makes us an outlier with other OECD countries, 29 of which specifically define and measure levels of child poverty.

“Labour has committed to introducing similar legislation here and has a Member’s Bill that sets out exactly how we would go about that.

“We would also give the Children’s Commissioner the same independence as the Commissioner for the Environment currently has, so they are better able to hold the Government to account.

“Up to 265,000 New Zealand kids are right now living in poverty. That’s a dreadful statistic. But until the Government takes just one baby step and creates a strategy to monitor child poverty, then better outcomes are unlikely.”

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