Jan Tinetti Labour MP

Since Labour came into government, one of our central goals has been to make New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child. We believe – as I know our community here in Tauranga does – that all our young people deserve to be happy, healthy, and empowered to live their best life.

Despite the challenges of Covid-19, we've kept making progress toward this goal, delivering one of the most significant drops in child poverty in decades.

The latest statistics show that, through a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, we've lifted 66,500 children out of poverty and 21,900 children out of material hardship. That's thousands of children who no longer have to sit through school hungry, go without warm clothing in winter, or worry about having a safe place to sleep.

There's more work to do, but policies we've put in place since 2017 – including initiatives designed to ensure our Covid recovery leaves no one behind – are making a real difference for families across NZ.

We know child wellbeing can't be separated from whānau wellbeing. While Covid has made things tougher, we've been working hard to boost household incomes – by, for instance, making historic increases to main benefits and indexing them to average wage growth, so families don't fall further behind.

Taken together, changes we've made since 2017 mean around 110,000 families and whānau with children will be, on average, $175 a week better off. We've also lifted the minimum wage to $20 an hour, with another boost kicking in from April.

Another important part of our work is making sure children don't miss out on the essentials, like food and healthcare. Our ‘free lunches in schools' programme is providing healthy meals to hundreds students here in Tauranga, ensuring they have the energy to learn. We've rolled out free period products in all schools and kura, and made doctor's visits free for all children under 14.

Housing has a major impact on wellbeing, and kids shouldn't get preventable diseases like rheumatic fever because they live in a cold, damp house. We're making sure rental homes are up to scratch through our Healthy Homes Standards, and we're funding insulation and heat pumps through programmes like Warmer Kiwi Homes. We're also helping more than one million people stay warm through the colder months with the Winter Energy Payment.

It's encouraging to see that, thanks to these efforts, all nine child poverty measures are trending down since 2017/2018. Lifting child wellbeing is a long-term challenge, but we've achieved two of the three ambitious targets we set ourselves when we first took office – and we remain committed to more than halving child poverty within a decade.

Changes we've put in place are making and will continue to make a substantial difference to whānau – including in our Tauranga community – for years to come. I'm proud of the progress we've made, and look forward to continuing this work to ensure we can all feel proud of how our country treats its next generation.