The Salvation Army supports the intent and most of the detail of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill.
We encourage the Social Services and Community Committee to consider minor changes to some of the proposals alongside a broader and ongoing scrutiny of public policies and programmes to ensure that the poverty and related material hardship suffered by tens of thousands of New Zealand children does not become an inter-generational feature of our social landscape.
We wish to draw the Committee’s attention to three issues which we believ are related to the ultimate success of this Bill in reducing the incidence or extent of child poverty. These issues are
- the complexity of poverty,
- the timeliness and reliability of the data behind the measures, and
- the potential for using additional supplementary measures.