Hi John,  

This is going to be a long email, so I want to put the news right up top: Today, Stats NZ released the latest child poverty figures — and these figures show our work to reduce child poverty is making a difference.

More than 18,000 children have been lifted out of poverty — that’s the equivalent of 57 entire schools. Seven out of nine poverty measures have improved over the past year, compared to seven out of nine getting worse under the previous National Government.

I’m really proud of this progress. Child poverty is an issue that’s really close to my heart, and it’s been a priority for our Government since day one. In fact, one of the first things I did as Prime Minister was set our team a challenge: to make New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child. 

Over the past two years, we’ve committed ourselves to this goal, delivering policies and programmes designed to turn around New Zealand’s record on child poverty. Under this Government:

• We’ve rolled out free and healthy lunches in schools to 7,000 students, increasing to 21,000 students over the next year
• We’re boosting the incomes of 384,000 families by $75 a week on average through the Families Package
• We’ve extended free doctor visits to all children under 14
• We’ve lifted the minimum wage to $17.70 an hour (and raising this again to $18.90 an hour from April)
• We’re indexing main benefits to wage growth, so families don’t fall further behind
• We’re easing the pressure on parents by scrapping NCEA fees, and increasing funding so most parents don’t have to pay school donations
• We’ve set child poverty targets into law, to hold governments now and in the future to account

We know that child poverty is a complex issue that will take time to fix, but today’s figures show that we’re moving in the right direction. 

Of course, there’s still work to do, and long-term challenges like child poverty won’t be solved overnight, but we’re committed to continuing this progress. 

Ending child poverty is the reason I first entered politics, and I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved so far. I hope you are too, and will support us as we continue to make the long-term changes needed to make New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child.

Before I go, I want to share with you a short video that shows our work in action.

The students at Flaxmere Primary School are among the 7,000 children receiving free and healthy lunches through the first roll-out of our new Lunches in Schools programme. Last week, I visited the school to see the impact firsthand — and here’s a look behind the scenes:

I’ll be back in touch soon with an update on other ways we’re making progress on the long-term challenges facing New Zealand. In the meantime, if you’re interested, you can read more about the latest statistics and our work to lift children out of poverty here.

Thanks,

Jacinda