Hon Louise Upston
Minister for Child Poverty Reduction

Ensuring New Zealand is the best place in the world for children and young people is the vision at the heart of the Government’s new Child and Youth Strategy, Child Poverty Reduction Minister Louise Upston says.

“Childhood represents a huge opportunity to set people on a positive path towards living a healthy, productive, and fulfilling life that allows them to contribute to their communities and achieve their full potential.

“Our first year in Government has seen us take action to improve the lives of children and young people by delivering tax relief, making early childhood care more affordable, and setting ambitious targets to raise outcomes in areas such as health, education, housing, and law and order. But there is more work to do.”

The 2024-2027 strategy identifies three priorities that will drive the Government’s work to ensure children and young people in New Zealand experience a good life.

The three priorities are:

• Supporting children and their families and whānau in the first 2000 days
• Reducing child material hardship
• Preventing harm against children

“Work to deliver on these priorities will be aligned to our Government Targets and informed by our social investment approach,” Louise Upston says.

“Recognising this, the Government has chosen a deliberate focus on reducing material hardship through early intervention, setting a target to lift around 17,000 more children out of material hardship by 2027.”

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The strategy includes a refreshed set of Child Poverty Related Indicators that measure long-term disadvantage that affect a child’s future life chances.

The five indicators are:

· Children in benefit-dependent households

· Housing affordability

· Student attendance

· Educational achievement

· Potentially avoidable hospitalisations

“These indicators are designed to focus government efforts on the areas that will make a meaningful difference to the lives of children, and drive accountability for improvement,” Louise Upston says.

“To achieve lasting reductions in child poverty rates we must break the long-term cycles of disadvantage and intergenerational benefit dependency.

“We need to focus our investment where it can make the biggest difference both now and in the future. New Zealand is stronger when its people are skilled and educated, healthy and resilient, and our families and communities are thriving.”

Read The Child and Youth Strategy 2024-2027 here.

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