Hon Louise Upston
Minister for Child Poverty Reduction

New reporting out today shows that while most young Kiwis are doing well, further progress is needed so all children and young people thrive.

Child Poverty Reduction Minister Louise Upston says the Annual Report on the Child and Youth Strategy / the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy and the Child Poverty Related Indicators tabled in Parliament provides important insights, including:

• regular school attendance is improving for all learners
• more children are attending early childhood education
• rates of child and youth offending have improved since 2019/20
• more young people are making positive choices around alcohol and cigarette usage, compared to 2019/20.

However more needs to be done as:

• around 13 per cent of children experienced material hardship in 2023/24
• rates of immunisation are decreasing
• children in benefit-receiving households are more likely to be in material hardship than children in working households
• the number of children in households receiving a main benefit has increased by nearly 25,000 since 2019/20
• rates of food insecurity have increased

“Many of the findings reported today continue to reflect the challenges of a prolonged cost of living crisis,” Louise Upston says.

“We know there are Kiwi families and their kids still doing it tough. We are working hard to fix that through initiatives like FamilyBoost, which as at April 2 had supported close to 52,000 households with the cost of early childhood education.

“Going forward, our Coalition Government’s work will continue to be informed by our social investment approach.

“Today’s findings confirm we’re focusing on the right priorities in education and health, where the most impact can be made, and children’s lives can be improved,” Louise Upston says.

Notes

• The Child and Youth Strategy sets out the Government’s priorities to improve the lives of young Kiwis.
• The Strategy’s priorities are supporting children and their families and whānau in the first 2,000 days (from conception to 5 years old), reducing child material hardship, and preventing harm against children.
• This is the first reporting on the new Strategy’s indicators and provides a baseline for future reporting.
• Today’s figures cover the 2023-24 financial year, when the previous government’s Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy was in place.
• The 2023/24 Annual Report covers the indicators in the previous Strategy and also reports on progress on the new Child and Youth Strategy indicators to establish a baseline.
• The Child and Youth Strategy and the full Annual Report are available here:
• www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/child-wellbeing-and-poverty-reduction/reporting.html

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