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The target for child poverty must be zero
Some problems we face as a society are so important, that the only ethical thing to do is resolve them, even if that seems impossible. Our levels of child poverty are one of these problems. The goal of the Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit of the Salvation Army is the eradication of poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand and we constantly monitor discussion around poverty. There is currently debate as to what target to set regarding child poverty. It is a requirement of the Child Poverty Reduction Act 2018 that the government set 3-year child poverty reduction targets. The current government has changed the target to something they see as both ambitious but more achievable than the previous targets. This sounds like sensible policy making on the surface. But if we stop and think about this from an ethical rather than a managerial perspective, this debate is missing the obvious point that the target must always be zero. There is no other target that is acceptable in a western developed nation. Because if the target is more than zero, then as a society what we are really saying that it is OK for children, who are vulnerable and have no choice about their socio-economic circumstances, to live with a level of material hardship that we know from evidence, can blight the rest of their lives.
An analogy. When I worked in aged residential care, we had a wide range of targets covering all aspects of service delivery. These were reviewed annually against national and international best practice and altered accordingly. But our medication error target was constant, it never changed, it was always zero. From time to time, we would get challenged on this, with a few people saying it was wrong to have something so unachievable. To which I’d respond “So can you tell me how many of our residents it’s OK to harm” – because essentially any target greater than zero meant we were OK contemplating harming someone. Keeping that target at zero focused our minds on finding every practical way to make the impossible possible, because it was the right thing to do, even if it wasn’t easy.
What does it say about Aotearoa that we are spending our time effectively discussing how many children to leave in poverty? Children deserve us to be focused not on how much poverty we accept, but on the many available researched solutions to eradicating poverty for all children.
Targets for reducing child poverty sound like a sensible approach, but in fact, they divert attention away from what should be the ever-present issue in front of us - the fact that 1 in every 8 children in New Zealand live in a degree of hardship that research proves will impact negatively on their physical, social, and intellectual development. Children can’t wait for a 20-point plan, or a set of targets to be reached. They live the reality of poverty now, it is affecting them now, and today’s experience will have long term negative consequences for them and for our society.
So we need zero. When your target is zero, no idea to resolve the issue is rejected. Everything must be considered for potential effectiveness, no matter which side of politics or socio-economic theory it comes from. When you have a target of zero children in poverty, you make different choices about the use of our collective resources and you make different choices about timeframes.
The Salvation Army has as one of its organisational values “Do what is right, not what is easy.” As a society lets fulfil this for our tamariki. Let’s stop debating and commit to and legislate for child poverty -zero.
Louise Upston rejects official advice $3b a year needed to fix child poverty | RNZ News
Dr Bonnie Robinson
Research and Justice Stream Lead and Director – Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit
The Salvation Army