E aku rangatira, he aha te mea nui o tenei ao Maku e kii atu, he tamariki, he tamariki, a taatou, ta

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• E aku rangatira, he aha te mea nui o tenei ao?
  Maku e kii atu, he tamariki, he tamariki, a
  taatou, tamariki.
• Leaders, where does our future lie? In our
  children.
• Dame Anne Salmond

With thanks to IMAC whanau for the children
illustrations
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• Cf OECD countries
• To encourage monitoring, permit comparison,
  stimulate discussion and development of policies
  to improve childrens lives
• Uses 6 dimensions
• Material well-being
• Health and safety
• Education
• Peer and family relationships
• Behaviours and risks
• Young peoples subjective sense of well-being

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Limitations

• Data from 2000 2003 in most cases
• NZ data absent in some dimensions
• No single dimension is a reliable proxy for child
  well-being as a whole
• Other important areas not included eg mental
  health

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• Six dimensions
• Material well-being 16/24
• Health and safety 23/24!
• Education17/24
• Peer and family relationships
• Behaviours and risks
• Young peoples subjective sense of well-being

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Material Well-being

• Are we improving

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Proportion of children with net-of-housing
incomes below the 60 percent line (benchmarked to
1998 median), 1988 to 2004
Derived from Statistics New Zealand's Household
Economic Survey, 1988-2004, by the Ministry of
Social Development'
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WFF the 2004 Budget

• Increasing Family Support
• Loss of core benefit and special benefit support
  (31,000 of the poorest families) some of these
  families only no worse off under WFF
• The In Work Payment replaces the CTC from 2006
  for working families
• Inflation- proofing from 2008
• Expected 30 reduction in child poverty

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Maximum per week real family assistance1-child
family 1986-2008 (2004)S. St John 2004
Substantial real gains for in work families
from 2006
Loss of Special Benefit may leave some families
on benefits no worse off
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Working for families- reducing poverty but
creating an equity gap

Gains for 125,000 poor children those whose
parents are in work benefit, assuming 100
uptake 175,000 children largely miss out those
whose parents are on income support benefits
Source Susan St John, David Craig. Cut Price
Kids 2004, CPAG
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Health and Safety of children, an OECD overview
Innocenti Report Card 7 Feb 2007
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Three Indicators

• Health at 0 1 (Infant mortality and birth
  weight)
• Preventative health services (Immunisation)
• Safety (deaths from accidents, murder, suicide,
  violence)

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Infant Mortality

• Neonatal relatively stable
• Post-neonatal
• Declined in past 15 years, but begun to taper off
  in recent years
• Dominated by SIDS (cot death)

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Infant (post-neonatal) Mortality by Cause, New
Zealand 1988-2002
(NZCYES, Nov 2005
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Poor children are much more likely to die of SIDS

• Children from poorer families
• have a 8.7 increased risk of
• dying from SIDS
• NZ CYES Nov 2005

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Immunisation Coverage SurveysNational 1991/2,
North Health 1995/6, National 2005 Fully
Immunised at aged 2 years
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Safety

• Outside of perinatal period, injury is the
  leading cause of mortality for NZ children
• RTA leading cause of death
• Falls the leading cause of hospital admissions
• Marked fall in mortality from transport injuries
  in young people (15-24), but injury rates among
  children (0-14) little changed)

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A child from a low-income household has a 1.9
times higher risk of dying from a non RTA injury
than from a high income family. Overall a child
from a low-income household has a 1.4 times
higher risk of dying than a child from a wealthy
household.
Shaw C, Blakely T, Crampton P, Atkinson J The
contribution of causes of death to socioeconomic
inequalities in child mortality New Zealand
1981-1999 Vol 118 No 1227 NZMJ 16 Dec 2005
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Why is our childrens health so bad?
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These are our children..

• Lily
• - 8 months old
• - admitted with pneumonia
• - solo parent mum, 19 yrs, second child
• - mothers background sexually abusive
• - father violent
• - moved 3 times since birth
• - in Auntys house 16 people, damp, cold
• Why does she get sick?
• Environmental exposure to the bug
• Host immune response stress, poor nutrition
• Access to health care

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Access Issues

• August 2007 random survey of the cost of after
  hours services for 51 primary health care
  services nation-wide.
• A range of charges for consultation
• lt 6 years free to 120
• gt 6 years free to 120 for a consultation.

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• Jack
• 9 years
• father in jail
• 2 siblings, further sibling drowned aged 3 yrs
• Mother 29 medical condition, unable to sustain a
  job though trying in and out of jobs
• Overweight
• Learning difficulties at school
• Bullying in the playground
• Medical history
• Multiple visits to GP and A M
• Asthma, eczema, chest infections, skin
  infections, injuries, 10 hospital admissions
  bronchilitis (baby x2) asthma (x3), broken leg,
  head injury, cellulitis (x2), dental abscess

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• Jacks future
• Poor health lifelong
• Obesity
• Drug and alcohol abuse
• School failure, limited occupational options
• Criminality
• Broken relationships
• Shorter life expectancy

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• Obesity link to food insecurity
• (Drewnowski Specter, 2004 Townsend, Peerson,
  Love, Achterberg, Murphy, 2001).
• People on low incomes tend to purchase energy
  dense food when money is available, and, for
  those on limited incomes, proper nutrition is a
  secondary consideration to paying rent and
  utilities bills
• (Scheier, 2005)
• The highest rates of obesity in developed
  countries occur in where income differentials are
  the greatest.
• (Wilkinson, 2005).

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If you have five bucks left to feed the family
with at the end of the week, youll go and get 4
worth of chips and a loaf of Rivermill bread, not
fruit and vegetables. NZ Teacher 2005
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Foodbank use
Number of food parcels distributed by the
Auckland City Mission per quarter
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Rates of meningococcal disease by age group and
associated index of deprivation, 2003
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NZ Deprivation Index Decile Child Youth
Health 2001-2005 (Hospital Admissions) and
1989-2003 (Deaths) Ref NZCYES data 2007
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Children Young People in Crowded Households by
Ethnicity NZ Deprivation Index Decile, New
Zealand at the 2001 2006 Censuses Ref NZCYES
data 2007
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What happens when discrimination against
children is perpetrated by the Crown?

• CPAG initiated Human Rights legal proceedings 2002

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Background to family assistance neglect

• From Post war security
• 1986 Family Support/ Family benefit
• 1991 Family Support
• 1996 Family Support
• and the Child Tax Credit

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• 1996 Child Tax Credit introduced
• -instead of overdue Family support inflation
  catch-up
• CTC 15 per child per week, only for families not
  receiving any core benefit, to reward work effort
• 250,000 300,000 children missed out

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What Labour said then
It is no wonder that we do not value the work
that is done in our homes, because we dismiss it
and give it no economic value at all. That is
disgusting. To divide children into those whose
parents are good parents because they work and
children who are bad because their parents do not
is absolutely disgusting. Annette King 1996
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• 2006 CTC replaced by In-Work payment
• Minimum 60 per working family

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It is no wonder that we do not value the work
that is done in our homes, because we dismiss it
and give it no economic value at all. That is
disgusting. To divide children into those whose
parents are god parents because they work and
children who are bad because their parents do not
is absolutely disgusting.
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• 2002 CPAG laid a complaint with Humans Rights
  Commissioner
• Discrimination against children
• All children deserve support regardless of the
  source of their parents or caregivers income
• To date the first 3 legal decisions, on
  preliminary issues pursued by the Crown, have
  been in CPAGs favour
• The main issue of discrimination, has yet to be
  heard
• ..hearing pending mid-2008

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The Human Rights Case

• Oct 2002 CPAG lodged complaint
• 2003 Crown Law objected
• 2005 Case taken on our behalf by Office of Human
  Rights Proceedings
• June 2005 Crown disputes CPAGs right to take
  the case
• Sept 2005 Human Rights Tribunal
• rules in CPAGs favour
• Oct 2006 Crown Appeals
• May 2006 appeal dismissed
• August 2006 Crown to go to Judicial Review

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URGENCY to ACT

• "Many things we need can wait. The child cannot.
  Now is the time his bones are being formed his
  blood is being made his mind is being developed.
  To him we cannot say tomorrow. His name is
  today.
• 
  Gabriela Mistral

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In NZ the poor are our children
Ref Professor Innes Asher
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Who is poor in this country?
Summarising data from Fig 44,The Living Standards
Report, MSD 2004
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Knowledge Wave Conference 2003

• .If we want a prosperous knowledge economy,
  where is the human capital going to come from?
• The fate of the bottom 20 of our children
  should be at the top of our list of national
  priorities

Professor Dame Anne Salmond NZ Snapshot -
Community
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The ChallengeNarrowing the Gap The Fabian
Commission report on Life Chances and Child
Poverty, 2006

• Addressing child poverty must continue to be a
  high priority, and we should resist the
  temptation to play down the importance of family
  income just because other factors are also
  important for childrens life chances.,..
  Finally, we must grasp the challenge of building
  broader, deeper public support for these goals
  than exists at the moment. All this must be done
  in a way that is politically sustainable in the
  long term .

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Summary

• NZ has a mixture of the best in the world and the
  worst in the world
• Children are much more in poverty and hardship
  than any other NZ group
• WFF will take many children out of poverty, but
  leave the poorest of the poor behind. Growing
  inequities are creating a widely divergent
  society, with divergent outcomes
• Many new positive initiatives eg childcare
  subsidies, pirmary health care strategy,
• But - many health and education outcomes are
  still lagging eg access to free health care
• We are leaving the most vulnerable children
  behind the consequences of our actions live on
  for many generations

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Recommend

• Focus on the child first, reduce the inequities
• Do not leave out our most vulnerable children
• Dont target ! Dont discriminate !
• All government policy needs to be reviewed for
  their effect on children
• e.g extend IWP to all needy children
• Tax cuts for the poor
• Free health care for all children in all
  environments
• More resourcing for support for child needs in a
  range of areas health, education, early
  childhood intervention.
• Further service for schools serving low decile
  communities
• e.g. food provision, health and social workers,
  AIMHI model

www.cpag.org.nz