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Speaker 1: Child poverty stats out today basically flat for twenty three

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Speaker 1: twenty four. The figure show from stats n Z seventeen

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Speaker 1: point seven percent of all key we children were in poverty.

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Speaker 1: That's based on household income after housing costs have been paid.

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Speaker 1: Material hardship that was just over thirteen percent. Target for

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Speaker 1: the government was nine percent. Loise Ubstance, the Minister for

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Speaker 1: Child Poverty, who's with me.

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Speaker 2: Hime, Minister, Good afternoon, Ryan.

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Speaker 1: You're happy with that, of course not.

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Speaker 2: I mean, no New Zealander wants to see children in

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Speaker 2: poverty and unfortunately it reflects the very challenging economic conditions

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Speaker 2: we've had for the last few years.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting, isn't it, because Labour's come out today and

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Speaker 1: said you've got the minimum what you know, you guys

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Speaker 1: didn't increase the minimum wage enough. You didn't you did

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Speaker 1: the indexation with the benefits. But really, when it comes

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Speaker 1: down to it, this is about economic growth, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: And it's about inflation.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, so if you look at the cost of living,

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Speaker 2: we do know that those on the lowest incomes are

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Speaker 2: hit the artist with cost of living. So why we've

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Speaker 2: made really good progress in the last year. These statistics

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Speaker 2: are for the thirtieth of June twenty four and we

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Speaker 2: still know that there are some families the cost of

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Speaker 2: living is still affecting them. The ocr drop yesterday takes

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Speaker 2: a while for that to flow through and for families

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Speaker 2: to really feel it in their household budgets. So we're

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Speaker 2: a little way off yet. I know that's frustrating, and

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Speaker 2: it's just recognizing we've had very tough economic times, but

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Speaker 2: we as a government do not shy away from the challenge.

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Speaker 2: One of our three priorities for children and young people

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Speaker 2: is to reduce material hardship, and that's what we will

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Speaker 2: continue to work towards.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that will happen in the next round, Well,

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Speaker 1: what we do know is.

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Speaker 2: That a growing economy provides greater opportunities for people and

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Speaker 2: does have an impact material hardship. I can say that

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Speaker 2: confidently because when National was last in office in the

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Speaker 2: years from twenty thirteen to twenty seventeen, we reduced the

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Speaker 2: number of children in material hardship by fifty six thousand.

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Speaker 2: That is possible when the economy is growing and there

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Speaker 2: are opportunities for people to be in work and to

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Speaker 2: be earning higher wages.

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Speaker 1: How to argue with that minister. Thanks for your time,

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Speaker 1: Louise Upston, who's the Minister for child poverty. The result

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Speaker 1: not great, but the driving force is growth. So we

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Speaker 1: need a bit of growth and we need to get

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Speaker 1: rid of inflation, which hopefully, according to the Reserve Bank,

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Speaker 1: we've done.

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Speaker 2: For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, Listen live to

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Speaker 2: news Talks.

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Speaker 1: It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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