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Speaker 1: We've got the Child and Youth Strategy for the next

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Speaker 1: three years being launched this morning. Now we've got three

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Speaker 1: priorities here is supporting families in the first two thousand days,

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Speaker 1: reducing hardship and preventing harm. So what's all that means

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Speaker 1: our child poverty reduction? Minister Louise Upstoon with us, good morning,

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Speaker 1: Good morning might So the three priorities you talk of,

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Speaker 1: aren't we already doing this?

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Speaker 2: Well, what this does is actually allows us to combine

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Speaker 2: our efforts across government and focus on the things that matter.

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Speaker 2: If I want to ensure that we're improving the lives

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Speaker 2: of young New Zealanders and this is a government that's

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Speaker 2: committed to delivering, so we'll focus on supporting children and

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Speaker 2: their families in the first two thousand days. Reducing child

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Speaker 2: material hardship will be our focus, and also preventing harm

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Speaker 2: against children.

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Speaker 1: How much of it's about money and what you literally

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Speaker 1: tangibly can do versus about skills, versus about willingness, and

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Speaker 1: no matter what you do, some people can't be helped.

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Speaker 2: Well, there's a couple of things in that. The first

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Speaker 2: is the government needs to focus its efforts. If we

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Speaker 2: try to attempt too many things, we won't achieve anything.

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Speaker 2: So what this is doing is bringing a number of

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Speaker 2: ministers together and government departments and having a plan to

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Speaker 2: work across departments to get things done and to actually

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Speaker 2: focus our efforts where it matters the most. We do

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Speaker 2: know that we have to focus our investment where it

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Speaker 2: will make the biggest difference, and that's why we've prioritized

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Speaker 2: these three areas.

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Speaker 1: How much of it's your specific area because one of

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Speaker 1: the things you sprew because tax cuts now, tax cuts

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Speaker 1: are for most people, it's got nothing to do with

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Speaker 1: whether a kid does well in the first two thousand days.

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Speaker 1: How much of what you're doing is specific versus just

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Speaker 1: generalized government.

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Speaker 2: Well, there's what we've selected in the strategy is five

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Speaker 2: child poverty related indicators. So they're on school achievement, school attendance,

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Speaker 2: housing affordability, material hardship, and the number of children and

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Speaker 2: benefit dependent households. So they're pretty clear areas of focus

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Speaker 2: that the government knows we can and will make a difference.

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Speaker 2: And that's how we improve the lives of the young.

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Speaker 1: New Zealanders without making it too political. Labor of course,

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Speaker 1: had a good crack at the old child poverty thing,

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Speaker 1: and we had a special minister for that and they,

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Speaker 1: as far as I can work out, they made next

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Speaker 1: to no progress at all. Now you could argue that's

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Speaker 1: because they were useless. Have you tangibly and can you

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Speaker 1: point to material progress?

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Speaker 2: Yes? Well, if I look at what we managed to

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Speaker 2: achieve in the last National government, we lifted fifty six

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Speaker 2: thousand children out of material hardship. The years of the

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Speaker 2: Labor government increased it by four than one hundred. That's

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Speaker 2: why we have set a target for reducing material hardship.

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Speaker 2: We know what we need to do to do that.

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Speaker 2: It's around family boost it's around tax relief, helping families

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Speaker 2: out of emergency housing, all practical, tangible things that we

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Speaker 2: know will make a difference in the lives of children.

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Speaker 1: Will you be able to go to the next election

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Speaker 1: in twenty six with the campaign that, at least in

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Speaker 1: parts says here's what we did, here's how it's improved.

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Speaker 1: You want more of.

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Speaker 2: This absolutely, and that's why we have simplified it. The

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Speaker 2: Child and Youth Strategy launched today is much simpler. We've

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Speaker 2: got a clear focus and we've got a simpler method

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Speaker 2: of measuring whether or not we have achieved what we

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Speaker 2: set out to achieve. I think that's what New Zealand

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Speaker 2: is good to see.

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Speaker 1: All right, go well with it. Louise Upston, child poverty

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Speaker 1: Reduction Minister. For more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen

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Speaker 1: live to news talks that'd be from six am weekdays,

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