Inside Child Poverty

In 2011 I made this documentary about the plight of children living in our poorest home. TV3 decided to screen it on the week of the election and all hell let loose.

NZ On Air funded the documentary and Stephen McElrea, who was on the board at the time, tried to get it pulled before it went to air. Mr McElrea also happened to be Prime Minister John Key’s electorate chairman at the time and the National Party’s northern region deputy chairman.

There was an complaint to the Electoral Commission who promptly dismissed it and a complaint was also lodged at the Broadcast Standards Authority which you can read here:

https://www.bsa.govt.nz/decisions/all-decisions/rutland-and-tvworks-ltd-2012-009

That complaint was also dismissed because my essay was about the disastrous effect the introduction of neoliberal economics in 1984 by Labour (and put on steroids by subsequent National governments) had had on the lives of children living in our poorest homes.

You can read all the Authority’s decision if you wish but the sentence in the BSA wrote that gave me heart that we do have freedom of speech in a democracy we need to protect was the following:

“The documentary provided a prime example of democracy at work, disseminating the type of information, and prompting the types of discussions, that should be welcomed during election periods.”

The Right Wing shock jocks went on for weeks about what a terrible person I was - a left wing pinko journo (and some harsher things!) that NZ On Air should never have funded and on and on.

Paula Bennett National’s Minister for Social Welfare declared in parliament that there was “no such thing as Child Poverty in New Zealand and even if there was you couldn’t measure it.”

So former Children's Commissioner Dr Russell Wills arranged for a group of top social scientists to produce a study that demonstrated that Child Poverty was not only a very real thing, but that it could indeed be measured. They also came up with a list of solutions to the problem and the more this debate continued the more the issue of Child Poverty gained public momentum thanks particularly to the wonderful work of The Child Poverty Action Group.

Some things changed almost immediately - where there had been no free medical care for children at the time of my report , suddenly children under 6 were given free GP visits .National felt compelled to reintroduce free milk and a couple of Weetbix into our poorest schools and did a deal with Fonterra and Sanitarium to make that happen.

In 2018 the elected Labour/Greens government passed the Child Poverty Reduction Act which requires current and future Governments to set three year and ten-year targets for reducing child poverty. It also establishes a suite of measures that will track progress on reducing child poverty, and requires annual reporting on identified child poverty related indicators.

So 11 years on I made a follow up documentary called Inside Child Poverty Revisited which I have also posted on my site .

Yes, some things have improved for children living in our poorest homes, but there is an awful lot more we have to do in order to give every child the chance to live in a warm dry home, eat healthy food, get medical care whenever the need it, and an equal opportunity educational system that enables them to be the best that they can be.