Budget 2025 doesn’t address the urgent needs of many of our country’s children and young people facing the greatest disadvantage, says Chief Children’s Commissioner Dr Claire Achmad.

“Budget decisions have a direct and significant impact on our country’s 1.2 million mokopuna – nearly quarter of our population – and on their families and whānau. The decisions made in the Budget are an opportunity to ensure children and young people facing disadvantage are invested in, so they can flourish.

“Looking at Budget 2025, I don’t see the investment that’s needed to significantly reduce, and ultimately pave the way to ending child poverty. For example, how will this Budget significantly help the 156,000 children in our communities who are living in material hardship?

“Today, I repeat my call that is becoming increasingly urgent: the Government must make ending child poverty a project of national significance, working across the Parliament, so real, meaningful change in children’s lives is supported and sustained, now and into the future. Today’s Budget is a missed opportunity for the Government to show that bold leadership, so that children today don’t grow up in poverty, meaning better lives both today and tomorrow.

“The reality is that right now, we are continuing to let children down on the most basic things: having enough healthy food, safe and healthy housing, and their physical and mental health. For mokopuna Māori, as well as mokopuna whaikaha and Pacific mokopuna, the impacts of things like food insecurity are even more extreme. From a children’s rights perspective, Budget 2025 does not play the part it needed to, so that all children in our country are growing up thriving with an adequate standard of living. This is basic stuff that we can’t afford to keep letting children and families down on.”

The Chief Children’s Commissioner notes that the Government’s social investment fund does provide opportunities to invest in children, young people and families especially those in the most complex circumstances.

“I welcome the focus on mokopuna and families in the social investment three pilots that have been announced. I’m keen to understand how these pilots will be evaluated, so their impact will be well understood. Alongside this, I emphasise the urgency of the need for real, practical action and investment now across the three priority areas outlined in the Government’s own Child and Youth Strategy: support for children and families in the first 2000 days of children’s lives, reducing material hardship affecting children, and preventing harm.

“I acknowledge the crucial role that education plays in children and young people’s lives, so I am pleased to see that the Budget places a significant focus on education. My team and I will be taking some time to dig into the detail of the Budget’s education initiatives, especially relating to learning support. I also want to understand more detail about the changes to the Jobseeker Benefit, in particular about how this might impact on children and young people who have been in or who are in State care and/or custody.

“As their independent advocate, I hear directly from children and young people about what matters most in their world,” says Dr Achmad.

“They want to have their basic needs met – to have a warm, safe, dry home to grow up in, and enough food for their family. Young people want to be involved in decision-making about their own future.

As one mokopuna told me recently: “We, too, are concerned about what goes on in our world, especially our country. What happens now WILL affect our future.”

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