Little in the Budget to benefit our kids

By EMMA DAVIES*

What was in the Budget for children? The speakers at a post-Budget forum concluded not a lot.

When we won the America's Cup, many of us seemed proud of our national identity as a great sporting nation. We have seen an additional $30 million budgeted towards another sailing campaign. Where is our equivalent commitment to New Zealand as a great place to bring up children?

The Budget offered little certainty and stability to our most vulnerable children. It put the least funding into the stage of the life cycle when we have the greatest opportunity to influence development - the first few years of life.

Funding for children is the best investment to create a country of physically and emotionally healthy, financially secure people. From the perspective of using investment to create the best opportunities, failing to recognise this does not make sense. From the perspective of today's children, it is simply unjust.

Even Treasury has concluded that what happens early in life matters to long-term outcomes. Britain's Treasury and the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for economics Pedro Carneiro and James Heckman have come to even stronger conclusions about the value of investing in the early years to promote positive adult outcomes. Young children are the engines of long-term social and economic development.

To be fair, the Government has invested more than $11 million in social science research that could help us to learn how to reach our social goals. But research alone cannot create action. It can be used as an excuse to delay action.

The Government is investing $27.6 million to set up seven family commissioners to advocate for "the interests of families generally", according to Steve Maharey. The definition of "family" has come out reassuringly broad.

Some of their work could prove useful but it is unclear which members of which families are to benefit most and how they will benefit. The commissioners' activities may end up meaning very little to children.

The 5 per cent increase in health spending, particularly the $195 million investment over three years targeted to primary health, is a positive move. This should lead to reduced costs for children's prescriptions and visits to GPs.

But this money is a drop in the ocean in a system in which child health has been systematically underfunded in a climate of increasingly expensive health technology and health needs directed mainly towards an increasingly ageing population.

The more than $500 million allocated in 2005-06 towards phasing out asset testing in long-stay geriatric care is a clear example of how ageing population needs are soaking up the health dollar. Can we afford to be doing this while we fail to focus on the needs of children growing up in poverty? The consequences of our neglect will remain for generations.

A child's health is shaped by much more than just access to services. Some of our children's biggest health problems arise from substandard and overcrowded housing. The housing package that identifies a mere extra 318 new state houses planned over four years does not appear to be sufficient to change this.

The 5 per cent increase in education spending is welcome. While there is increased funding over four years for additional teachers, information technology and early childhood centres, this funding is unlikely to affect those who need it most.

The increased subsidised childcare hours for low-income parents will help some to gain full-time employment. This must be quality childcare.

Unlike Britain, there is no major investment in comprehensive evidence-based programmes for babies, toddlers and their families that will improve their social and emotional development, their health and ability to learn.

Family income matters. Child poverty is a key to poor health throughout life. The Government has committed $15 million a year in increased investment in family support, half the amount given to support a boat.

The poorest 300,000 children will not benefit at all from this inconsequential increase in family support. In fact, as family support is not inflation-linked, these children have become poorer. The next poorest 300,000 children will benefit by their families receiving an average of less than $1 extra a week.

There is little long-term funding to enable community agencies and Government departments to plan and to better implement social services collaboratively. Abused and neglected children see minimal benefit from the Budget. There is potential in the $16 million for community-based family violence prevention programmes and the $10.6 million over two years for a positive parenting campaign, if these initiatives are well-constructed.

But this funding is not adequate to meet the goals of the Government's own strategy, the Agenda for Children, which include ending child poverty and reducing violence in children's lives.

Fourteen non-Government organisations responded to the Agenda for Children with Making It Happen. The recommendations have largely been ignored.

Every interest group can complain it needs more money. There is not enough money for everything. Maybe we cannot afford to spend more on children. But maybe we cannot afford not to. It's trite but true. We will pay for years for lack of investment in children through our social welfare, health and justice system costs.

Investing in children now makes sense, rather than having, in the future, large numbers of working-age people dependent on the state at the same time as a large proportion of our population will be retired.

We have an ethical obligation to take care of our elderly population. But this should not be at the expense of our most vulnerable children, and the consequences for our society that brings.

According to research comparing 22 developed countries, it does not seem to be the overall wealth of a nation that is the key to determining how much is spent on children. It is the overall proportion of social expenditure and the priority a nation places on children.

New Zealand's performance in this study was near the bottom of the list; we were described as a laggard.

Whether you look at the Budget through the lens of sustainable development, children's rights, evidence-based policy or wise investment in human capability, it fails to deliver. How many more times will we be told maybe next time?

* Emma Davies lectures in the Auckland University of Technology's institute of public policy.

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