$12 billion defence spend could halve child poverty by 2028 – Opinion

Defence funding swells as child poverty plan falters. Photo / 123rf

THREE KEY FACTS

• The Government announced a $12 billion plan over four years for defence spending.
• The amount matches the Treasury’s estimate needed to halve child poverty by 2028.
• The Auditor-General criticised the lack of a coherent plan to address rising child poverty levels.

In a week in which the Auditor-General called for the Government to strengthen planning to address child poverty, the Government announced a $12 billion plan over four years for defence spending.

It is ironic the proposed figure of $3b a year for defence is exactly what Treasury estimated it would cost to meet Aotearoa’s legislated goal of halving child poverty by 2028.

As executive officer of Child Poverty Action Group (Cpag), I am not in a position to assess whether the $12b of defence spending is needed or going to the right areas of defence. I’m just here to talk about the duplicity of it.

For the past 20 months, we have been hearing about the need for cuts and austerity. There is simply no money to address child poverty. Meanwhile, the number of children living in material hardship has crept back up to 2018 levels, reversing hard-won progress.

But now, our Government has committed not only $12b over the next four years to defence (of which $9b is new money) but also to reviewing the defence spending plan every two years, saying simply the spending outlined “is the floor, not the ceiling, for future investment”.

It would be a dream to hear Prime Minister Chrisopher Luxon say these words about a plan to address child poverty: “We can afford this, we know this is a big step up and a big commitment but in our current fiscal track we can afford this.” It is a “really important piece of strategic work for New Zealand”.

A couple of weeks ago, Cpag wrote a letter to Minister of Finance Nicola Willis and CCed in Government ministers, asking to at least give crumbs in the coming Budget to alleviate child poverty.

We called for the $107 million to 115m needed to reverse the cuts in school lunch funding and a return to the proven community-based model of school lunches. We have had no formal response, but responding to our letter on radio, Willis said the current school contracts are there till next year and all will remain as status quo.

The status quo, however, is that 27% of children (1 in 4) live in households where food runs out often or sometimes. The status quo is one in seven children – 156,600 tamariki – now live in homes where basics such as food, clothing or heating are out of reach.

If $12b can be found for defence, why not $120m for hungry children? For a child living in poverty, the fear of an outside aggressor is not top of mind – the next meal is. That needs to be top of mind for us all.

So, let’s stop for a minute and think about creating the Aotearoa we want to defend before we spend money on defending it. One where every child has a warm, dry home, good food and a family income that allows them to thrive.

So, what is the plan for ending child poverty? This past week, the Auditor-General released a review of child poverty reduction. It noted that although measuring and reporting on child poverty was done well, there was a lack of a coherent plan. Controller and Auditor-General John Ryan said: “In my view, without such a plan, neither Parliament nor the public can be confident the Government’s goal to reduce child material hardship will be achieved.”

The 2024 Budget Policy Statement makes no mention of how the Government will meet its legal obligations under the Child Poverty Reduction Act. It fails to explain how its policy direction will reduce child poverty – despite it being a statutory requirement.

Just as the defence contractors are celebrating this week, we hope next week will be our week. We wait with bated breath for a Government announcement that provides a plan and the budget to get us back on track to halving child poverty by 2028.’

Sarita Divis is the executive officer for the Child Poverty Action Group.