Commissioner criticises ‘land of inequality’
New Zealand is ‘‘a land of inequality, disadvantage and marginalisation’’, Children’s Commissioner says.
In a speech called ‘‘confessions of a childhood stutterer’’ Judge Andrew Becroft said New Zealand was not a country he wanted to be a part of due to the number of dis- advantaged children.
Becroft presented at the Talking Matters Summit in Auckland on Wednesday.
The summit is aimed at increasing the quality and quantity of interaction and talk with babies and toddlers.
The majority of children with low oral language live in lowsocio economic communities, Becroft said.
Some children in Auckland were starting school with the oral language normally expected of 3-year-olds, he said.
These children struggled to express themselves, form relationships, solve problems and read or write, Becroft said.
‘‘There are 1.2 million children under the age of 17 in New Zea- land - 20 per cent of these children do badly and 10 per cent do worse than the western countries that we compare ourselves to.’’
Becroft said New Zealand needed to establish a cross-party accord to deal with child poverty.
Becroft has been the Children’s Commissioner since 2016 and before that he was New Zealand’s Principal Youth Court Judge.