Leaders consult on

The prime minister and leader of the opposition have privately met to try to reach a cross-party consensus on the Government’s child poverty legislation.

But no outcome to the meeting has yet been decided, as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern considers three proposed National Party amendments to her legislation.

The Child Poverty Reduction Bill is currently before select committee, and is due to report back to Parliament in August. But the attempt to cast politics aside on the issue could see some concessions made to create a law that gains near parliamentarywide support.

National’s support of the legislation is not guaranteed, with leader Simon Bridges calling it ‘‘fine’’ in its current form, but said it did not go far enough.

His party released three proposed ‘‘supplementary order papers’’ or amendments to the Government legislation earlier in the year.

The first called for the law to ensure regular reporting of outcomes on a selected number of child poverty-related indicators such as household material conditions, educational development, health and safety.

National was proposing to have all child poverty-related budget announcements run through a social investment lens and have a hard target of lifting 100,000 children out of poverty in three years.

Both leaders were positive following the meeting and stressed the need for agreement.

‘‘We really wanted to make the case to the prime minister for the [amendments] that we have. We think that the bill that she has, that’s in Parliament, is OK,’’ said Bridges. ‘‘It doesn’t really further things particularly; it’s measuring the problem, it’s looking at some targets but all of that was already there albeit not in legislation.’’

He said National was willing to collaborate but wanted the legislation to go further.

‘‘You’ve got to get under the hood, you’ve got to look deeper into this issue than just some economic measuring and look at real indicators of what’s happening on the ground in homes.’’

Ardern said she was genuinely interested in hearing about National’s proposals and expected more discussions to be had.

‘‘You would have heard we talked in the public domain about the fact we wanted to meet. He has several [supplementary order papers] that he wished to discuss and I was keen to look at as well.

‘‘Again, I want cross-party support for this bill. So I welcome the opportunity to discuss it with him and it was a good meeting,’’ said Arden.

During last year’s election campaign, former National leader Bill English used a leaders’ debate to commit to a clear target of lifting 100,000 children out of material hardship.