Mind the gap – the politics of rich and poor

All eyes go on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern next week as she potentially signs her own death warrant – but surely she’s too smart for that.

Ardern will set new child poverty targets as the Child Poverty Reduction Minister, targets she says she’ll be personally accountable for, whatever that means.

She says this is her reason for being in Parliament. We have to take her seriously and at her word. Ardern has upped the ante.

If she fails to meet the targets does that mean she resigns? No. If the answer is yes then she would have been held to account in an extraordinarily unprecedented fashion.

I can’t see it. Usually governments set targets they can reach. They become an optical illusion.

Still Ardern will want to be bold and brave with those targets too,

Twenty thousand fewer Kiwi kids are now living in material hardship – it feels good to say it.

although she’ll also want them to be realistic enough so she can achieve them.

And her job just got that much harder.

The latest stats show child poverty is falling for the first time in more than a decade.

That’ll be the work of National in raising benefit levels, and getting thousands of beneficiaries with children back into work.

This is a tough, in-your-face area of policy. But it’s OK to reward National with a bit of praise.

Twenty thousand fewer Kiwi kids are now living in material hardship – it feels good to say it.

That means they may finally take lunch to school, or wear shoes, or have a bed for the first time or even a toothbrush.

So finally some good news among a decade of what’s perceived as social deficits and community decay.

But a narrative had already taken hold: National is bad, Labour will fix it. There’s no proof that’s actually true.

Indeed, the credit for the small drop in poverty should go to Bill English. He’s taken a forensic approach, targeted the poor and he’s had a result.

It means Ardern must carry on the good work. And she will need some early wins. It’s crucial the economy stays growing. Any dip in growth and her job becomes so much harder.

Yet it’s also too simplistic to say National can claim credit for all this.

The soaring house prices were so out of control under National before this year that houses started earning more than people. And housing officials told us this week that sent people spiralling into poverty.

Our poverty is not what we see in Third World and developing countries but it’s still kids going without.

I’ve seen young kids begging in the tip in Abuja, Nigeria. I’ve seen kids holding newborns in Brazil, in an attempt to convince people to give cash. Surely we ain’t that bad?

Well, maybe not but we ain’t great either. We have pockets of utter despair. Dr Lance O’Sullivan wrote recently that some kids in Kaitaia are so hungry they’re eating from food scrap bins or pig trough bins behind cafes and shops.

Yes, our deprivation is largely caused by insane housing prices, but also poor planning and opening the floodgates to immigrants. Parenting must not be dismissed either.

It’s been dog eat dog.

Our stretched families have become too stretched and people have suffered when they didn’t have to.

If only more state houses and social houses had been built. It was National’s blind spot, the market ruled and people were left behind.

So Ardern must get the affordable homes and social housing sorted. And 44 days into her reality check as PM it’s dawned on her that none of this is easy and progress is slow.

And maybe National was starting to get its policies right. The latest stats show that. Ardern should remember that when she launches her campaign next week.

There’s nothing wrong with keeping some of the old and a bit of the new. If it helps kids exit the misery of poverty, we must all play our part.