Children's Policy - Every Child Matters

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Introduction

Children are reliant on others. Their lives and development are contingent on those closest to them. Many children are born into poverty. Many are alienated from their families. Many live with significant impairments.For children living in poverty, violence or loneliness, life can be grim. The first step in offering them a better life is to help their families cope materially and enable parents to spend time with their children. Money alone cannot guarantee a happy childhood, but without enough money, children can be ground down and left with little hope. As a country we have made positive commitments for children, but these commitments are largely yet to be realised. Children, by right, deserve access to their full entitlement of human rights. It is a matter of justice that we prioritise this, but it is also one of ensuring a sustainable society.Increasingly public discussion of children and young people seems focussed around a perception of them as flawed, troubled, and the rights of children are posed in opposition to the rights of adults/parents. There is a real danger that children and young people will be further marginalised out of fear if our treatment and perception of children and young people is not turned around.

Vision

We are the guardians of the earth for our children. They are our future, so we must give them the best possible start to life. Each child should have the opportunity to grow with joy, be fully supported by their family and be an integral part of our society. Each child deserves a secure base from which they can express their creativity and discover life as an adventure.

Key Principles

• A child's journey starts with good antenatal and early childhood care.
• Full emotional and material support from parents and family allows a child to grow in self confidence and self-esteem.
• Parents are the first teachers, and then early childhood education centres and kohanga reo play a crucial role in personal development.
• All children deserve to be treated with consideration and fairness, and thrive on respect.
• Education at primary and secondary schools should assist each child to make the most of their own natural abilities, as well as giving them skills to find work, follow their dreams and participate fully in society.

Specific Policy Points

To help children, the Green Party wants first to help parents. The following actions are starting point to make sure all New Zealand children receive the best possible start in life:

1. Giving every child the best possible start in life — regardless of the income of their parents.

The Green Party will:

1. Work towards eliminating child poverty in New Zealand within 6 years. As a first step to achieving this, the Green Party will urgently develop indicators to measure poverty and regularly monitor poverty levels, especially for children.
2. Introduce a Consumer Price Index-adjusted Universal Child Benefit. The base rate as of September 2007 would be$18.40 per week for the first child and $13.00 per week for every subsequent child. This non-income tested payment to the primary caregiver would be similar to the Family Benefit that was scrapped in 1991 and can be capitalised towards the child's first home.
3. Review and reform family assistance policies. International research has shown that family assistance policies play a crucial role in reducing child poverty rates. The real value of family assistance policies has decreased as successive governments have not increased income thresholds. The Greens will undertake a major review of family assistance policies, and in particular:
   1. Ensure family assistance payments keep pace with the cost of living.
   2. Review targeting provisions and adjust abatement rates to reduce poverty traps.
   3. Remove barriers to work for those on benefits who are moving into work or those in work seeking to increase their wages.
   4. Abolish income-tested stand-down periods for benefits, as these are acknowledged to adversely affect levels of child poverty. And allow Work and Income to make a provisional assessment of eligibility on the spot and award a non-recoverable temporary benefit while it does its checking. Waiting a couple of weeks while the department makes a decision can be very detrimental to families.
   5. Remove discriminatory policies to ensure families in and out of work are treated equitably (e.g. the In Work Tax Credit currently discriminates against beneficiaries and those not in the workforce) and incorporate such tax credits into the Universal Child Benefit regime proposed above.
   6. Increasing the minimum wage, to alleviate the unnecessary subsidising of the earnings of low-income families through targeted income support assistance such as Family Assistance and Accommodation Supplement.(see Industrial Relations Policy)
4. Extend paid parental leave in line with the Families Commission recommendations to ensure parents are provided with a total of 13 months paid leave.
5. Support the provision, without the imposition of a work test, of benefits to single parents and partners of beneficiaries whose primary responsibility is caring for dependent children.
6. Oppose the introduction of any provision that financially penalises single parents who give birth while in receipt of benefit.
7. Repeal section 70A of the Social Security Act, which penalises single parents who refuse, or fail, to identify in law the non-custodial parent of their child or who refuse, or fail, to make a child support formula assessment application. While we believe that that non-custodial parents should be required to take financial responsibility for their children, we believe this would be more effectively achieved through a review of the Child Support Act, together with more effective education of children and young people about the responsibilities of parenting, rather than by financially penalising some of the most vulnerable families in our society.
8. Provide accessible and affordable support and education programmes for parents. All parents should have access to programmes that will support and develop their parenting skills.
9. Provide additional support for parents in the first year of each child's life. Review and increase resourcing of programmes such as Plunket to ensure that every child is seen regularly in their first months of life.
10. Make the first $10,000 of everyone's income tax-free. This would have a direct impact on child poverty by giving low-income families more money in their pockets, and reducing the poverty trap.
11. Support a full and wide ranging public debate on Universal Basic Income. As a first step, more research is required on how a UBI would be applied in NZ. The UBI recognises the value of caring for children and the many women and men who stay at home full time to look after their children and other dependants.
12. Work towards setting benefit amounts at a level that is sufficient for all basic needs.
13. Work towards full employment that provides a decent income.

2. Making sure that parents have the opportunity to spend time with their children

The Green Party will:

1. Encourage a child friendly culture in workplaces, businesses and public places wherever possible. These initiatives could include: facilities to allow mothers to breastfeed; ensuring children are able to communicate with their parents, and where possible pre school care for employees' children should be available close to or within workplaces.
2. Investigate tax incentives for employers who provide facilities and equipment for the purpose of making their place child friendly.
3. Investigate moving to five weeks annual leave.
4. Work towards a shorter working week. Many parents struggle to find time to spend with their children due to the demands of employment. We would initiate a public debate and establish a Taskforce to conduct research into the future of work, including consideration of a 35-hour week, issues of over and under employment, and strategies for raising the incomes of those on low wages.
5. Support parents with young children's right to work flexible hours which meet family needs. The Greens' flexible working hours legislation ensures all parents have the right to negotiate with their employer for greater flexibility in their working hours and in their work location, especially during school holidays and when children are sick.

3. Creating a safe, supportive, nurturing, non-violent environment for children to grow up in.

The Green Party will:

1. Oppose the reversion of Section 59 of the Crimes Act to a purpose similar to that prior to the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007
2. Promote non-violent positive parenting, and education through the extension of programmes such as the Strategies with Kids, Information for Parents programme (SKIP) and funding organisations which support and teach parents and families alternatives to violence in bringing up children
3. Extend quality parenting programmes throughout schools.
4. Support early, pre-school intervention programmes working with children at risk.
5. Work with schools and communities to create a culture which encourages inclusiveness and supports the elimination of prejudice, racism, bullying, intimidation and violence. Ensure all school and early childhood centres have policies, practices and programmes which foster this.
6. Support and fund initiatives that create positive school and societal violence-free cultures. (See Education Policy for further details)
7. Work towards making it safe for children to explore the world outside the front gate. We have one of the highest rates of child pedestrian deaths in the western world. Reducing the speed and volume of motorized traffic is the single most important step we can take to creating child-friendly streets. As a first step to improving child health and safety on our roads we will:
   1. Introduce vehicle emission standards to reduce children's exposure to airborne toxics.
   2. Reduce exposure to traffic noise in areas of significant pedestrian activity.
   3. Work with local authorities, schools and communities to make walking and cycling to school more attractive for children and parents, e.g. through "safe routes to school" projects, and cycle lanes.
   4. Support the lowering of maximum speed limits in areas of significant pedestrian traffic such as routes to schools, hospitals and shopping areas.
   5. Help more schools to set up innovative alternatives such as "walking buses" where adults walk groups of children to school.
   6. Work with appropriate agencies to improve the safety, quality and availability of school buses.
8. Reduce levels of violence that children are exposed to on TV. To achieve this we will:
   1. Ensure violent programmes are scheduled for after 10 p.m. at night (and strictly enforce this through the Broadcasting Standards Authority).
   2. Require the Broadcasting Standards Authority to monitor the amount of violence on all television channels through annual surveys and report the findings to Parliament each year.
   3. Require the Broadcasting Standards Authority to monitor and enforce the TV codes of broadcasting practice on the portrayal of violence, in particular the requirement that channels avoid screening programmes containing gratuitous violence (that which is not justified by the context).
   4. Implement the recommendations of the Working Group on Television Violence (for which the Greens secured funding).
   5. Require TVNZ, as a publicly funded channel, to take a lead in reducing the amount of violence on television by:
      1. Developing guidelines on violence for producers and programmers.
      2. Committing itself to not screening programmes that contain gratuitous violence
      3. Not screening violent programmes before 10 pm. at night.

4. Supporting quality television programming for children.

Children on average watch about 2 hours of television a day. Television is a major influence on children's lives and their sense of identity. It is important that they can see a variety of quality television programmes that are made specifically for New Zealand children that reflects our cultural diversity and acknowledges the special place of Maori as tangata whenua. The Green Party will:

1. Introduce a minimum number of hours of children's television that free to air television channels are required to screen. A children's programme is one which is made specifically for children or groups of children within the pre-school or primary age range, which is appropriate for New Zealand children, enhances their understanding and experience, and is well produced and entertaining.
2. Substantially increase funding through New Zealand On Air for children's programming. (Only 2% of programmes on free to air television are New Zealand made children's programmes).
3. Prohibit commercial advertisements during pre-school and school age children's television.
4. Require TVNZ, as the publicly owned broadcaster, to take a lead in screening locally produced children's television programmes.

5. Improving childhood health by ensuring our children have a safe and healthy environment in which to grow

Children currently face ill health as a result of poverty, poor diet, poor housing, lack of exercise, poor or late diagnosis and treatment and exposure to pesticides and toxins.The Green Party will:

1. Work towards free healthcare for all children. The Green Party is committed to increasing access and improving services for all no matter where they live. This care should include primary health care and dental and essential orthodontic care.
2. Promote child centred health-treatment models; to ensure children are involved in and have a say in their treatment. This will encourage active participation in developing good health, and in cases where experts may differ this will enable the child to articulate their needs.
3. Encourage breastfeeding as the ideal nutrition for babies by educational programmes, offering legal protection to breastfeeding mothers and ensuring workplaces make provision for breastfeeding mothers. Give regulatory force to the World Health Organisation's Code of marketing for breast milk substitutes.
4. Ensure all parents have access to an adequately funded and staffed health information helpline (such as Plunketline).
5. Make child and adolescent mental health services a priority. These services must be improved and extended in line with the recommendations of the Mental Health Blueprint.
6. Work with iwi and Maori to ensure that all Maori children are able to access culturally appropriate care and treatment in both primary and mental healthcare services.
7. Work with Pacific Island peoples to ensure that all Pacific Island children are able to access culturally appropriate care and treatment in both primary and mental health services.
8. Research the needs of other ethnic and cultural groups to assess their needs for culturally appropriate health services.
9. Work towards healthy affordable housing for all children. See Housing Policy for further details.
10. Improve energy efficiency in homes and create drier, warmer, well-insulated homes through an expansion of our "Warm Up New Zealand" household energy efficiency program. (see Energy Policy for full details)
11. Reduce respiratory diseases in children by reducing car pollution through mandatory vehicle emission testing and cleaner diesel and petrol.
12. Reduce the harmful effects of alcohol and drugs on children by:
    1. Banning broadcast alcohol advertising.
    2. Compulsory health warnings on all alcohol products.
    3. Taking an integrated harm reduction approach to drug and alcohol education for parents and treating parental substance abuse as first and foremost a health issue.
13. Improve children's diets by:
    1. Encouraging better eating by ensuring nutrition, cooking and gardening are taught in all schools and better eating programmes in all schools and early childhood education centres (see Education Policy for full details).
    2. Promoting healthy foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables, and positive nutritional messages on television, and providing free fruit in all primary schools.
    3. Ensuring all New Zealand produced food is GE free and any imported GE food is comprehensively labelled.
    4. Undertaking high profile, multi-media nutrition education campaigns aimed at parents and children.
    5. Amending National Educational Goals to ensure that all schools have a policy ensuring that only healthy food and drink is sold in schools. Researching the increase in and impact of sponsorship, advertising and promotion in schools by companies promoting food that does not meet nutritional guidelines on children's eating habits.
    6. Extending nutrition and ingredient information labelling to fast food, take-away and delicatessen food.
    7. Reviewing all maximum residue limits for pesticides and additives and setting them on the basis of children's tolerances, not adult ones.

6. Providing quality education from early childhood to tertiary

The Green Party will:

1. Work to ensure all children have access to quality, affordable early childhood and school education. We support improved resourcing for community based not for profit centres, including kohanga reo, Pacific Island language nests and other culturally appropriate options, and increased support for other centres where community based centres can not adequately provide the services needed.
2. Strengthen, publicise, monitor and enforce existing legislation and policies on free primary and secondary education.
3. Increase as a proportion of GDP, Government's investment in education at all levels including early childhood, primary and secondary. We support the teaching profession and would lower teacher: pupil ratios.
4. Amend the National Education Guidelines to make human rights obligations explicit, including the right to education.
5. Assist children who have special needs to have all the assistance and support they need to get the best possible education.
6. Fund special needs children's education according to need rather than based on the school roll.
7. Review the legal power of schools to suspend, exclude, expel and refuse to enrol students.
8. Establish an independent mechanism to review all suspensions, exclusions, expulsions and refusals to enrol students.
9. Expand quality counselling and health services in schools.
10. Work towards Te Reo being taught in all schools and increase the number of teachers fluent in Te Reo Maori and Pacific languages.
11. Increase the number of Maori advisers and resource teachers and invest more in the development of Maori resource material.
12. Support diversity and choices in education (e.g. Steiner schooling, homeschooling, correspondence school, kura) provided high standards are maintained and the core curriculum is delivered.
13. Incorporate environmental education into the core curriculum at all levels from pre-school to secondary school. Children more than adults are aware of the natural environment around them. We want to assist them to further develop their knowledge and understanding of the environment and our interdependence with the environment, and how they can work to protect our environment.
14. Pilot the concept of early childhood centres and schools as human rights communities, places where children and young people know their rights, acknowledge their responsibilities and respect the rights of others. This requires making explicit in legislation, policy and implementation, the human rights values, principles and statements set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

(For full details please see our Education: Children and Young People policy)

7. Civil Rights : Adoption

The Green Party will:

1. Protect the right of every young person to their name, nationality, and preservation of identity.
2. Create a comprehensive statute covering all child placement options on the spectrum from temporary care to permanent placement. Ensure every option is able to be canvassed as an option for a particular child with an emphasis on the best interests of the child
3. Ensure that legislation relating to adoption meets the Human Rights Act 1993, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) obligations and the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption. Specifically:
   1. Require that children of an appropriate age are given information about their prospective adopters and setting and consent to their adoption
   2. Ensure the right of adopted children to access, as far as possible, information about their biological parents; and
   3. Ensure the right of children, as far as possible, to maintain one of their original first names.

8. Ensuring children have the opportunity to actively participate in sport and leisure activities.

The Green Party will:

1. Work towards increasing access for all children, including children in rural areas, to art, music and drama.
2. Support and expand programmes that focus on cultural activities, such as kapa haka. It is important that our children are encouraged and supported to fully participate in their cultural activities.
3. Promote greater participation of all children in a wide range of sporting and outdoor activities.
4. Ensure children and young people have access to a greater range of sporting, music, artistic and cultural activities.
5. Work together with local government and children and young people to ensure more safe public places in both urban and rural environments.

9. Creating a safe, natural environment for children to learn and play in

The Green Party will:

1. Make sure children have clean air and clean water. These basics are not always available in our cities. Children's good health and well-being is dependent on the health of our environment.
2. Ensure beaches, rivers and streams are clean and safe for children to swim and play.
3. Create marine reserves near towns and cities so that children can enjoy the sea in its natural state.
4. Make sure children have access to parks, playgrounds, skateboard parks and other challenging activities.

10. Supporting quality and appropriate services to children and families in need or at risk

The Green Party will:

1. Adequately resource the provision of respite care as a key means of supporting parents caring for children with special needs, including those with severe disabilities.
2. Support the full implementation of the recommendations of the Brown Report on CYFS, with a view to improving the quality and accountability of the service throughout the country.
3. Support CYF to develop a culture that respects the children, families and communities it serves, and at the same time carrying out its core function of protection and nurturing children in particular need. Staff should be well trained and properly supervised and supported.
4. Establish an effective review and appeal process for people who have complaints regarding CYFS.
5. Seek better infrastructure resourcing for community based organisations working with and for CYF. It is also important to recognise and resource work that is done with families before their children end up in statutory care, or the parents in refuge or prison.
6. Ensure that families entitled to a WINZ support payment for counselling are able to easily access this.
7. Create an integrated framework for children and families to monitor the development of every child and young person through co-ordinated planned assessments at key life stages.

11. Ensuring the interests of children are protected and promoted.

The Green Party will:

1. Support the Children's Commissioners' independence and advocacy role.
2. Adequately resource Office of the Children's Commissioner (OCC) to enable proper consultation with children and young people and increase resourcing for the OCC overall.
3. Work towards the implementation in New Zealand legislation and government policy of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
4. Require the interests of children to be considered as part of all policy initiatives.
5. Ensure that programmes for children are strength based - promoting skills that will enable children to develop rather than problem focussed.
6. Amend the Education Act to require consultation with primary and intermediate age children and adult advocate on school boards, and a requirement that two or more student's representatives on secondary school boards.
7. Review all legislation, government policy and practice to promote the best interest of the child.
8. Ensure the collection of disaggregated data in relation to under -18s. Coordinate child and family policy developments.
9. Set targets and objectives to improve outcomes for children.
10. Budget for and monitor the full implementation of the Agenda for Children and the Youth development Strategy.

12.Special protection areas: Rangatahi, Pacific peoples and Child Refugees

The Green party will:

1. Honour the commitment to rangatahi under Te Tiriti o Waitangi as well as UNCROC.
2. Establish effective systems for the development and co-ordination of services for tamariki and rangatahi Maori. This should be done in partnership with tamariki and rangatahi, whanau, hapu, and iwi.
3. Amend the Ministry of Maori Development Act 1991 to include specific responsibilities to promote the rights of tamariki and rangatahi, and provide an annual report to Parliament on the state of Maori rangatahi.
4. Expand the responsibilities of the Commissioner for Children to include promoting understanding of the rights of rangatahi under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
5. Work with Pacific peoples to develop robust policies that secure the rights of Pacific children in the context of family, church and culture and work in implementation of UNCROC.
6. Recognise that in the context of Pacific families, definitions of children and youth are made by parents and families as opposed to an age specific status.
7. Take a strength based approach when reporting on and responding to needs for Pacific children.
8. Involve children of different ethnic groups and communities in the development of plans and strategies.
9. Oppose the incarceration of child immigrants.
10. Ensure refugee and asylum seeker children enjoy equal rights with New Zealand children
11. Appoint guardians for refugee and asylum seeker young people separated from their families, to ensure that their rights and well-being are protected.
12. Ensure children of refugees and asylum seekers have access to a well-resourced appropriate mental health and well-being system.