Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Help poor kids, says Dr Wills

By Simon Collins and Sam Hurley
Hawkes Bay Today·
9 Dec, 2013 06:11 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Children's Commissioner Dr Russell Wills wants more assistance for the underprivileged.

Children's Commissioner Dr Russell Wills wants more assistance for the underprivileged.

Poverty, crowding and cold damp housing are the key contributors to illness in poverty stricken children, Children's Commissioner and Hawke's Bay pediatrician Dr Russell Wills says. The Hawke's Bay region is trending beside the rest of the country with a "year-on-year" rise in child poverty and related illness, he said.

Dr Wills is issuing the first of what he plans to be an annual update on trends in child poverty and poverty-related illnesses such as breathing difficulties and skin infections.

"What we see is large numbers of poor Maori, Pacific Island families coming in, mostly with pre-school age children. What we see in our in patients is skin and chest infections while our out patients have developmental problems.

"These are not people who do not try to care for their kids. They are good people who love their children very much but don't have the money to support them.

"Often a family can only heat one room, so the whole family bunk together in the living room."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

He said if one family member is sick the risk of spreading the illness is greatly increased, with the youngest the most vulnerable.

Dr Wills' update shows child poverty roughly doubled in the early 1990s and has fallen little since, and that child hospitalisations with poverty-related illnesses rose and fell in parallel with poverty and have risen again since the global recession hit in 2007 to a record high last year.

The biggest increases in the past 12 years have been in asthma and bronchiolitis, which mainly affects babies. Dr Wills said the poorest tenth of infants were 10 times more likely than the richest tenth to be hospitalised with bronchiolitis. "It's not just a matter of income poverty. What matters is children in very poor families in crowded, cold and damp houses. There is an income issue, there is a housing supply issue and there is a housing quality issue."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

An expert group appointed by Dr Wills last year made 78 recommendations, starting with targets to reduce child poverty, a plan for how to reduce it, and annual monitoring of five official poverty measures.

"The Government is doing a lot of good stuff, such as social housing and insulation but we don't have a plan for child poverty in this country. In the UK there is a plan and even a child poverty Act. What we need to do is take the money we are spending and put it towards the areas where it is most needed. The families and homes as the far end of poverty in New Zealand."

The Government has picked up some recommendations, such as a housing quality "warrant of fitness" initially for state houses.

But it refused to adopt official poverty measures or targets, so Dr Wills has used J R McKenzie Trust charitable funding and Otago University experts to monitor his own measures. He said the goal was to inform the public about the extent of child poverty and refocus public spending on those most in need.

"A lot of the expert group recommendations were cost-neutral - taking the existing spending and investing it where it makes the most difference," he said. "It means some people would lose entitlements and it would go particularly to children who are younger and poorer. Those are win-lose political choices and no matter who is in power they will occur only if there is a very strong public understanding and support."

The expert group recommended raising the maximum family tax credit for children under 15 from $92.73 a week to the same as the rate for children aged 16 and over, $101.98, and then gradually raising the tax credit further for children under 5.

Dr Wills' advocacy manager Donna Provoost said the money could be found by changing the income thresholds and abatement rates for the in-work tax credit, which currently gives tax credits to working families earning up to $89,500 a year with two children or $124,700 with four children.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said the Government measured child poverty based on Ministry of Social Development data.

APN

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Hawkes Bay Today

Family ties as Joe Helmore art features in HB auction

Premium
Opinion

Elastic is anything but trivial: Wyn Drabble

Hawkes Bay Today

Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Family ties as Joe Helmore art features in HB auction
Hawkes Bay Today

Family ties as Joe Helmore art features in HB auction

Artist follows in his grandmother's footsteps to craft a piece for Bay wine auction.

17 Jul 06:00 PM
Premium
Premium
Elastic is anything but trivial: Wyn Drabble
Opinion

Elastic is anything but trivial: Wyn Drabble

17 Jul 06:00 PM
Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay
Hawkes Bay Today

Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay

17 Jul 06:02 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP