Parliament this week dissolved marking the end of this parliamentary period. Electioneering has now begun in earnest. The billboards have gone up; the media is almost saturated with political noise. The parties are beginning to make their pitches to the New Zealand public for both their electoral vote and their party vote, as well as trying to discredit their political opponents. We are officially in election season. I have been listening to and reading about the policies and sweeteners the parties are offering.
I have noted that whilst there is much reference to New Zealand families there is little explicit conversation about what policies parties are offering that will have a material impact on children, much of the discussion is implicit rather than explicit.
The polls are unsurprisingly reporting the biggest concern for New Zealanders and New Zealand families regardless of location, ethnicity or demographic make up is the cost of living.
All political parties may well agree that addressing the cost-of-living difficulties for New Zealanders is their number one issue and task once voted in to government. How they propose to address the issue varies wildly depending on the party and their ideology.
We all in theory understand that if the living standards of communities and families improve this has a positive impact on those children who live in those communities and families, conversely if those same communities and families experience worsening living standards then there is a negative impact on the children.
The Child Poverty Act 2018 requires governments to measure and report on child poverty throughout New Zealand Child Poverty Reduction Act 2018 | New Zealand Legislation. The government uses several measures to determine poverty, material hardship being one of them. Incidentally this Act also sets the target levels for child poverty in Aotearoa NZ. The number of children living in material hardship as a proportion of all the children in New Zealand is supposed to reduce however it is increasing from 10.5% in 2021-2022 to 14.3% in 2023-2024. This aligns with the rising cost of living for everyone.
The Child Poverty Action Group have released their manifesto which draws attention to those factors in the increased cost of living that negatively impact children such as housing security, food security and access to health service and education A Manifesto to Reduce Child Poverty (2026) — Child Poverty Action Group.
What I would like to draw your attention to is the link between child poverty/material hardship and child abuse and child neglect. It may seem a “no brainer” that these things are linked. However, take a moment to think when you last heard or saw this link discussed explicitly, within your networks or in the public space.
There is a link, in 2016 and again in 2022 Peter Bywaters professor of Social Work at the University of Huddersfield England and others published their research into the relationship between poverty and child abuse and neglect. In March 2022 they published their findings in a report entitled The Relationship Between Poverty and Child Abuse and Neglect: New Evidence March 2022 Full-report-relationship-between-poverty-child-abuse-and-neglect.pdf . This updated their previous report published in 2016.
They reviewed 90 different international papers including 17 quasi – experimental studies. The found “that changes in the economic conditions of family life alone – without any other factors – impact on rates of abuse and neglect. Increases in income reduced rates significantly. Economic shocks increased abuse and neglect except where families were protected by welfare benefits”
At the conclusion of the study Bywaters et al argue that there is a contributory causal relationship between the economic circumstances of families and child abuse and neglect. Put simply if communities and families are increasingly economically impoverished then the rates of child abuse and child neglect rise in those communities. They have estimated the rate of increase to be by a factor of 10. This research group are continuing their work in this area
In the later half of 2024 Ministry of Children Oranga Tamariki observed a significant increase in the number of reports of concern they were receiving through their National Contact Centre. In June 2025 they published a report Understanding Reports of Concern: Insights into the increase in reports of concern in 2024 and exploring future demand Reports-of-concern-2024-increase-and-future-demand.pdf . In the report they noted that the increase in reports of concern from 2023 was significantly increased by 34.5%. This increase was observed throughout the country, across all age groups, genders and ethnicities. They identified three predominant reasons for the increase, most of the change was identified as external factors 71%. Within the 71% of the external factors included social and economic factors as drivers of harm. In this report Oranga Tamariki identify that negative social and economic factors may well have contributed to the rise in reports of concern in 2024, they also identify that given the current social and economic climate in 2025 that reports of concern are not likely to decrease but are most likely to increase. Reports of concern do not automatically mean a child or children have been harmed however it does speak to the rising levels of concern for children. As Bywaters et al concluded from their work, Oranga Tamariki has also seen in hard data, how economic factors can contribute to increased concern for the wellbeing of children.
So back to politics and the election, the next coalition government whether it be left leaning or right leaning will need to address the rising cost of living for New Zealanders including our children. I would encourage you to look carefully at the promised policies and initiatives through the lens of will they lift children, families and communities out of poverty. Will these policies preferentially support the 169,300 New Zealand children who live in material hardship, or will they drive more children into material hardship, knowing that if that is the case undoubtedly more children will be abused and neglected.
Finally, I challenge you and your colleagues to have explicit conversations with those who do not work in social services and who do not know this stuff like you do about how the broad economic conditions impact the level of child abuse and neglect in our communities.
-Fiona Bell