PM selective on the world stage

According to Scoop:

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner received global recognition when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke about the Office’s work in her speech to the 9th Annual Social Good Summit in New York earlier this week.
As keynote speaker for the summit, hosted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Prime Minister highlighted the importance of viewing the government’s work “through the lens of children”.
“I was struck by the work of our Children’s Commissioner recently,” Prime Minister Ardern said in her speech....
“It was heart breaking for me to read the comments from children, who even at a young age were choosing not to ask their parents whether they could learn a musical instrument or join a sports team because they knew the cost would be too much."

Children's Commissioner research also found that,

"...many young people explained that because they had grown up in gangs with their natural family or whanau, if they wanted to leave this lifestyle behind this would mean leaving behind their families...Many young people saw gangs as a way of being accepted, a possibility of good times and of not having to live in poverty." [my emphasis]

How does that stack up? Gangs are the best way out of poverty? Join a gang if you want to play the cello? NZ doesn't support the war on drugs because the status quo is putting money into families that need it?

Most recently Jacinda's best shot at 'making NZ the best place in the world for children to grow up in'   - her globally expressed goal - is greater redistribution of tax into beneficiary families, who just happen to include gang families augmenting their illicit income with welfare.

Lack of money is not the problem. That's a misdiagnosis. It is not the cause of New Zealand's internationally high levels of child abuse, neglect, youth suicide and imprisonment.

The poorest families will scrimp and save to give their children opportunities. Immigrants from third world countries come here specifically to ensure their children will have educational opportunities and brighter futures despite their own inability to earn more than very modest incomes. And they succeed.

They don't fail their children because they are constantly told they have an excuse: that they are poor because someone else is rich.

Ardern does the country no favours internationally or domestically constantly talking up child poverty. Again, it's a misdiagnosis of what it actually severely hampering the outcomes of around 5 percent of NZ children.