[B]lock Offers and their popularity have diminished over time. It’s become less economic, particularly for offshore. We’ve been clear that we need to… - Jacinda Ardern

Well, of course it all depends on proactive a government is. When you have a , it all comes down to whether or not you acknowledge where the market has failed and where intervention is required. Has it failed our people in recent times? Yes. How can you claim that you’ve been successful when you have growth roughly 3% but you’ve got the worst homelessness in the developed world? How can you claim that growth is making people feel prosperous when most people’s incomes aren’t keeping up with inflation? So the measures for us have to change. We need to make sure that we’re looking at people’s ability to actually have a meaningful life and an enjoyable life where their work is actually enough to survive and to support their families. [...] We campaigned on the tweaks that we believe are required, but on my measure, if you have hundreds of thousands of children living in homes without enough to survive, that’s a blatant failure. What else could you describe it as?'''

My expectation is that our families package, which we will be introducing as a matter of priority will have the effect of lifting tens of thousands of children out of poverty. From there, though, I want to establish clear targets. We’ve always said that we want them put in legislation, and every year we will then report, as part of the Public Finance Act, on how much progress we’ve made. So, I can say now that, yes, I wanted to match their 100,000, but I want incremental goals to hold us to account. In my mind, some of the targets that we’ve set ourselves, some of the goals that we measure ourselves on as a society, don’t take into account the effects on individuals, on their wellbeing. This will be a government that takes into account those markers, and the wellbeing of people will be my sign of success.

My plan is to introduce the legislation – it’s already drafted – which sets out what our measures of poverty will be. That’s been an often-disputed issue. We will finally have some agreement that will be in law. From there, we’ll go ahead and set those targets. Certainly it will be a matter of priority, but the legislation comes first.