Govt urged to get it right for kids

The Government's being urged to get it right for children in its upcoming White Paper.

A group made up of 80 non-government organisations has published a briefing paper which summarises their recent submissions to the Government's Green Paper on Vulnerable Children.

It wants the Government to clearly identify who the country's vulnerable children are, and construct an action plan for how they'll be helped.

New Zealand's first Children's Commissioner, Dr Ian Hassall, says the Government has the resources and knowledge to get it right.

"Something must be done about dealing with the inequities that there are in New Zealand at the present time which have increased over the last ten or 20 years."

The paper calls for the Government to have a long term and sustainable action plan for how it plans to assist vulnerable children.

Dr Hassall says the 80 organisations are joining to give one unified message to the Government.

"There has been concern in the past about fragmentation of views and fragmentation of effort but if we can put together and combine our views I think that's going to be helpful."

Dr Hassall says the briefing paper will be put out for the public and politicians to have a look at.

One of the organisations, Analytica, says if the Government looked after these children, fewer would turn to a life of crime.

Underprivileged children attend lower decile schools, have fewer opportunities and are less likely to be wealthy in later life.

Analytica Director, John Pearce, says child poverty is a serious strain on the Government.

"Our ballpark figure, I don't like point estimates, but if you want a point estimate - child poverty in total is costing New Zealand about $8 billion a year. That's four and a half percent of GDP."