More than a quarter of Kiwi children live in poverty, but the Government has made promises to reduce child poverty through several measures.
The Welfare Export Advisory Group released its report recently into child poverty, revealing the Government has to do a lot more to reach its targets to reduce the number.
On TVNZ1's Breakfast today group member Ganesh Nana said he was disappointed at the response but was hopeful for the upcoming budget and future announcements.
Special adviser to the group Michael Fletcher later told Breakfast he too was disappointed, but said the Government needed time to bring changes in.
"The good thing about the report is those numbers didn't come out of nowhere. I got to see what they did and I was very impressed by it," Mr Fletcher said of the report.
"They went through a very careful, line-by-line analysis of what's the minimum amount that a person, a family could live on and it was tight ... it came out with a substantial shortfall.
"I think it lays out a really solid case that I would expect the Government will act on."
But, Mr Fletcher gave credit to the Government for implementing the Child Poverty Reduction Act which sets out a series of measures Statistics NZ are required to report on and the Government is required to set targets against them.
Poverty is "multi-dimensional" in how it can be measured, Mr Fletcher said. Material hardship could include things like if a family could afford to take children to the doctors, heat the house or pay sudden bills; while other measures look at income, before housing and after housing.
Before housing costs, the number of children living in poverty is 16%, meaning 184,000 children, and after housing the number goes up to quarter of a million children - 23%.
Looking at material hardship, the number was slightly lower at 13%, about 148,00 children.
"It's a substantial amount ... they're big numbers," Mr Fletcher said.
Poverty in other countries may look different to New Zealand, but measures of relative poverty was relative to the individuals society, he said.
It could include things like children missing out on school trips and music lessons - things other Kiwi children are doing.
The Government is looking at if numbers are getting worse in prices, as well as relative poverty - meaning, is the gap between those left behind widening or getting closer?
"The measure has shown, despite the good state of the economy over recent years, despite other things that were done earlier by previous governments, we have not managed to improve that figure at all," Mr Fletcher said.
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