"Yet another report; yet another nail in the coffin of New Zealand's reputation as a great place to bring up children," says Murray Edridge, Chairperson of Every Child Counts. He is commenting on the public release today of the New Zealand Children's Social Health Monitor.

"I do congratulate The NZ Child and Youth Epidemiology Service on establishing the Monitor," he continues. "We need such data to be collected and inform the decisions of our politicians."

"The report emphasises the connection between poverty and deprivation and child health. It is no coincidence therefore that the Monitor has been established as New Zealand families struggle with the effects of the present recession.

"The report makes some international comparisons of countries care of children during recession. In Peru, for example, child mortality rates climbed. In Sweden they did not. Why? Because Sweden has a much more comprehensive welfare safety net including free child health care.

"Successive governments here in New Zealand have declined to re-set our core benefits to more adequate levels for fear of entrenching benefit dependency among adults. Instead they have entrenched New Zealand's internationally high levels of poverty among children because, as many reports have noted, most of our child poverty is among children cared for by an adult on the benefit.

"Those numbers are now increasing in the present recession and the authors of the Monitor expect to see our child hospitalisation rates and mortality rates increase in the coming months and years. Just as significantly, the hidden effects of children leaving school without qualifications and not getting a job will have long term effects upon our economy and future living standards," Mr Edridge concludes.