Labour leader Jacinda Ardern came to power three years ago promising to lift thousands of children out of poverty.
Official statistics aren't conclusive as to whether she's made any in-roads, so what are people working on the frontlines seeing?
Dr Hamish McCay from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians is a paediatrician at the Waikato District Health Board.
With the family's permission he told RNZ social issues reporter, Sarah Robson, about one of his patients - an 11-year-old boy with rheumatic heart disease, as well as a number of respiratory conditions, who's already been hospitalised three times this year.
