Auckland Action Against Poverty urges Government to stop taking $25m a year from solo mums.
Ministry of Social Development report reveals that scrapping a sanction against solo mums whose child’s father has not been legally named would give back $100 million over four years to women and children who have been treated unfairly by past Governments.
“Auckland Action Against Poverty is urging the Government to dismantle these sanctions immediately. Revoking Section 70A from the Social Security Act would mean that solo mums would no longer be penalised up to $28 per week for each child whose father has not been legally named,” says Ricardo Menendez, Coordinator of Auckland Action Against Poverty.
“That is money that could go into putting food on the table, into buying nappies, all the essentials that these kids in poverty need.
“The Labour led Government has so far committed to removing this and other sanctions it deems excessive, but has yet to give a timeline of when it will be removed – or what exactly constitutes an excessive sanction.
“The Government has also acknowledged that Section 70A is a punitive measure with no merit, but we’d like to know the rationale for other sanctions as well.
“There is a clear implication by the Government that some sanctions are not deemed excessive and will remain. This indicates that the Government remains committed to the pursuit of policies based on neoliberal capitalist ideology, which blames individuals for being employed without critically examining how unemployment is a systemic issue.
“All sanctions are excessive and must go. It is ridiculously excessive and damaging to reduce someone’s benefit by either 50 or 100%, or to prevent someone from receiving a benefit for 13 weeks.
“If ministry officials are concerned with the costs of removing sanctions, they would do better to advise the Government to tax the rich to find the revenue to meet these costs, rather than continue to wage a war on the poor under the mantle of fiscal responsibility.
“Jacinda Ardern has the opportunity to create real transformative change during her first 100 days of Government, and a clear commitment and timeline for the removal of all sanctions on beneficiaries would go some way towards that”
