The government’s latest statistics on child poverty were released today, and while there’s a downward trend it shows that material hardship and low income rates for Maori, Pacific and Disabled children remain relatively unchanged.
“This Labour government has no excuses in eliminating child poverty and poverty in Aotearoa NZ. As we’ve seen in their response to Covid, they have the capacity to change things very quickly. We don’t need targeted measures for alleviating poverty, we can be bold and brave and eliminate it” says Coordinator for Auckland Action Against Poverty Brooke Pao Stanley.
All children in our country should have secure housing, access to organic food, free public transport, free power and internet, good education, free healthcare, free dental, free eye appointments. We have everything we need here in Aotearoa NZ to make these things possible and yet we don’t and it’s not good enough. We’re not being courageous or transformational in our leadership and we continue to fail some of our most precious taonga we have – our babies and young people.
Eliminating child poverty and poverty with Liveable Incomes and Universal Services should be part of the plan in responding to Covid, and as part of a wider plan in preparing for a just transition to a new system that’s set out in Matike Mai because our worth isn’t tied to our work, it’s tied to our existence.
Education is there if the parents can be bothered to send their children. I understand doctors dentists and eyes are all free .Cut out the soft drinks and regular brushing would stop much dentist work. Any sort of veg would be good does not need to be the overpriced organic type. The government are at fault for not building houses as they promised they would. Why free power and iternet NOTHING IS FREE it would be another cost to tax payers .
All children in our country should have access to organic veges, and free power and internet??
Who writes this delusional stuff?
The DPB is the brontosaurus in the room in conversations about “child poverty”. It was intended to help single or separated women out of tight situations – not to be the lifestyle it’s become. Cash from the state is no substitute for a father, and children who grow up in fatherless homes are at a serious disadvantage in life.
Any serious long-term plan to reduce child poverty would involve tightening up on the DPB. Paying poorly educated young women to try to bring up 4, 5 or more kids on their own makes no sense.
jacinda, 1 teeny weeny little questionette….
how do you raise children from poverty without raising their families and all Kiwis from poverty?
of course the answer is you can’t fix kids without fixing society.
talking specifically about ‘won’t someone think of the children’ is just cheap emotionalism that her PR team loves…cue–concerned looks hand wringing and speeches about ‘kindness’
juz askin.
This simply can’t be correct.
I saw Jacinda preaching from her pulpit yesterday about how much they’d achieved. Lots of “absolutely’s” and arm waving on all 9 measurements of child poverty a great success.