Unbelievable…
Government quietly shrinks child poverty reduction targets
The Government has quietly cut down its child poverty reduction targets, which could see more than 17,000 children experiencing material hardship than if previous targets were met.
Under the Child Poverty Reduction Act, introduced by the Labour Government in 2018, the Government is required to set medium- and long-term targets for reducing child poverty against three measures.
The Government set new targets through a Gazette notice on June 27 for each of the measures, and two of the three are less ambitious than the previous set of goals. There was no accompanying announcement or press release as has occurred in the past.
…this hateful selfish Government has reset the Child Poverty targets to allow for 17 000 more kids to be living in material hardship.
They can find $14billion for tax cuts we can’t afford, they can find $2.9b for their rich landlord mates and they can find money for the Tobacco Industry and the Real Estate Pimps and their wealthy donor mates, but children in poverty?
Fuck em.
This is the Government of malice and spite we elected because the voters were angry Jacinda saved 20 000 lives during a once in a century pandemic.
This is what we is now, this is what we have become.
Hang your head in shame Aotearoa, hang it in shame.
No wonder Luxon is hiding from the media…
PM ‘ducking for cover’ from media questions – opposition
Luxon cuts frequency of post-Cabinet press conference
…if you voted for this hateful Government, this is on you.
Luxon and his government are a disgrace.
Lets lower the target to make it look as though we are doing something .Fuck me the minister could not be bothered turning up in parliament to read her own bill ,shows how much she cares .He weak as piss boss was out of town yesterday instead of being in the house shows he is more interested in just doing show and tell rather than getting to work on this out rage .
It doesn’t matter what the target is, or whether you’re National or Labour, if you aren’t going to achieve the target anyway, and neither has any real intention of making poverty go away. A least Labour smile “sincerely” while falling to deliver on that promise.
At least this government are predictable in their total lack of caring or competence – thanks those who voted them in – great work
“In 2021 the government set targets of reducing the number of children experiencing material hardship from 13.3 down to 9 percent by 2023/24. The government’s new target for 2026/27 is 11 percent”. This is because the current rate of child poverty is 12.5% and 9% is deemed unachievable. So why not set the target at, say, 15%? That would be achievable with a little more fiscal tightening, further deregulation of the rental market, a more market driven approach to wage setting and other appropriate policy settings.
Lest we forget
While it is true Labour set up the Child Poverty Reduction Act. We seem to have forgotten, in doing so, they totally (and some say intentionally) overlooked the many struggling in poverty that don’t have dependent children.
Hence, there is no reduction target for their numbers. And that is what you get from a neoliberal captured Labour party.
But it’s not about Labour you right wing nut job is it, this is all about National. Your thoughts on National please? At least include their hard right radical name somewhere!
@ National are squeaky clean
You are failing to see the wider perspective. Labour are far from blameless.
Labour had a majority and failed to use this to fully address the problem.
If they did fully address the problem, we wouldn’t be having this conversation as there would be no child poverty.
What we are seeing now re National reducing the target is what happens when Labour do too little. And it is totally disgusting.
It was called the child poverty act because they were helping children .The people you talk of are indeed forgotten by all parties and what has national done ?a big fat fuck all for those same people and now they want to do even less for the kids .No doubt you will enjoy your $2.15 tax cut that willis has given you .Maybe you have had your rent decreased due to the free money your land lord gets each week while his tenants live in poverty .
Yes, Gordon. The focus was placed on those with dependent children. However, in doing so, Labour divided the poor into the two groups – those deemed deserving of help and those deemed unworthy.
Alleviating them (Labour) and future Governments (as we now see) of having to address the far larger problem of overall poverty as targets were only set for the smaller group – parents with dependent children.
And yes again, Gordon. As the assistances was only given to parents with dependent children in an effort to achieve the reduction target, the larger group were left to grow in number, suffer and fall further into hardship.
As a consequence (and this is just 1 example being played out across the nation) Nan can no longer afford to help out with the costs as Nan has slipped into poverty and now struggles to pay her rates and insurance.
Now we see the poverty debate has become solely focused on the reduction target of those with dependent children. Again, totally overlooking the wider problem as their numbers grow and they fall deeper into hardship.
And this all stems from Labours decision to only focus (via the reduction targets) on those with dependent children.
There was a time when the left would fight for all those that were/are impoverished, but then they got captured and this is what we now get.
That is true the were a party of smoking mirrors.Lot of nice statements that they had big plans to help poverty but actipn was another think.The kicker was they caused runaway inflation which effected the poor badly particularly in the rental market. They took away the tax exemption which effected cash flow for landlords so they needed to put up rentd
My word you talk a load of rubbish Trevor. Are you saying rents are going to go down with the tax breaks now back?
Labour caused global inflation? Labour caused the floods and destruction that drove up food prices? According to Luxon they drove up inflation because people were employed.
Labour oversaw a massive transfer of wealth from the many to the few.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/12/13/wealthy-nearly-1-trillion-richer-since-covid-began-hickey/
As for global inflation, no they didn’t cause it, it was their insufficient response to it.
Remember? It took ages for Jacinda to even admit we had a cost of living crisis let alone respond to it.
Re flooding. Again, insufficient input into flood prevention work. Climate change and its likely impacts have been known for some time now. So there is no excuse for not being better prepared.
Being a Labour apologist when it is clear they messed up won’t help us get the change we badly require
The usual moaning and whinging…but what is the way forward is usually my enquiry.
My view is we need increased union density with a tough class left leadership, an active united Marxist party and ongoing community action to assist people with daily life.
And…on top of that…a movement focused on the 2026 Election to retire Roger’n’Ruth’s toxic legacy that has stuffed our nation for 40 years.
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