Government’s parental leave decision steals from new families – NZCTU
New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi (CTU) President Sandra Grey says the Government has chosen to once again pass on the costs of its failed economic policies onto working families.
“The Government has today announced that it will increase paid parental leave by 2.84 percent. Inflation is currently 3.1 percent. That steals up to another $53 from families when a baby is first born. Together with attacks on Best Start Payments, cutting early childhood education operations funding in real terms by 2.5 percent, and child poverty statistics, tens of thousands of families will be worse off after these decisions,” says Grey.
“The Government could have chosen to increase paid parental leave by inflation, but instead it chose to make this cut. It could have chosen to deliver action on child poverty, but it chose to ignore that problem. Instead, the Government chose to tell people at the Budget that ‘a key driver of child poverty is living in a benefit-dependent home’. The real driver of child poverty is not having enough money – a problem made worse when the government cuts its support.
“For a government that claims it is committed to families and family values, it is not keen to demonstrate any real value in families’ wallets. It has cut the minimum wage in real terms for three years. It has cut support to destitute families through welfare reform and increased the rents on 84,000 households through income-related rents. Meanwhile it continues to waste time in the House of Parliament discussing the definition of who is a woman.
“The Government should row this decision back and at least provide support that matches the cost of living. Deliberately making new families poorer in a cost-of-living crisis is a choice, and not one we believe that most New Zealanders would agree with. Since the oil crisis began, 93 percent of households have had no support with the cost of living, and this latest decision simply makes things worse,” says Grey.
Sandra Grey points out that the Govt. has once again chosen to pass on the costs of its failed economic policies onto the poorest working families! This from our demented PM who earlier emphasised that we need to produce more children. But of course he should have made it clear he was talking about RW children, not LW children! God forbid that we bring in more LW children!!! Luxon’s motives become uglier by the day and if they are not racist they are aimed at our “lowest underpaid” workers. How does he sleep at night? I doubt sleeping pills would be strong enough. From the start, Luxon’s enormous blunder was paying back his “bribers” – the already ‘I’m OK Jack’ Landlords. How much longer do we have to put up with this ‘Clown Show’? There is only so much our needy can take so Luxon, stop now – it’s beyond cruel and you will reap what you have sown!