Source: New Zealand Labour Party
Louise Upston has revealed her diminished vision for vulnerable youth against a backdrop of snubbed advice, scrapped priorities, shifted goal posts and thousands more children projected to fall into poverty.
“Unbelievably, mental wellbeing has been deprioritised from the latest child poverty report,” Labour’s child poverty reduction spokesperson, Carmel Sepuloni said.
“Labour prioritised mental wellbeing after children and young people said it was the single biggest issue facing their generation. But today we’ve found out Louise Upston has ignored official advice and scrapped mental wellbeing as priority area.
“How the Minister can reconcile wanting to improve the lives of children without prioritising their mental health is beyond me. It is a devasting loss of data which would’ve helped us understand how young people are faring.
“She’s also scrapped food insecurity as a measure – which comes at a time when she’s going against advice to restrict food grants to beneficiaries. It’s a sad reality when her Government doesn’t seem to care that there are struggling families that may go without food because of the Government’s choices.
“This comes after the Minister previously changed Labour’s child poverty reduction targets to make them easier for her Government to achieve.
“It’s important the Minister still has material hardship is a priority; however the fact remains there are more kids living in benefit-dependent households under this Government’s watch and the Minister has made deliberate decisions that see beneficiaries with less support.
“It is often overlooked that 55% of kids experiencing material hardship are in working households. The Government has stilted minimum wage growth and scrapped universal free prescriptions, all the while rates, rents, power prices are up. Their tax cuts don’t even touch the sides for most Kiwis.
“Preventing child harm while cutting funding to services for vulnerable children and family and sexual violence prevention programmes, also doesn’t add up.
“So far under Louise Upston’s watch, unemployment has risen and beneficiary numbers are soaring – all consequences of her Government’s choices,” said Carmel Sepuloni.
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