Source: Child Poverty Action Group
The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) welcomes the New Zealand Labour Party’s commitment to index the annual change in main benefit rates to whichever is higher out of wage growth or CPI inflation.
“This lays an important foundation in the fight to ensure the living standards of the poorest families stop slipping a little further behind others every year,” said CPAG executive officer Lyn Amos.
If elected to government, Labour would reverse the National-led coalition’s decision to index main benefit rates to inflation alone. Labour’s proposal will help families keep pace with rising living costs and share in improvements in living standards.
“In the last year, the cost of petrol and electricity has risen substantially faster than average inflation. These pressures make it harder for families on the lowest incomes to keep up with the cost of living,” said Ms Amos.
“This policy will make a difference for children living in poverty, and is one we’ve advocated for in our Manifesto to Reduce Child Poverty, and in particular, along with replacing Working For Families with one, non-discriminatory Child Tax Credit so that all children in low income families benefit equally.”
Labour was among the parties who engaged with CPAG’s manifesto, through its Child Poverty Reduction spokesperson Jan Tinetti, and Social Development spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime.
“Child poverty persists because of failures in the labour market, housing, health and disability, education, welfare and tax settings. These are political choices, and though this one policy doesn’t address all of those areas by any means, it is an important foundational step,” said Ms Amos.
Nonetheless, CPAG maintains that accountability to end child poverty needs to be much stronger.
“There is no single policy silver bullet to end child poverty. It requires a wide-ranging suite of policies, coordinated across government, with strong cross-party accountability for meeting our child poverty reduction targets.”
“New Zealand remains off-track to meet its statutory child poverty reduction targets. Any future government must do more than make individual policy changes. It must commit to a coordinated plan to reduce child poverty and be held accountable for delivering it.”
Notes for editors:
- CPAG is an independent charity that has researched and advocated on child poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand for 32 years.
- In August, we released
- A Manifesto to Reduce Child Poverty
- , with 20 organisations pledging their public support of its recommended policies. Those organisations are: Action Station, Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers, Auckland Women’s Centre, Brainwave Trust, Better Taxes/Tax Justice Aotearoa, Disabled Persons Assembly of NZ, KidsCan, LifeWise, Methodist Alliance, NZ College of Public Health Medicine, NZ Council of Christian Social Services, NZ Council of Trade Unions, NZ Nurses Organisation, NZ Psychological Society, Parents of Vision Impaired NZ, Paediatric Society of New Zealand, Project Gender, Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Save the Children, Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa