Cut Price Kids A Choice

The Child Poverty Action group has lobbed a grenade into the Labour Party Conference with their criticism of the government's failure to address the growing problem of child poverty.

Lindsay Mitchell, petitioner for a Parliamentary review of the DPB noted, "Their latest report, Cut Price Kids, says government policy is failing the country's poorest 175,000 children. The vast majority of these children are from one parent families dependent on benefits. CPAG's solution is for the government to pay these families more. In the process, making benefits easier to live on, and work even less attractive."

"That would drive an increase in children dependent on the state. In no time at all there would be more calls for more income transfer from those who have no hand in making the choices that result in people becoming single parents."

"Ultimately it is parents who have to take responsibility for their situation and that of their children's. More government assistance will only aggravate what is already a very serious problem."

Lindsay Mitchell petitioner for a Parliamentary review of the DPB forms available from www.liberalvalues.org.nz contact dandl.mitchell@clear.net.nz

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>