Wednesday 5 October 2016

Child poverty is nothing to be flippant about

PM John Key is master of the flip, whether that’s a flip-flop, flip-off, or flippant comment to side-step hard questions and deflect blame. And now, speaking on the subject of measuring child poverty, it seems he’s added ‘flipped out’ to his repertoire.

Key’s flippant one-liners are a very poor substitute for reasoned argument, and an inexcusable response to serious questions about the number of children living in poverty. To say that it’s too hard to measure, not easy like counting rats and stoats on DOC reserves, is an appalling statement from any elected representative and utterly disgraceful coming from the Prime Minister. It’s a dreadful image, and a fatuous argument when other entities have developed robust methodologies for measuring child poverty (see example in Notes below).

Instead of practising his flipping technique, the Prime Minister would be well advised to heed the advice of Children’s Commissioner Andrew Beecroft to cut the 150,000 children living in poverty by 10% by the end of next year. For a government obsessed with targeting, surely that modest target is achievable.

Child poverty is a serious social issue, with life altering consequences - for individual children and for us all, as a society, too.

The Democrats for Social Credit Party (DSC) has workable policies which will transform the New Zealand economy. The Party also has range of policies to support industry. But most importantly, because people are at the heart of all DSC policies, eliminating child poverty is a priority. How? Introducing an unconditional basic income to give immediate financial relief to poor families would be an excellent start. Ensuring a genuinely free public education system; freeing up money for the health system by restructuring DHB debt using Reserve Bank credit; building affordable houses; de-centralising services; using our own central bank instead of borrow at interest from overseas financiers; and a great deal more, will positively transform the lives of the poor, working or otherwise, and society in general…….but that may take a little longer.

ENDS

Notes

The Child Poverty Monitor: Technical Report 2015 (a partnership project between the Children’s Commissioner, JR McKenzie Trust, and Otago University) used 2012 data to determine that “148,000 children go without things they need (material hardship - 14%), 9% of children are at the hardest end of poverty (severe poverty), 305,000 children live in poverty (income poverty - 29%), and 3 out of 5 children living in poverty live this way for many years (persistent poverty)”. There’s no apparent problem with counting here.

The Report states:

“When a child grows up in poverty they miss out on things most New Zealanders take for granted. They are living in cold, damp, over-crowded houses, they do not have warm or rain-proof clothing, their shoes are worn, and many days they go hungry. Many more don’t get to go to the doctor when they are sick, because they can’t afford the costs of the appointment and the medicine. Others stay home from school because they don’t have all the uniform or lunch to take. Poverty can also cause lasting damage. It can mean doing badly at school, not getting a good job, having poor health, and falling into a life of crime.”

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