Taxpayers’ Union Backs Campaign for Parental Caregiver Support

28 NOVEMBER 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Taxpayers’ Union is backing calls for the Ministry of Health to backdate payments to parental carers of disabled children, after the finding of the Ombudsman that the Ministry acted unfairly and unreasonably when it reduced payments to those caring for their children with severe health issues. As covered by last night’s Sunday programme, now in his 80s, Cliff Robinson still catches fish to help feed his family. He has looked after his own disabled children for 50 years.

Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director, Jordan Williams, says, “There will be very few New Zealanders who would have watched last night’s Sunday programme and not felt tremendous sympathy for Cliff Robinson. Mr Robinson is clearly a loving parent who has spent 50 years looking after his disabled children. In doing so, he has demonstrated everything a National government is meant to believe in: personal responsibility, family values, parental love, self-help and individualism.”

“The Ministry’s actions in not backdating the $160 per week they cut from the Robinsons, and other families in the Funded Family Care Scheme, shows how skewiff the Ministry’s priorities are. Wellington bureaucrats can find billions for corporate welfare, millions for questionable arts and sports sponsorships, and even fit out offices with $140,000 television screens, but penny-pinch those in the community most in need and deserving.”

"Mr Robinson’s description of health bureaucrats as ‘uncaring bastards sitting in their ivory tower', is perfectly understandable.”

“People like Mr Robinson should be given an award, not shafted by the Ministry. Even just in financial terms, his decision to dedicate his life to caring for his two children would have saved the taxpayer millions. The very least we can do is help him enough so he doesn’t need to worry about putting food on the table."

“This is what makes government wasting taxpayers money so immoral. If we don’t have a public welfare and health system to support cases like this, why do they exist at all?"

A petition calling on the Ministry of Health to backdate the $160 per week they cut from the Robinsons, and other families in the same situation, can be signed at http://www.taxpayers.org.nz/cliff_robinson_petition

ENDS

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