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Maori Party calls for political unity over child poverty

MEDIA STATEMENT
Rahui Katene
Maori Party poverty spokesperson
14 December 2010

Maori Party calls for political unity over child poverty

The Maori Party is calling for cross-party talks on child poverty, saying the issue is far too important to be playing politics over.

“In a crisis of national importance, political parties come together for one common good, so we must adopt that same approach when dealing with this issue,” Maori Party poverty spokesperson Rahui Katene said.

"We came together on the Christchurch earthquake and the Pike mine disaster, so let us come together on child poverty."

The Children's Social Health Monitor report released yesterday showed a dramatic rise in hospital admissions for Maori and Pasifika children for poverty related sicknesses.

“I am willing to sit down and talk about solutions with any party that wants to get serious about child poverty because this is about our children not whether or not we are red, blue, green, yellow or black.

“We can go on for years arguing about which party did this or didn’t do that, but that isn’t going to help sick and undernourished children is it?”

The Maori Party, along with the Child Poverty Action Group and the Alternative Welfare Working Group, recently recommended that the Government extend the in-work tax credit to all families on low incomes.

Maori Party policies to address child poverty also included:

• No tax on the first $25,000 earned
• Exempting GST from healthy food
• Increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour
• Raise core benefit levels
• Investigate the reintroduction of a universal child benefit
Mrs Katene said she will be writing to all parties this week asking them to take part in cross-party talks.

ENDS

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