The Children’s Commissioner could help young New Zealanders by retiring, says the Taxpayers’ Union in response to the Commissioner’s 2020 Child Poverty Monitor.

Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “The Children’s Commissioner’s solutions for child poverty are invariably just standard left-wing hobby-horses, most of which aren’t even targeted at children. He wants the government to spend even more money on benefits and accommodation supplements, and is even using his latest report to push for the internationally discredited policy of rent control.”

“Taxpayer-friendly proposals to address child poverty, such as GST relief or RMA reform, never seem to feature in the Commissioner’s proposals.”

“The Commissioner is a taxpayer-funded left-wing lobbyist. He offers no ideas that aren’t already being pushed by countless left-wing groups who at least get their points across without taxpayer funding.”

“The Commissioner is funded by taxpayers to the tune of $3.2 million a year. $2.7 million of that is spent on salaries, including $272,000 for the Commissioner himself. He could do far more for children by winding up his office and just giving that money to the kids.”

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On The Government’s Smokefree Laws Debacle

The most charitable explanation for National’s behaviour over the smokefree legislation is that they have dutifully fulfilled the wishes of the Big Tobacco lobby and then cast around for excuses that might sell this health policy U-turn to the public. The less charitable view is that the government was being deliberately misleading. Are we to think Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is a fool or a liar? It seems rather early on in his term of office to be facing that unpleasant choice... More