Children's Commissioner unveils plan to combat child poverty

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Plan unveiled to combat child poverty

3News NZ

The Children’s Commissioner has released a plan to reduce child poverty, which includes a universal ‘child payment’, better welfare grants from the Government and establishing a ‘Child Poverty Act’.

The plan includes a ‘food in schools’ programme, rental houses requiring a ‘warrant of fitness’ and overhauling the family tax credit system to favour young children.

Russell Wills formed the Expert Advisory Group in March which has been working on solutions to child poverty, which has doubled in the last 30 years.

The report says around 270,000 children currently live in poverty, costing $6 million every year.

Recommendations include:

  • A national strategy for food in schools
  • A universal child payment of $125 per week for the first 6 years and targeted after that
  • Overhauled tax and welfare system to cater better for children
  • Overhauled child support
  • Rebalanced family tax credits system to favour young children.
  • Government underwriting payments for family support
  • A review of all child-related welfare payments
  • Warrant of fitness for rental homes

Tracey McIntosh, co-chair of the Expert Advisory Group says there needs to be a culture-change in New Zealand, including the Government, to address the issues.

Fellow co-chair Jonathan Boston says there is no full costing of the plan and no prioritisation of the recommendations.

“We’ve had several meetings with ministers and they have been very constructive,” he says.

“Housing has to be part of the core of any child poverty plan...we have hundreds of thousands of houses that need addressing and that cannot be done overnight but we have to stop kids growing up in damp, unhealthy houses.”

Group member Phillippa Howden-Chapman says both ends of the age-scale need to be addressed.

“We’ve got compulsory superannuation so we should have compulsory child payments,” she says.

3 News

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Comments

31/08/2012 8:17:38 a.m.

David wrote:

@Mike its well known that Parties use social media.. the only person around here screaming conspiracy is you. Labour did this... labour did that. You want to know how to fix the poverty issue... or at least improve it? get rid of John Key... a man so out of touch the nly person that he has helped since being in power is himself. Mike in one story you are a sucessful businessman... in this one you are a pauper.. I have trouble believing in your credibility when you cant even get your own life history correct. You are a paid mouthpiece.. thats extremely clear to many of us.

30/08/2012 11:50:39 p.m.

David wrote:

So Mike... what I hear from you over and over again is New Zealand has no poverty issue... thats the bit you wont address.... experts around the world and in New Zealand itself all agree we do... the experts who are better educated than yourself and have far more relevent information to contribute. Just as an aside Mike... in one story you are a mid level manager... in this one you are under the poverty line. you want just one suggestion for getting rid of poverty... simple get rid of Key.. the man who has worsened it. Exports under National grew 11 Percent .... lol what a gross exagerration. Exports grew because food commodity prices shot up. Mike the businessman... Mike the man below the poverty line... Mike the man who changes his idenity and life history to amazingly enough suit the story.

30/08/2012 5:36:53 p.m.

Mike wrote:

@David so everyone posting but you is some conspiracy? The biggest nut jobs around tends to claim the world is involved in some huge conspiracy, hence your conspiracy claims again.

You still wont address anything someone talks about, attacking people instead because your too lazy to even google anything.

How about even one idea how to live on less money, since the struggle is to live on an income?

Oh wait, you dont do ideas.

We can't just pay for more endlessly when our country cant afford what we are already spending. At some point NZ needs to live within its means, be it now when it will be easier, or later when NZ looks like Greece financially when we are likely to see real poverty.

What did NZ exports do under Labours boom years 2000-2005? 5% growth. Under Nationals 2008-2011 with worldwide recession? over 11% growth. NZ is still in recession, our food prices are unchanged this last year, so we should not throw away our gains in an act of stuppidity. If those on welfare want more income, they can always work. If your prepared to work outside union membership extortion, and work hard, you can always find a job even if you become self employeed to do so. Nobody is saying work is easy, but the problem is a simple enough problem to live within your means. If your getting a free lunch through welfare then surely you need to keep your side of the bargain by not demanding caviar with that free lunch. Someone is still paying for the free lunch, and hard work is still hard work, especially when it is done by someone else.

30/08/2012 12:04:20 p.m.

David wrote:

@The problem with people like Mike, Eddie, Chris, Erm, Jim.. is they have no concept of reality.... They make massive generalisations such as... all beneficiaries drink, smoke, take drugs and beat their children. (behind closed doors those same right wingers are doing the same damned thing... shhhhhhh, its a secret though) These people are referred to as media specialists... many of the political parties use them. National are using theirs currently to try and get kiwis to believe all beneficiaries... drink, smoke, beat their children and that a person whould easily be able to survive on 40 percent of minimum wage. Act's specialists.. well, pretty much the same thing combined with "maori are bad" They pretend to be ordinary kiwis... but they are here to do a job... which is to try and fool you into believing that they know what they are on about. Unfortunately... not a single one of them do. The National Party/Act Party/ Labour/Greens are all paying them good money to come online and spread whatever they think needs spreading. So lets all take a moment to give them a little applause. Well done boys and boys pretending to be girls... New Zealand doesnt have people living in the streets.... I congratulate you for uncovering such a dastardly Left Wing lie. Poor families arent crammed into gargages of family members... bloody left wing liars. And if they are... well its because they do far too many drugs, smoke far too many cigareets and breed far too many babies. Is that the official stance of the pathetically delluded little right wingers posting here?.

30/08/2012 7:53:34 a.m.

Mike wrote:

I live on less than 95% of those claiming poverty.

The 55 cent breakfast serving is just another day for me, and not a bad breakfast. If people would consider spending less on luxeries then they would have a lot more left.

How much do I spend on HP? 0.
How much do I spend on credit card interest? 0
How much do I spend on drugs? 0
How much do I spend on cigarettes? 0
How much do I spend on Sky TV? 0
How much do I sepnd on alcohol? 0
How much do I spend on gambling of any kind? 0

My other spending tends to be low too, lower than most claiming poverty.

Now over 95% of those claiming poverty cant claim the same. The problem isn't a lack of money, its spending it on the wrong things, and throwing more money at the problem wont fix it.

Typically NZrs dont know how to budget, dont know how to live within a budget, nor how to eat cheaply and healthily. Fruit and veg are actually quite cheap, and healthy.

Instead of choosing millionaire lifestyles, one can choose to live within their means. If your on a benefit you need to adjust to your income level. If your looking to buy a new home then you need to look at what you can afford, not what you would like. Poverty in NZ is a myth as nobody is really starving. WINZ offers support for emergency benefits which they can and do grant within 24 hours. But of course if you keep crying wolf then WINZ now asks people to get help budgeting, and the opposition doesn't like that as they want more money thrown at the problem, not to try to fix the problem of people not living within their means. Anyone can get an education in NZ, so lack of education is a choice.

The amount of ave wage, min wage, benefits as measured internationally has increased under National since 2008. Lets have the OECD figures in US$ please! Oh wait they show an increase so the left loonies wont quote them!

29/08/2012 3:33:07 p.m.

David wrote:

Mike, unlike you I dont work for the labour party.. never said I voted labour either. What you love doing is labelling... trying to deflect from real issues just as John Key does. Its a National Party trick. By the way why not go back to 1991 with your question and talk about when real poverty first began to take hold in New Zealand under the Jenny Shipley era?. How much did benefits go down by? 20 percent. Have the ever risen as a result of changes in government? No. You have the basic benefit rate of $180.00 per hour... thats $4.5 per hour.. roughly. It was ackonledged internationally by many economists and political experts that in 1991, poverty became entrenched in New Zealand society as a result of Nationals benefit cuts. Have Labour or National done anything at all to rememdy this? no. The difference between New Zealand and Africa Mike.. is you cant randomly go around erecting buildings in New Zealand and it is illegal to be homeless.. once you take normal rent out of a persons benefit.. even if they are getting the maximum accomodation supplement... there is nothing left. As the Head of the OECD said last year, New Zealand has the worst wealth gap in the entire OECD .. whicch funnily enough, Greece, Japan, all those countries that you listed as having a worse off deal than us... those countries are better at looking after their citezens than we are under a National Party government that refuses to admitt there is a problem while children die and catch thrid world illnesses (that funnily enough shouldnt exist in your Utopian kiwi society). You live in a fantasy world Mike... always have, you have no idea what the country is going through because you live in your own little delluded fantasy.

29/08/2012 11:40:46 a.m.

Alex wrote:

It's not even just greed. It's a system of self expanding value which forces possessors of capital to expand their capital by any means necessary - because if they don't, their competitors will and they;ll be driven out of business via economies of scale. That includes political organisation, e.g. neoliberalism was a class project to restore the profit rate. It's much easier for a tiny group of capitalists to organise than it is for a massive group of workers. As long as this economic system exists, we will have child poverty - because under conditions of self-expanding value - which includes the extraction of every last drop of wealth from the poor (and post-2008 even the middle class), it *has* to be so. And Mike? A TV does not disqualify you from being poor. It's a one off, almost certainly second hand expense. I had a look on trademe and only *one* TV is an old CRT type - and even then it was "flat screen." 93% of NZers eat out? I looked that up, and 56% eat out *once a month* - so what, they have fish and chips for $5 to give themselves and their children a tiny bit of joy in their lives? No, I guess fun is reserved only for rich people. The poors should be miserable.

29/08/2012 9:29:59 a.m.

Wiseacre wrote:

The tax take decreased under the higher tax level because greedy, selfish parasites manipulated their affairs to hide their wealth in trusts and the like. The tax rate on trusts should have been increased to match the top income tax rate. When National came along they dropped the income tax rate, the trust tax rate and the company tax rate. They are still not aligned and the system is still being rorted. According to information released by IRD, 50% of the wealthiest kiwis dodge their tax responsibilities. They are greedy parasites, fleecing this country. And National rewarded their avarice with billions of dollars worth of tax cuts that we cannot afford. This country doesn't have a welfare spending problem - it has a revenue problem, due to the gifting of unaffordable tax cuts to the rich. Wealth begets wealth. The more you amass, the easier it is to sidestep the costs of society, buy political privilege, and duck responsibility for financial chaos. Greed is not good. Money is not meant to be accumulated but circulated and invested and spent for the common good. The parasitic class prefer to horde the wealth created by the workers rather than share the wealth equitably. "Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." - Abraham Lincoln: State of the Union Address 1861

29/08/2012 8:43:06 a.m.

Mike wrote:

So the labour spokesperson David is back name calling.

How about address anything I said. Oh wait, you can't find your own backside with two hands, a map, and instructions.

Question, in international terms, how much has the min wage or even the benefit changed from say 2008 to 2011? Oh wait, in international terms these have improved because while NZ is in recession, the rest of the world is doing worse. Eg US/UK/Japan/EU currencies which the NZ$ has strengthen against. NZ still in recession and cant afford excessive additional expenses now.

The #1 driver of jobs is capital. Without capital you dont have business and jobs. Labour tells you that we need to destroy capital wealth, like farming to spend up large now to pay people not to work, and that some fairy godmother will solve the futures problems. With GST/ACC and income tax, high income earners still pay around 45%, more if they are also into kiwisaver.

Labour forgets to mention the tax take for the 39% income tax they introduced decreased under Labour as it collected less tax than the same tax bracket at the lower rate - and in boom years! Standard performance of over taxing, you discourage people from working.

The reason why benefit levels have reduced around the world, little problems like Greece, and countries not being able to afford excessive welfare, so Labour wants us to spend more and become Greece of the south pacific faster!

For all the talk, the incomes of high earners isn't that much. It takes Labours creative accounting, like Revenue = Profit to make their claims. Most of the socalled high earners, the margin is very low. Take progressive where the margin is around 2%, ie while profitable, their margin is very low, and without them NZ would pay much more for food. Labour wants unions to strike and disrupt costing businesses, and then the businesses to pass these costs to NZ'rs through higher prices.

29/08/2012 7:34:11 a.m.

jh wrote:

regarding housing and incomes this is what the Savings Working Group said: "Savings Working Group – Final Report | 47 The relationship between migration flows and housing prices has been analysed by Coleman and Landon-Lane (2007). They found that a net immigration flow equal to 1% of the population (10 per 1000 inhabitants) is associated with an approximately 10% increase in house prices. This relationship has existed since the 1960s. Limiting immigration swings could therefore lead to a substantial reduction in future house prices and housing debt. Migration and total private-sector debt New Zealand’s population growth rate in recent decades has been rapid by international standards;from 1990 to 2007 it was the third fastest in the OECD. A country with a rapidly growing population needs to devote resources to building more roads, schools, shops, houses, factories and so on than a country with a low rate of population growth. In a country with a relatively low national savings rate, rapid population growth will put sustained upward pressure on real interest rates and, in turn, the real exchange rate, making it harder to achieve the per capita income gains that people (and the government) aspire to."