Labour is facing fresh claims of reckless spending after promising to extend the Working for Families tax credit to beneficiaries.
It's part of its policy to lift children out of poverty, and the party says beneficiary families would get an extra $80 a week under a policy that will take six years to fully implement.
By 2018 that would be costing $349 million a year.
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Working for Families tax credits were introduced by the previous Labour government as an incentive for parents who worked, but it didn't extend to beneficiary families who are the poorest in the country.
National maintained the policy after it won the 2008 election, but on Monday Labour went further by promising to give it to parents who aren't in work.
National's campaign manager, Steven Joyce, says Labour has again shown it is oblivious to the fragile state of the world economy.
"This truly is the same old Labour - it's the same recipe of spending promises that got New Zealand into the projected decade of deficits that National inherited three years ago," he said.
And United Future leader Peter Dunne, who is minister of revenue, says Labour is Working for Families policy is a poverty trap.
"Labour designed Working for Families in 2004 to assist low income working families, to incentivise people to work," he said.
"By extending the policy, Labour is no longer focusing on lifting working families out of poverty but potentially locking more beneficiary and low income families even more deeply into greater dependence on the system."
NZN