Judith Collins MP
National Party Welfare Spokeswoman

05 April 2005

Alarming DPB figures show it’s time for change

National Party Welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins says some alarming figures on the amount spent by taxpayers on the DPB show it is time for change.

“National says that sole parents on the DPB should be available for part-time work or retraining once their youngest child reaches school age. Labour relaxed the rule, National will fix it,” says Ms Collins.

She is commenting in the wake of claims by DPB campaigner Lindsay Mitchell today that annual expenditure on the DPB has reached an all time high at $1.777 billion for the 2003/2004 year, up from $1.59 billion in 1999/2000.

“Labour does not even recognise there are major problems with abuse of the DPB, and the message it is sending.

“Many hard working Kiwi taxpayers would love to spend time at home with their children, but they would never dream of making other taxpayers fund that choice,” says Ms Collins.

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