The Government’s approach to child poverty reduction has failed and they need to urgently change tack, National’s Child Poverty Reduction spokesperson Louise Upston says.

“In 2017 the Prime Minister promised her Government would lift 100,000 children out of poverty. But annual child poverty statistics released today show more children are living in poverty than when she took office.

“Reducing child poverty was Jacinda Ardern’s stated reason for becoming a politician, but once again it’s all spin and no delivery.

“The Government’s only strategy for child poverty seems to be making tweaks to the benefit system, but all they have succeeded in doing so far is to trap more people into benefit dependency.

“116,000 people now spend more than one year on a Jobseeker benefit, an increase of almost 50,000 since Labour were first elected.

“Tragically, one in every five children in New Zealand is now growing up in a benefit-dependent home, an increase of 36,000 children since 2017.

“If Labour can’t get people off benefits and into work when unemployment is low and employers across the country crying out for workers, then when can they?

“National knows the only sustainable way to make serious inroads into child poverty is to get parents off benefits and into work and independence through targeted interventions, delivered in partnerships with local communities.

“Labour’s current approach is failing and trapping more people into benefit dependency. That’s not kind, it’s cruel.”

Media contact: Jasmine Higginson 021 800 697

Note to editors: As at June 2017, 156,300 children lived in in households with less than 50% of the median equivalised disposable household income (before housing costs are deducted). As at June 2021, this figure is 156,700 children.

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