Welfare - Have Your Say Tomorrow Night

Tomorrow night (Tuesday) there will be a significant meeting in Lower Hutt about the future of welfare. Two ACT MPs Dr Muriel Newman and Deborah Coddington will speak.

"In October this year legislative changes were passed that will make the DPB easier to get on and easier to stay on. Muriel Newman invited a number of those responsible for passing this legislation to attend this public meeting."

"Minister for Social Services, Steve Maharey, United Future leader, Peter Dunne and local MP's Trevor Mallard and Murray Smith all declined."

WHERE: Knox Church Hall, 574 High St, LowerHutt

WHEN: 7.30pm

"Award-winning journalist-turned-member of Parliament, Deborah Coddington, is best known for her incisive articles featured in the North and South magazine. She has given us in-depth coverage of problematic social issues such as teenage pregnancy, child abuse and most recently the decline of the two-parent family."

"Along with Ms Coddington, ACT MP Muriel Newman will also speak about where we are going with welfare and in particular, the DPB. Ms Newman has been a consistent and lone voice for the need to reform our welfare system - a system that has resulted in one in three children growing up dependent on a benefit."

"Welfare dependency is possibly the gravest problem New Zealand faces and if we don't start honestly talking about this issue it will only get worse," says Lindsay Mitchell who is petitioning Parliament for a select committee review of the Domestic Purposes Benefit. "In 1970 there were 30,000 working age New Zealanders living on benefits - today there are 400,000. This is an alarming statistic and a subject desperately in need of debate. To this end, a meeting has been arranged to raise public awareness."

Mitchell concludes, "With 37 percent of government spending going on social welfare, everybody is affected in some way - either directly or indirectly. This is a unique opportunity for the public to have their say about where we are going with welfare - the problems and the solution."

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