Te Runanga Whakawhanaunga i Ngā Hāhi o Aotearoa (TRWINH)

NZ Māori Council of Churches

Child Poverty: A duty of care and responsibility

Fr. Anthony Brown stated today that “the ministerial committee on poverty instigated by the Māori Party as part of its confidence and supply arrangement with the National Party is to be supported”. NZ Māori Council of Churches spokesperson, Fr. Brown hopes the Māori Party does not align itself with the cynicism of National as it deploys benefit cuts, for want of a drug test.

“At the same time, the advisory group reports to the Commissioner of Children on the shameful state of child poverty in NZ”, he said. Setting targets for a reduction in child poverty as a statutory requirement of government; expanding the programme on state housing construction; increasing the participation rate in early childhood education, credible thoughtfulness, rigour of analysis and innovative recommendations are better initiatives would be better responses.

Fr. Brown says “National and its Ministry of Social Development is currently offering neareugenic solutions that basically penalises the poor for being poor”. Further, he retorted Mr Key’s comment “a dopey idea that would make the rich even richer”, when reviewing the advisory groups recommendation of a universal payment going to all children regardless of income.

The NZ Māori Council of Churches (TRWINH) , as a body of Christian churches have 'a fundamental belief of the expectation of a new earth with a new heaven and not weakening our desire to develop on this earth the values of human dignity, fellowship, freedom'.

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