“By 1999 child poverty among those left out — those on welfare benefits – was terrible, and the pressures on foodbanks and budgeting and other social services continued a relentless upward drift.”
Susan St John, TEU member and spokesperson for New Zealand’s Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), was the guest speaker TEU’s Women’s Fiesta at Unitec last Friday. She used much of her time to describe the history of child poverty in New Zealand, and CPAG’s efforts to end it.
Susan St John says that, despite promising to eliminate child poverty, the Labour government of that time did nothing until 2005, except return to income-related rents.
“By that time inflation had eroded family payments so much and we were so far behind Australia that something big had to happen.”
In 2005 the government did do something big; it created ‘Working for Families’, but it kept a significant part of the increased payments for children whose parents met the hours of work required and were not on a benefit.
“Yes child poverty fell,” said Susan St John, “but, as the Ministry Social Development’s household incomes report shows Working for Families had no impact on workless households. No impact!”
Since 2002 CPAG has attempted to get this discriminatory payment, called misleadingly the In Work Tax Credit, declared unlawful under part 1A of the Human Rights Act. CPAG says the state is using a poverty alleviation tool for some poor children, but withholding it from others on grounds of parental work status. It disproportionately affects Māori and Pacific Islands children.
Susan St John says 270,000 New Zealand poor children are under the 60 percent of the median household income line. Of those, 170,000 are under the 50 percent line and they need to be the country’s focus. Removing the discrimination and treating all low income children the same is the most cost-effective way to help them.
CPAG has spent a decade working on this case that comes to the Court of Appeal in late May.
“We are trying to raise the profile of the issue with other organisations, including unions and women’s groups. Hopefully the public will see it is of great national importance and also pressure government to remove this discrimination as a critical step to addressing child poverty.”