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National governments are better economic managers BUT avoid the entrenched age-old problems that hold NZ back.
Welfare for sole mothers is one such problem.
In the six years between 2017 and 2023 there were five things Labour changed under PM Ardern and MSD Minister Sepuloni:
1/ Child support payments previously kept by Treasury to offset sole parent benefits were passed directly on to the custodial parent
2/ The penalty for not naming a liable parent (usually the father) was abolished
3/ The requirement to face work-testing one year after a subsequent child was added to an existing benefit was abolished
4/ Best Start – a substantial additional weekly payment for 0 to 2-year-olds – was introduced
5/ After adjusting for inflation increased incomes for sole parents with two or more children by 48 per cent
Not one of these policies has been reversed.
They all encourage single parenthood as a lifestyle. And National appears to be on board.
On the back of these changes the number of children dependent on a sole parent benefit has risen 37 per cent from 117,471 to 160,653 (June 2017 and 2025 quarters). These numbers do not include those children older than 13 whose sole parent has been moved to a Jobseeker benefit.
The facts are that children of benefit-dependent sole mothers are far more likely to suffer abuse and neglect, educational under-achievement, ill health, poverty, transience and become known to Oranga Tamariki and Corrections. And perhaps most worryingly, to become state-dependent single parents themselves, perpetuating the sorry cycle.
Armed with this knowledge, politicians should be designing policy that discourages females from becoming sole parents in the first place and, especially, from further adding to their families.
The last Labour government did the very opposite and National, it turns out, is no better.
This article was originally published on the author’s blog.
