New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi (CTU) President Sandra Grey says the Government has chosen to once again pass on the costs of its failed economic policies onto working families.
"The Government has today announced that it will increase paid parental leave by 2.84 percent. Inflation is currently 3.1 percent. That steals up to another $53 from families when a baby is first born. Together with attacks on Best Start Payments, cutting early childhood education operations funding in real terms by 2.5 percent, and child poverty statistics, tens of thousands of families will be worse off after these decisions," says Grey.
"The Government could have chosen to increase paid parental leave by inflation, but instead it chose to make this cut. It could have chosen to deliver action on child poverty, but it chose to ignore that problem. Instead, the Government chose to tell people at the Budget that 'a key driver of child poverty is living in a benefit-dependent home'. The real driver of child poverty is not having enough money - a problem made worse when the government cuts its support.
"For a government that claims it is committed to families and family values, it is not keen to demonstrate any real value in families' wallets. It has cut the minimum wage in real terms for three years. It has cut support to destitute families through welfare reform and increased the rents on 84,000 households through income-related rents. Meanwhile it continues to waste time in the House of Parliament discussing the definition of who is a woman.
"The Government should row this decision back and at least provide support that matches the cost of living. Deliberately making new families poorer in a cost-of-living crisis is a choice, and not one we believe that most New Zealanders would agree with. Since the oil crisis began, 93 percent of households have had no support with the cost of living, and this latest decision simply makes things worse," says Grey.
