A leading paediatrics academic has slammed the Welfare Working Group for not considering the well-being of children.
In an open letter to the Government, Professor Innes Asher said important issues were overlooked in the report and she urged that several of its recommendations be rejected.
Welfare cuts in 1991 drove children into poverty, not parents into work, and the same mistakes should not be made again, she said.
"The unpaid work of nurturing needs to be given high value - not just job-seeking and paid work. Parents of babies and young children should not be labelled job seekers."
The Welfare Working Group, led by Paula Rebstock, suggested current benefits be replaced by a universal Jobseekers Support allowance and that all but the very sick be forced to look for work.
It also recommended beneficiary parents be forced to look for work once their youngest child was 14 weeks old, the Government has ruled that out but it was not clear whether it would set a later age, such as 12 months. The current requirement kicks in once a youngest child is three.
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My response published today under the headline Poverty is not the problem:
Dear Editor
A recent piece about Professor Innes Asher's open letter to the government which "slammed the Welfare Working Group for not considering the well-being of children," contains a number of inaccuracies about work-testing proposals and current arrangements for sole parents. The 14 week recommendation applied to beneficiaries who continue to add children to an existing benefit. The "current requirement kicks in" when the youngest child is 6, not 3 as reported.
Innes Asher believes that material poverty is putting children of beneficiaries at risk. However, the poorest New Zealanders are actually Asians. Asian children are not routinely beset with health and other social problems.
The reason the WWG targetted sole parents is because at least a third began on the DPB as teenagers. Their chances of leaving welfare are the lowest;and their children have multiple disadvantages primarily caused by familial dysfunction, not poverty.
Increasing benefit payments - Asher's solution - will only lead to more people going on welfare. This has been shown by numerous overseas studies.
The problem for children is not poverty. It is the often chaotic, unstructured and unsafe environments that long-term welfare enables.
2 comments:
Good reply, Lindsay.
I am one of the 10% of the population who pay all the tax to support these mothers whose sole moral claim on my hard-earned income is based on their ability to fuck with out adequate contraception. If I must support the children of these irresponsible women and their even more irresponsible fuck buddies, then I want a say in how the children are raised. My solution would involve a return to the age-old policies of encouraging young solo mothers to adopt out the children to caring families who can afford to raise them.
And perhaps sterilisation as a condition of receiving further state assistance after two babies.
Who names a girl baby "Innes"? That's child abuse.Whaleoils right,silly fist name syndrome damms kids to unfortunate futures...On Facebook I'm debating with a humourless feminist prude named "Tersing Wrench" (I kid you not)....I'm beginning to think there is a God and he has a real cutting sense of humour...;-)
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