Thursday, December 13, 2012

DomPost on child poverty report

Excellent editorial here stating the obvious but so often ignored principle that children are essentially their parent's responsibility.

Poverty harmful to children. No-one will dispute the central tenet of the child poverty report released this week by Children's Commissioner Russell Wills.
Kids who go to school hungry struggle to learn. Kids who live in damp, cold, crowded homes get sick. Kids  who grow up poor are more likely to struggle as adults.
Where readers may be inclined to part company with the commissioner's expert advisory group is over how to tackle the problem.

3 comments:

Kiwiwit said...

The editorial uses John Key's mother as an example. In fact, you could take the vast majority of New Zealanders of John Key's age and ask how it is that were raised so well when their parents grew up in far worse economic times (i.e the Great Depression and WW2)?

The parents of the baby boomers had none of the advantages of the parents of the latest generation, such as comprehensive health and welfare, and yet somehow they did a pretty damned good job of being parents. Perhaps genuine economic hardship builds self-reliance rather than dependency, and handouts only encourage greater dependency.

Johnny said...

Kiwiwit. You might have left out a generation or two there, but your point remains valid. John Key was born well after WWII.

S. Beast said...

I think some of the "poverty" is caused by Work and Income staff not fully advising clients. See point about DPB - and I know it is a common occurance.

http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/beneficiary-impact-highlights-poverty-of-social-policies

Sure, there are arguments about these people working instead of receiving social security. I would counter that running people down financially makes it drastically harder for them to return to productive lives - something which seems to escape most politicians on the right.