CPAG - sloppy finger-pointing as usual

Last week I linked to Karl du Fresne's column about Bryan Bruce's child poverty documentary. The column brought in some responses by way of letters-to-the-editor. Here is one.

OPINION: It wouldn't be possible to write a more inaccurate and polemic piece about child poverty if columnist Karl du Fresne tried. He is wrong on all scores; like the Welfare Working Group, he uses figures falsely and inaccurately, ignores the evidence in the documentary from Sweden because it doesn't suit his argument (a pity when facts get in the way of a story) and displays ignorance and prejudice in big doses.

There's a simple solution for him - he could read the evidence from New Zealand and internationally. But perhaps that is asking too much.

MIKE O'BRIEN

Co-convener, Child Poverty Action Group, Auckland

O'Brien gives no example of how Karl du Fresne or the WGG used figures "falsely and inaccurately".

In fact the only figures in the du Fresne column were these:

New Zealand in 1972 had 26 working people for every beneficiary. Today that ratio is down to 7 to 1 (in fact 3 to 1, if you include superannuitants).

The figures are neither false nor inaccurate.