The Government is turning its back on children by not only weakening child poverty reduction targets, but also removing child mental wellbeing as a priority focus in their Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy.

“Poverty is a political choice, one that this Government is choosing for our children,” says the Green Party’s spokesperson for Child Poverty Reduction, Ricardo Menéndez March.

“Every child deserves to get the possible start in life. We can and we must eliminate child poverty. The good news is that we have the resources to make this happen. The bad news is that this Government doesn’t care.

“The Government has decided to turn its back on our children by watering down its child poverty targets and now by removing child mental wellbeing as a priority focus. Louise Upston’s justification for this is a joke, but child poverty is no laughing matter.

“It is ridiculous for Minister Upston to justify removing child mental wellbeing as a priority focus because she wants to address material hardship when she is doing the exact opposite. She is making matters worse.

“The prevalence of mould and damp in houses as well as food insecurity have also been removed from child poverty-related indicators. This strategy is shallow and shameful.

“This Government believes what gets measured is what matters. Their changes to the child poverty-related indicators could have children going hungry and living in terrible housing while showing up as fine in their new measures. This is blatant cruelty.

“Minister Upston and her colleagues in cruelty have chosen to allow more children to live in poverty by cutting benefit increases, removing public transport and prescription subsidies and slowing down the building of public housing.

“Instead of shifting the goalposts and watering down our targets, the Government needs to commit to taking child poverty seriously. We cannot afford to allow more and more children every year to fall into poverty, our children deserve so much better from us.

“The Green Party would guarantee liveable incomes for whanau, while investing in the support networks that communities need to ensure children have all their rights met - even when times are tough,” says Ricardo Menéndez March.

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