For immediate release
Wednesday 24 August 2005

Tax cut proposals ignore children

“Children are not a priority in National’s tax proposals”, said Ian Hassall, spokesperson for Every Child Counts.

National’s tax package does not recognise the cost of raising children, the value to New Zealand of its children or the plight of many of them at present. Those on middle incomes will get roughly the same as what Labour is proposing but low income families with children will receive less.

Furthermore if the $10 Family Support per child of Family Support in 2007 promised in the Working for Families package is cut to help finance National’s tax cuts, the children of beneficiaries, already missing out, will be further disadvantaged.

The question, ‘Where is the money coming from?’ hasn’t been satisfactorily answered. “If there is reduced funding of healthcare, education and welfare and a public debt burden to pay for the tax cuts as seems likely, many families with children will be substantially worse off”, said Dr Hassall.

“Every Child Counts is a coalition including Barnardos, Plunket, Save the Children, Unicef NZ and AUT’s Institute of Public Policy, supported by more than 325 other organisations and thousands of individual supporters. It aims for a commitment from the incoming government to placing children and their families at the centre of their plans and decision-making processes.

ENDS

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