Te Runanga Whakawhanaunga i Ngā Hāhi o Aotearoa (TRWINH)
NZ Māori Council of Churches
Child Poverty: A duty of care and responsibility
Fr. Anthony Brown stated today that “the ministerial committee on poverty instigated by the Māori Party as part of its
confidence and supply arrangement with the National Party is to be supported”. NZ Māori Council of Churches
spokesperson, Fr. Brown hopes the Māori Party does not align itself with the cynicism of National as it deploys benefit
cuts, for want of a drug test.
“At the same time, the advisory group reports to the Commissioner of Children on the shameful state of child poverty in
NZ”, he said. Setting targets for a reduction in child poverty as a statutory requirement of government; expanding the
programme on state housing construction; increasing the participation rate in early childhood education, credible
thoughtfulness, rigour of analysis and innovative recommendations are better initiatives would be better responses.
Fr. Brown says “National and its Ministry of Social Development is currently offering neareugenic solutions that
basically penalises the poor for being poor”. Further, he retorted Mr Key’s comment “a dopey idea that would make the
rich even richer”, when reviewing the advisory groups recommendation of a universal payment going to all children
regardless of income.
The NZ Māori Council of Churches (TRWINH) , as a body of Christian churches have 'a fundamental belief of the
expectation of a new earth with a new heaven and not weakening our desire to develop on this earth the values of human
dignity, fellowship, freedom'.
Ends