None of the 42 key recommendations made by the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) in February 2019 have been fully implemented, according to a stocktake released today by the Child Poverty Action Group.

Child Poverty Action Group is calling on the Government to nationalise early childhood education provision in response to the challenges presented by COVID-19 and reports of providers prioritising profits over quality of services.

Increased stress and hardship await families if the Coalition Government does not address the needs of those on low incomes, according to Ngā Tāngata Microfinance and Child Poverty Action Group.

Child Poverty Action Group is releasing research today showing that families' most basic need - of having access to good food - continues to be difficult for families on low income.

Recently released research shows families who rely on benefits could find themselves hundreds of dollars short every week of what’s required to get out of poverty.

The recently announced COVID-19 Income Relief Payment is creating two tiers of welfare, marginalising those already struggling under the current benefit rates.

On May 15 we broadcast our annual post-budget event From Lockdown to Unlocking Potential and the live Q&A online facilitated by award-winning documentary-maker Bryan Bruce.

Many New Zealanders have become emboldened by working for the collective good and there now seems to be a growing desire to extend kindness to each other across our society.

As we move out of level 4 lockdown, Child Poverty Action Group is calling on the Government to make sure the legacy of this crisis is not one of massive public indebtedness due to wasteful and poorly targeted measures.

Child Poverty Action Group applauds the Prime Minister's move to go hard and early to curb the spread of Covid-19 and believe the Government needs to take the same approach when it comes to supporting those doing it tough during this period.

This morning Stats NZ released child poverty statistics for the year ended June 2019. The results show that any changes in child poverty are small and within the margin error, suggesting that nothing much may have changed.

Child Poverty Action Group welcomes Youth19 survey research results, and says the Government needs to do more to ensure students don’t miss out on school due to period poverty.

Obtaining advance benefit payments and recoverable grants creates debt to Work and Income, with repayments meaning less income than before, reinforcing hardship in a vicious cycle of hopelessness.

“There have been valuable initiatives to support children in low-income households, but for those worst-off, we can do much more,” says Professor Innes Asher, CPAG’s Health advisor.

Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) welcomes the new report from CCS Disability Action released today, which has highlighted the inequities for disabled people living in Aotearoa and their families.

“Nobody should be forced to give up their financial independence, or to be forced to stay in potentially harmful relationships because of badly designed policies.”

CPAG says that putting the building blocks in place to clean up an inherited mess is a very important part of the process to achieve the targets set for poverty reduction.

CPAG is concerned that the movement of students to schools outside of low-income neighbourhoods may result in the false belief among parents that decile ratings are the equivalent to educational quality.

It’s time for our leaders to harness their power to take action on meaningful and sustained welfare policy changes.

Child Poverty Action Group has launched a series of papers to highlight the problems children face living in food insecure households.

Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) says that the National Party’s welfare proposals to cut gang members’ benefits perpetuate damaging and discriminatory stereotypes about both welfare recipients and gangs.

CPAG and Ngā Tāngata Microfinance endorse the Salvation Army’s call for tougher regulations on debt collectors and mechanisms to provide forgiveness or waivers for debts that are “effectively unrepayable”.

Low-income families in private rentals are often struggling to meet their day-to-day costs and living in houses that are both difficult to heat and expensive to heat.

CPAG is deeply concerned about the impact for sole parents and their children of losing their financial independence when Work and Income decides the parent is in a de-facto relationship.

Making housing healthy under the Healthy Homes Initiative meant fewer GP visits and fewer admissions to hospital for children and fewer medicines dispensed.

The Minister of Education Hon. Chris Hipkins regarding the eventual dismantling of the decile system should be greeted with cautious optimism.

“What we are asking is that they make some simple, effective changes that will relieve stress among low-income families on benefits.”

If we want New Zealand to be the best place in the world to be a child, the Government needs to increase benefits, remove sanctions, individualise benefits, and fix abatement rates now.

Kathryn’s courage and strength in fighting the system that held her a prisoner to poverty were there until the last.

Low-income, vulnerable families and their children disproportionately affected by declining funding across the social sector, as they are ultimately those most in need of supportive services.

CPAG and Ngā Tāngata Microfinance jointly welcome the extra consumer protections added to the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act 2003.

The barriers to child and youth wellbeing that have been identified will be only able to be comprehensively tackled if the Government has a strong, clear and committed focus on child poverty.

Not only should housing be required to meet minimum standards, tested to be compliant for health and safety, but many more affordable housing options need to be provided.

Child Poverty Action Group applauds the recent spotlight on children’s health by the New Zealand Herald.

“We urgently need a greater number of state homes, and we need more solutions to housing across the board.”

“While household income for some families will be lifted over the 50% line through the Government’s Families Package, the children living in the hardest of situations just fall further behind.”

The number of children living in households regularly going without sufficient healthy food is unacceptable, especially when healthy food is plentiful in Aotearoa - New Zealand.

Welfare system rules around relationships unjustly punish and stigmatise already struggling single parents, says Child Poverty Action Group.

“The mental health impacts of poor nutrition in a child's early years as well as poor nutrition among pregnant mothers can be enormous.”

Child Poverty Action Group fears new legislation won’t go far enough to protect vulnerable families from loan sharks.

"We’re thrilled that Susan is to be acknowledged with this high honour, which is extremely well-deserved."

CPAG says the plan to index benefits to average wage inflation is a step forward to prevent families from falling even further behind, but it doesn’t address the almost three decades of failure to index adequately.

“Research shows that adolescence is one of two periods that are critically important for social and physical development, the other being pre-conception to 3 years of age.”

CPAG is looking to the Government to deliver a package in Budget 2019 that will truly transform the lives of children living in Aotearoa who experience the most severe poverty.

CPAG says that the Government is placing too much faith in its Families Package, which didn’t help children living in households where primary income is from a main benefit nearly enough.

CPAG recommends removing the Accommodation Supplement for around 250,000 families because the payment is overly complex and poorly designed.

CPAG has long been concerned about the ‘hidden costs’ of Aotearoa-New Zealand’s so-called free education.

The focus on meeting individual needs, rather than simply ticking boxes will go a long way to minimise the stresses we know that people who regularly interact with Work and Income experience.

Sole parent families whose primary source of income is a welfare benefit are among those who are suffering the worst of poverty.

Child Poverty Action Group cautiously welcomes the government’s response to the Tax Working Group’s final report.

Poor families and their children will continue to be the prey of loan sharks until the Government provides adequate consumer protection.

CPAG is in wholehearted agreement with the Taskforce’s analysis that the competitive environment established by Tomorrow’s School has driven educational inequality.

The new statistics will provide the baseline for measuring changes over the next ten years that will test whether the Government’s Child Poverty Reduction targets are met.

CPAG and Associate Professor Dan Exeter are launching a series of discussion documents which look at the concentration and drivers of deprivation in regions across Aotearoa.

Alarming new research from FinCap reveals the high occurrence of unsafe credit amongst those on low incomes in Aotearoa, and parallels Ngā Tangata Microfinance’s experience over many years.

“Those struggling to raise the next generation in the toughest of conditions should not miss out on future retirement subsidies that others receive exclusively.”

CPAG has been concerned that previous policy seriously undermined the value of parents providing care for their children in their early years.

CPAG says investing in children’s wellbeing requires more substantive and enduring changes than have been implemented to date.

An extensive study on welfare conditionality presented in 2018 from UK research reported that benefit sanctions "do little to enhance people’s motivation to prepare for, seek, or enter paid work.”

CPAG calls on the coalition Government to increase welfare benefits by at least 20% immediately and index to wages like New Zealand Superannuation.

CPAG believes that making children visible as one of the five priority areas of this Budget shows true commitment to reducing child poverty.

"It makes no sense to recover housing grants from people who simply are unable to afford to house themselves.”

Report finds that one in five children under the age of 15 (161,000 and 188,000 children) experience moderate-to-severe food insecurity.

The authors of the report should be congratulated for embracing the chance for generational change.

Such a strategy will be a significant development toward ensuring the rights of all children and young people in Aotearoa are reinforced and upheld.

The report highlights the critical link between material hardship and emotional and physical health outcomes for children.

As well as improving incomes for affected families, an urgent response is needed to ensure that schools are sufficiently resourced.

“Understanding people’s lived experiences of poverty and the welfare system is critical.”

CPAG has collaborated with ActionStation on their crowd-sourced report calling for reform and transformational change of our welfare system.

“These 600 new staff are essential, and the move shows that the Government is truly committed to improving outcomes for children with disability and disadvantage.”

CPAG is disappointed to see that there is no analysis of the fundamental problems with Working for Families in the TWG Interim Report.

The scope proposed in this review really only considers the question of tenure security and then not in a particularly comprehensive way.

Any relationships, even very unsatisfactory ones that hurt children, mean sole parents can lose their independent source of income.

The Salvation Army’s focus on a “KiwiBuy” scheme is an effective approach to ensuring that more people have access to stable and secure housing.

New measures announced by Minister for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Kris Faafoi, that will strengthen the net of protection for vulnerable consumers.