Finance Minister Grant Robertson has been challenged by TVNZ presenter John Campbell on whether the Government is doing enough for New Zealand's poorest after being told yesterday's Budget did "no where near enough" for social welfare.
Mr Robertson was interviewed by Campbell on TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning about the Budget with the final question angled around social welfare - an area that received little focus yesterday despite calls from advisory groups.
"If you are losing your job at the moment and you are single and you are 25 years or over, the job-seeker benefit is $250 net. If you have children and there is two of you as a married or defecto couple, it is $428 net," Campbell stated.
"It is nowhere near enough to get by and from the Children's Commissioner to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group, there is still a sense that the Government hasn't done enough in this space. Why didn't you yesterday, given how many people are heading towards those kinds of incomes?"
Mr Robertson tried to argue the Government had addressed the issue with a $25-per-week increase of main benefits but Campbell chimed in saying it was "nowhere near enough, the Welfare Expert Advisory Group are saying".
The Finance Minister also pointed out they had doubled the Winter Energy Payments this year.
"We've made sure throughout this that we've continued to support those on the lowest incomes including through our housing packages.
"I said yesterday income support remains one of the areas we know that we need to do more on but throughout this package, the food in schools programme, the work that Whanua Ora is doing - there is significant investment in our lowest income New Zealanders.
"We made that our first priority when we did this and I have no doubt, as time goes on you will see more investment to support our household and low income New Zealanders."
Economist Shamubeel Eaqub told Breakfast yesterday prior to the Budget announcement he expected more will be done for social welfare when more Kiwis are on it.
Economist Shamubeel Eaqub says welfare should be high on the Government's list today to help Kiwis operate post-Covid. (Source: Other)
"We haven't fixed our welfare system for nearly 40 years," Mr Eaqub said.
"When you lose your job today, your income is likely to fall by between 25 and 80 per cent - it's a huge financial shock for people.
"The lack of willingness to change the welfare systems has been because most people don't know what it feels like to be poor. Most people don't realise that the welfare is a really substandard way of living.
"As more New Zealanders experience this poverty, I think our willingness to have a better welfare will come through, but will that happen in this Budget? I don't think so. I don't think the social license is there yet to make it nearly as generous as it needs to be to actually prevent the long-term poverty we have seen our welfare system create for the last many decades."
Mr Eaqub said the first step to fixing the system was to flip it on its head.
"What the welfare advisory group and previous groups have said is that the welfare system is just too stingy and too mean. It needs to be much more generous.
"It needs to be more of an usher than a bouncer - we're trying to stop people from entering the system when we should be encouraging them in and helping them out."
It is estimated New Zealand's unemployment rate will rise from four per cent pre-Covid to nine per cent post-lockdown with approximately 1,000 new Kiwis currently applying for social welfare daily.
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