I see the chap on the Meridian TV ad telling us that one in four children are brought up in poverty.
Struth, New Zealand is supposed to be a first world nation.
What's going on here? I wondered whether this is related to the stat that tells us the bottom (socio-economic) 15% of people are having 25% of the babies. That's one in four as well.
It's both sad and ironic that what was put in place in the 20th Century to prevent poverty, is in the 21st Century, actually helping create it.
Welfare is all well and good but it comes with some ugly downsides. It's like a drug. Great when you first taste it, but fatal in the long run.
And not only does it help ruin people's lives (especially young ones) but it comes with a huge debt problem that this country will not rid itself of in my life time.
New Zealand has far too many single parent (read multi-partner) homes that go into creating these unacceptable statistics.
Welfare should kept be for the very old and the very sick.
Everyone else can make a contribution somehow, someway.
It's time we looked at how to prevent it, not throw free food at it, when it's too late.So come on New Zealand.
Wake up and smell the poverty.

Graeme Martin, Otumoetai.