September 07, 2017
High cost economy driving poverty
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is rubbishing the major parties' new poverty reduction targets.
During a television leaders' debate on Monday National's Bill English promised to reduce child poverty by 100,000.
Labour's Jacinda Ardern matched the commitment the next day.
The National Governemtn has previously refused to set targets because it said there was no agreed way to measure child poverty.
Mr Peters says children aren't to blame for poverty, the problem is family and community poverty, which the major parties seem unwilling to tackle.
"You've got poverty for a whole range of reasons and one of them is poverty born of housing unavailability, the high cost of housing, high rental costs, high power costs, high food costs. We've got a high cost (economy). All those things are staring us in the face. Meanwhile we are flooding the place with immigration," he says.
Mr Peters says Labour's promise to build 100,000 houses over 10 years won't keep up with the population increase through immigration.
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