Shifting the goalposts on child poverty is a new low for the National-led government.

“New Zealand’s suspicions were raised when the Government failed to show any real interest in solving the issue of child poverty, and had zero plans to achieve the targets,” Labour spokesperson for social development Carmel Sepuloni said.

“Now we find out they’ve secretly changed the targets Labour set and made them easier for their own Government to achieve.

“They have already made a conscious decision to increase the number of children in poverty by changing the way benefits increase to pay for tax cuts, we knew that they were plotting something callous.

“Officials warned the Government the number of children living in poverty would likely increase by 7,000 in four years as a result of these benefit indexing changes. One estimate predicted that as many as 13,000 extra children would be in poverty by 2028.

“Make no mistake, the Minister for Social Development Louise Upston is well aware of these figures but continues to press on regardless. This underhanded behaviour is what this Government is well known for.

“In Budget 2024 the Government made tax changes knowing that 9,000 beneficiaries would be worse off, did nothing to ease cost-of-living pressure and is letting unemployment continue to rise.

“Increasing wages and benefits are key to lifting children out of poverty. Labour lifted 77,000 children out of poverty between Budgets 2018 and 2023. 

“Lifting children out of poverty is the moral obligation of any good government. This one clearly doesn’t have any,” Carmel Sepuloni said.