Reece W

The National Party has attacked solo mothers, by advocating for a scheme that will see them working 15 hours a week when their youngest child turns 6.

However, the National Party actually benefits from unemployment. Unemployment keeps people who work scared. They are scared that they may lose their jobs, so their bosses will save more money. In order to keep their jobs in a turbulent economy, workers are willing to work harder for less.
During Key's brief spell for Merrill Lynch in Sydney in 2001, he helped fire 500 staff as part of savage worldwide retrenchment by the bank. In the past, Key has appeared proud of his ability to sack without feelings. He told Metro magazine: "They always called me the smiling assassin."

200,000 children in poverty

There are approximately 200 000 children living in poverty in New Zealand. Even if solo mums are working at MacDonalds or Pac 'n' Save, this will not change this fact in the slightest. Furthermore, even Labour’s Working For Families package has totally failed to address child poverty. The reason is that only working parents benefit under the scheme, rather than parents on the benefit. This means that children’s rights, such as the right to decent food, shelter, clothing, are affected due to their parents' status. Both Labour and National are capitalist parties.

Labour and National

Since Rogernomics, both parties had implemented policies that have been a huge burden on working class people. The whole neo-liberal project does cannot provide the money that is required to adequately support beneficiaries.
According to Children’s Commissioner’s Child Poverty Report, hospital admissions for many conditions (e.g. pneumonia, skin infections, asthma) are 3-4 times higher for children living in the most socio-economically deprived areas. Many children live in houses which place them at risk of ill health (e.g. 43 per cent of children in New Zealand’s poorest areas lived in overcrowded households in 2006). Household crowding in turn predisposes children to a range of infectious diseases including meningococcal disease, respiratory infections and skin infections. This is not happening in a third world country, it is happening in New Zealand.

Struggle from below

We must remember that the right to receive welfare was won from below. We must fight for the right of our brothers and sisters to receive sufficient welfare when they have genuine reasons for being unemployed. We must not accept the strategy of the National Party, to divide workers and rule them. In a socialist world, we would guarantee full employment to all, and support all those who had genuine reasons for not working. Furthermore, we would provide the unemployed with sufficient resources so they could live a life of dignity. And let us not forget, raising children is a genuine reason for not working. We must fight sexism, in the home, at universities, at work, and in parliament. Most of the gains that the women’s movement has won, such as the right to vote, the right to work, the right to contraception, were won from below. They were won by people of both sexes, getting off their backsides and demanding a fairer world.