Welfare changes for solo parents proposed

The ministerial group set up to push through welfare reform is looking at proposals to send solo parents back to work when their babies reach one year.
 
Early last week Prime Minister John Key said ministers would ignore the Welfare Working Group's controversial recommendation of requiring women on a benefit who have a second child to return to work when their child is 14 weeks old. Key said this proposal made him feel "uneasy".
 
Today, social development minister Paula Bennett confirmed that ministers were looking at sending mothers into work or training when their infant reaches a year old.
 
"One in four have another child while they're on benefit ... They're [the WGG] just saying we do need to look at where the obligations are on those that are having other children while on the benefit."
 
She added: "Certainly you can look at international evidence and, sort of, where that's at, but the other recommendation of the Welfare Working Group was when that child is one year old ... the ministerial group's looking at it at the moment and it's part of those considerations.
 
On TVNZ's Q+A programme she said there should be better education and training for young mums.

"If you're 16 and 17 years old and you have a baby, there's a 45 percent chance that you're going to have another one while you're on the benefit. So I'm saying let's get those mums educated. Let's wrap that support around them."
 
She denied this would damage the mother-child bond.
 
"What you do see in a lot of those units is the childcare centre is attached to the classroom ... So they are very much still bonded and still together, so it's not about ripping the child away from the young mum."
 
The group is also looking at the option of long-term reversible contraception being provided to long-term beneficiaries, a single Jobseeker support benefit, and requiring single parents to work part-time.
 
Bennett ruled out making birth control compulsory for beneficiaries. And she said they would not be sterilised.
 
"I'm a big fan of ... They're called the LARC - long-acting reversible contraception. I don't think we're quite at compulsory sort of stages, but they're saying free.
 
"I don't live in a New Zealand that believes in sterilising people at all."
 
Key said National would campaign on the changes at the election.
 
The welfare group's February report said the cost of welfare would go from $47 billion to $34b by 2021 if its reforms proceeded - cutting the 360,000 on welfare by 100,000 by putting work obligations on them in exchange for support such as childcare.

- © Fairfax NZ News