Families will lose half their Working for Families payments if they don’t put their kids in ECE or make sure they have the Well Child checks, under reforms to be announced by Paula Bennett the next time National needs a distraction from its failed economic management. ‘When you’re getting public money, the government can demand anything of you: even if it isn’t compulsory and even if you can’t afford it,’ said Bennett. ‘No-one gave a damn when we did this to beneficiary families, so this is the logical next step.’
Asked how reducing the income of families that are already poor does anything to help the children, Bennett replied ‘Fuck you, that’s how. This is a government that is committed to making platitudes and using the language of caring while kicking the shit out of the poor.
Asked if it was Nanny State to require families to put their children in ECE, Bennett replied ‘No. Stopping schools making a profit off selling junk food – that’s Nanny State. Setting lighting efficiency standards in line with the rest of the world to dramatically reduce the carbon emissions of our electricity network – that’s Nanny State. Threatening to cut off the money you use to feed your children if you’re poor or middle class and you don’t put them in voluntary education – that’s Bully State.
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