6 Nov 2016

Labour sticks to 'best-start' policy

1:32 pm on 6 November 2016

Labour has reaffirmed its best-start policy, which would pay $60 dollars a week to families with children under one year old, deputy leader Annette King says.

Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Annette King, during caucus run in parliament.

Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson

The original policy was announced in 2014 by then-Labour leader David Cunliffe.

Ms King told the party's annual conference that delegates had agreed to continue with the policy.

"We have a government that has announced that they will spend millions of dollars to measure how many stoats and possums they kill, but they refuse to officially measure how many children live in poverty in New Zealand," she said.

"They prefer to live in ignorant denial while at the same time trumpeting their social investment approach."

She said having 295,000 children living in poverty in New Zealand was shameful.

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