December 17, 2015
PM drug quip denies reality of poverty
Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox says she’s disappointed at the Prime Minister’s attempt to blame poverty on drug abuse.
During a round of commercial radio appearances yesterday, John Key told Newstalk ZB host Leighton Smith some people can’t get work because of drug dependency.
That’s despite Work and Income figures showing an average last year of just over two people a week failing a drug test, and only one person failing both an initial and follow-up test.
Ms Fox says rather than blaming the victims, Mr Key’s Government needs to get serious about tackling poverty rather than talk about alleviating hardship.
"The reason for poverty is inadequate money in pocket versus the cost of living so if you want to improve poverty you really have to do something about wages, you really have to do something about indexing benefits to the median wage so when cost of living goes up, benefits go up to meet that, so people are not suffering through hardship and poverty-related illnesses and social conditions, one of which is drug addiction," she says.
Marama Fox says she will hold the Government to account on the commitment it gave when it signed up to the United Nations sustainable goals agenda that it would reduce poverty in New Zealand by 50 percent.
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