June 14, 2023
So why aren’t we talking about NZ women having more babies?
Posted On June 14, 2023
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When Christopher Luxon made a throwaway comment about women needing to have more babies to replace our falling population rates, the debate was overshadowed by Luxon’s previous position on making women pay prescription fees for their contraception which was unfortunate because it is a debate that needs to be had, particularly for our indigenous culture who see family as adding to our collective whakapapa, whānau, hapu and iwi.
We refuse point blank to acknowledge the true cost paid mostly by women for having children, and if we want to be respectful to that sacrifice we need to be serious about offsetting the true costs of having those children while respecting Māori cultural values!
Current paid Maternity/Paternity leave is a mere 26 weeks when it should be a full year. We know how important that first year for baby is and who else do you want looking after baby other than mum or dad?
Currently ECE is disgustingly expensive and prohibitive for most mums and dads, what we need to do is nationalise all ECE the way we have with Primary and Secondary education and make looking after 2year olds to 5 year olds completely free of charge!
Then there is after school care the cost of which once again cripples the ability for mums and dads to pay while working!
Then there is a lack of universal school breakfasts and lunches to help with the ongoing costs of feeding those kids.
If we want to respect the decision to carry life into this world and want to ensure the cost is not damaging mums and dads, we need to actually subsidise that cost via a years paid maternity/paternity leave, nationalise Early Childcare Education, make all after school care free and make school breakfasts and lunches universal.
If we want to ensure we can replace our population and if we want to make future generations more secure from the ravages of poverty, then it takes actual investment into the social infrastructure around having children!
Where will we find the money to pay for this? IRD just told us the rich have rigged capitalism in NZ, we can afford to provide lower costs to parents having babies if we tax the rich.
Poverty is a political choice, it doesn’t have to be and culturally for Māori this is a fundamental value issue.