$300m a week borrowing not enough

Claire Trevett at NZ Herald reports:

Labour is promising to extend paid parental leave and make Working for Families more generous for parents of under-2s under its new social welfare policy.

Labour’s social development spokeswoman Annette King has given further details about the party’s new social policies, the full details of which will be made public within two months.

The plans include increasing paid parental leave from the current 14 weeks and allowing more parents to be eligible for it to make it more comparable to Australia’s new scheme, which allows for 18 weeks on the minimum wage.

If one was running a huge surplus, I think one could have a debate about whether to increase spending in certain areas.

But when the Government is already borrowing $300 million a week, you’d think even Labour would realise that borrowing even more money to hand out as welfare is reckless.

Working for Families would be more generous for parents of children under 2 – allowing more freedom for a parent to remain at home with young children. Changes to the domestic purposes benefit were also planned.

She said National’s black and white rule requiring single parents to find work when their youngest child was 6 years old was unfair.

So really Labour is saying that they wish to pay people more money not to work, and water down any requirements for those on welfare to work.