McGehan Close

Derek Cheng in the Herald reports:

John Key says the Government has done as much as possible for the poor after the mother of a family he championed said he was a political “arsehole”.

In Opposition in 2007, the Prime Minister singled out McGehan Close, Mt Albert, as typical of the “growing underclass” that would be a priority for National.

He visited the Nathan family and invited Joan Nathan’s 12-year-old daughter, Aroha, to Waitangi.

But now Mrs Nathan says although she still likes Mr Key personally, as a politician he is an “arsehole” and has done little to help the poor.

“He’s just making everything better for high earners and not the low-income ones,” she told Campbell Live.

Mrs Nathan, who recently had her sixth child, said her life was no better under Mr Key’s Government. …

She was still on a domestic purposes benefit, though she did some work for National MP Jackie Blue.

I don’t want to beat up on Mrs Nathan, as all her circumstances are not in the public domain. I would just make the comment that it is reported she just had her sixth child on the DPB – and that this is not the fault of the Government. It is not unreasonable to stop having children if you are already struggling to make ends meet.

I estimate that the gross level of income support from the Government for six children is around $850 a week – not luxury, but not insignificant. On top of that highly likely there is accomodation supplement or a state house.

“Bread, milk, everything that we need that is a basic necessity for us is going to be more expensive. It’s going to be harder for us to feed our kids.”

 Those two examples are interesting, as the monthly Food Price Index allows us to track their price movements.

Milk has gone up 10% in the last two years under National, but it increased 22% in the two years before that under Labour. Now neither Government sets the price of milk, but it does put things in perspective.

Bread is a more extreme comparison. Under two years of National it has gone up 1.4%. In the previous two years under Labour it went up 30.7%.