For those who think National MPs come from privileged backgrounds

Many on the left push a stereotype that National MPs come from privileged backgrounds. This may have been true in the 1970s but more recently we had John Key who was raised by a solo mum and Paula Bennett who was a solo mum.

To add to those, an interesting maiden speech by Southland MP Joseph Mooney:

Those changes in the 1980s had a huge impact on many lives of people in the rural sector, with many farmers losing their farms or experiencing significant hardship. My stepfather worked on farms, but lost his job during that period and struggled to find more work. I recall my family going hungry during those times, and I remember days on end when we had no food to eat and going to the river to look for blackberries for food.

Tough times indeed,

For a variety of reasons, my younger brother and I chose to leave home when I was 11 and he was nine. We’d planned to travel from Hawke’s Bay to the goldfields in Central Otago, live in old mining huts, and make a living panning for gold. We managed to get to Wellington, but we were stymied by the Cook Strait, and ended up living for a bit over a week on the streets of Wellington, huddling together for warmth on cold, rainy nights in flax bushes, trying to figure out a way to get across that Cook Strait. Let me tell you that Wellington is a cold, hard place when you’re a child living on its streets.

Not sure what the full background is here, but if you’re living rough on the streets as an 11 year old, fair to say its not a privileged background.

I strongly believe that the narrative of hard work and self-responsibility being the surest path to success is vital for the future of our country. We all need to do our bit to grow the pie, rather than trying to divide it into ever-smaller pieces. I know from my life experience that if parents don’t have jobs, kids go hungry. So it is one of the key responsibilities of Government to create a policy framework that empowers businesses, that empowers employers, and that empowers employees.

I think few things are more important than ensuring children grow up in families where people have jobs.