Ian McLean Green candidate for Tauranga

The Green Party insists the question of child poverty in New Zealand can be addressed and has proposed four solutions: Make Working for Families work for every low income family, provide better study support for sole parents and beneficiaries, raise the minimum wage to help working parents and make sure rental properties are warm and healthy for kids.

The Green Party will diversify our tax base and tax those on higher incomes at relatively higher rates. These are socially responsible policies designed to lift 100,000 children out of poverty.

It is simply shameful that we even need to consider child poverty, because there should be none. Sadly, the current trend is towards more poverty, not less.

I also find it utterly astonishing that slum landlords continue to exist in our society, but they do. There is at least one in my street.
I mean the slum, not the landlord.

The previous tenants in that slum, a group of fully employed and very nice young men, moved out 'because the house is too cold and the landlord refuses to improve it”. In addition, 'the soil in the vege garden is toxic and the property is not secure”.

Despite a high demand for rental properties in Tauranga, it remained empty for a while. It has new tenants now though – a young Maori family with two small children.

Are those two kids among the 20 per cent of Kiwi children who currently live in poverty? I don't know, but I do know that they are now living in a house that is cold, draughty and damp. I doubt they would choose to live there if they had better options.

Income discrepancy – the difference between those who have and those who have not – is an excellent indicator of the health and happiness of a society. Despite our obsession with the pursuit of wealth, it turns out that general happiness is delivered by income equality and not by income disparity.

If we all enjoy similar riches, well, we are all about equally happy.

Why? If we all have about the same, then there is little point in stealing from each other, our tendency to suffer from mental illness declines, it is easier to agree on our resource, infrastructure and economic requirements and the social costs of police and prisons are reduced.

It seems the best path to a safe, secure and happy life involves sharing resources. Putting that another way, we are all happier when those who are worst off in our community are only mildly disadvantaged relative to those who are best off. Hence the need for tax revision.

That slum in my street should not exist in modern New Zealand, but it does, indicating that some landlords refuse to take responsibility for ensuring minimum housing standards.

The Green Party will work hard to stop any more children being raised in such conditions.
Want to know more? Visit www.cpag.org.nz/news/too-many-new-zealand-children-left-further/