Solo parents

Jacinda Ardern (‘‘Child poverty defies simple solutions’’, Focus, June 5) claims ‘‘low wages and staggering house costs’’ are the main drivers of child poverty, despite my report for Family First showing the strongest correlation with child poverty is sole parenting. Last year, 20 per cent of birth registrations had either no father details, or fathers with different residential addresses to the mothers. By year-end, 17.5 per cent of babies born in 2015 relied on a benefit.

Child poverty pre-dates ‘‘staggering house costs’’ by a long margin and ‘‘low wages’’ are a byproduct of Labour’s Working For Families which subsidises employers. Similarly, rental subsidies go straight into landlord pockets.

Ardern doesn’t understand that a government cannot subsidise away child poverty problems. Subsidising sole parents saw their portion of families with children almost triple between the 1976 and 2013 censuses.

Solving child poverty lies largely with individuals. Without a reverse in the trend away from stable, committed two-parent families, child poverty will remain high. Lindsay Mitchell, Lower Hutt Ardern states most of the problems were caused by Ruth Richardson’s Mother of all Budgets. Actually, they all started with the 1984-90 Labour Government, which did incredible damage to this country. Matthew Thomas, Christchurch