LINDSAY MITCHELL: Get rid of the sole parent benefit

Here's a policy for National. Or ACT. 

Get rid of the sole parent benefit.

Known for decades as the DPB, the Sole Parent Support (SPS) benefit, in today's world, is an anachronism. It has lost context in modern society. Why?

Because most mothers work. They take paid parental leave, which has a maximum entitlement of 6 months, and return to their jobs.   Whether they want to would vary, but most would say they have to. Mortgages or rent need to be paid, power, groceries, childcare, etc. In a study population of 74,293 registered births between 1 July 2018 and September 2019, over half (54%) of the mothers received paid parental leave.

22 percent of the mothers were supported by a benefit. For the vast majority, that would be SPS. Many will stay dependent for years, with the Ministry of Social Development acknowledging the average estimated future years on a SPS benefit has now risen to 17 years.

So the mothers returning to work - like it or not - will be paying taxes to enable other mothers to stay reliant for most of their newborn's childhood.

Fair?

As a first time Mum, I opted for unpaid (as it was prior to 2002) maternity leave of up to one year, intending to return to work. But I fell in love with motherhood and didn't want to miss out on being with my son - and later, daughter - at all. So I worked out ways to bring in income combined with being a mum. And my husband was able to financially support that choice.

So I feel for new mothers who have to return to work reluctantly. But not to the degree that I think society should be paying them not to work, indefinitely.

Paula Bennett, Minister for Social Development in 2013, shouldn't have reformed the DPB by transforming it into SPS. She should have abolished it.

She should have clearly articulated that parents - single or otherwise - are financially responsible for their children. If employment is genuinely unavailable, the appropriate benefit should be the Jobseeker benefit.

Currently 234,000 children rely on welfare, with over two thirds on SPS. 

If those children had a parent on a Jobseeker benefit, the expectation and effort to get their parent into employment would be far greater.

That's not just hot air. The reason Bennett got rid of the Sickness Benefit in favour of Jobseeker/Health or Disability Condition, was to make sure 'expectation and effort' also went into getting temporarily unemployed unwell people back to work. 

Societal expectations matter. And benefits should reflect them.

Get rid of the sole parent benefit. Lift aspirations for those mothers, and better outcomes for their children will follow.