Nats soften line on DPB levels

National appears in retreat over one of its most controversial and hard-line welfare policies, as Don Brash admits he is working to convince voters he wasn't born heartless with a silver spoon in his mouth.

In his Orewa speech on welfare early this year, Dr Brash said there should be "no automatic entitlement to additional state assistance ... for those DPB beneficiaries who have further children after they go on to the DPB".

"Beneficiaries should be required to show some exceptional circumstances before this additional support is provided by the nation's taxpayers."

Disagreement over the policy was at least partly behind Dr Brash's decision to sack welfare spokeswoman Katherine Rich from the portfolio in the wake of the speech.

Clevedon MP Judith Collins was handed the job, but the policy plan was missing from her welfare speech to buoyant party members at National's annual conference in Wellington at the weekend.

The plan is also absent from a synopsis of the party's policy on its website.

Both Mrs Collins and Dr Brash have denied a change of heart, but neither was willing at the weekend to confirm that some women already on the DPB would not receive additional benefit if they had another child. Dr Brash said his Orewa speech had been "pretty carefully" worded when referring to "no automatic entitlement".

He went on to say: "No one, least of all me, wants to see either women or their children starving."

Despite the clear financial references in Dr Brash's Orewa speech, a party spokesman said the leader had not meant new mothers would not get extra money.

Instead he meant the additional money was likely to be dependent on the women's complying with case-management agreements, the spokesman said.

Mrs Collins said children had to be protected from poverty and she believed the plan was to provide "really, really intensive case-management" for DPB women having more children, particularly young women.

Early this year Mrs Collins expressed similar concerns that another Orewa welfare policy - tougher financial penalties for women on benefits who don't name the father of their child - might increase child poverty.

That plan is still being talked through by the party, although it has not outlined the size of the penalty, which Labour has signalled will be increased.

Mrs Collins stressed in her speech that National would be "humane" and "no child would be left behind" - further evidence of National's fear Labour attempts to paint it as extreme on welfare and other fronts may scare off voters.

The defensiveness was also evident in Dr Brash's keynote speech at the conference in which he dedicated time to detail his pacifist upbringing and history as a conscientious objector and protester against nuclear weapons.

Asked later why he had spoken about his left-leaning past, Dr Brash said: "There is a perception that Labour is assiduously cultivating that I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and have never understood the issues which mainstream New Zealanders face and that of course is not true."