The social services policies of the eight parties in Parliament are compared in the table below.
The Herald is covering all the major policy areas in a series running throughout the election campaign.
| Party | Policy | |
|---|---|---|
| Labour | Single unemployment benefit reduced from 28% of net average wage in June 1999 to 26% this June. But maximum family assistance for two children raised dramatically from 8% to 23% of net average wage, and numbers on family assistance increased from 49% to 59% of all families with children. | |
| National | Single unemployment benefit reduced from 38% to 28% of the net average wage during National's last term in office from 1990-99. Family assistance for two children raised from 2% to 8% of net average wage. Future benefits would be tied by law to consumers price index. | |
| NZ First | Review levels of benefits and family assistance. Restore work for the dole and training schemes, including building homes for low-income people on multiple-eowned land, to ensure that beneficiaries contribute back to the community that pays them. Raise allowable income before benefit reduced from $80 to $100/week. | |
| Greens | Raise benefits to levels "sufficient for all basic needs", then index to a basket of food, energy and housing prices with provision that benefits can't fall below a fixed ratio of the average wage. Extend in-work payment of $60 a week to non-working families. Restore universal child benefit starting at $16.25 a week. | |
| Maori Party | Fix benefits at 60% of median after-tax household income after housing costs. Single parent with two children would get $424/week after housing costs in 2007. Sole parent with two children now gets $448.67/week, including family assistance [not counting accommodation supplement]; housing costs to be paid out of this. | |
| United Future | Review benefit rates to ensure that they are fair. Support Labour's family assistance policy, including in-work payment to families in paid work only. Raise allowable income before benefit reduced from $80 to $100 a week. Long-term unemployed retrain or do part-time work for community projects. | |
| Act | Replace unemployment, sickness and invalid benefits and accident compensation with compulsory insurance. Sole parents expected to work, draw on their super funds and go on benefit if no other options. All able-bodied adults in at-risk families to do weekly quota of community work in return for state assistance in goods. | |
| Progressive | Raise benefits as fiscal conditions permit to ensure nobody, and especially no child, lives in poverty. Index them back to before they were cut in 1991. Pay everyone on a long-term benefit the same, instead of the 48 different benefits we now have. Training and assistance to help people into work. | |
