Terry Sarten: Children overlooked without Govt advocate

A recently published paper titled The Complexities of Relationship in the Welfare System and the Consequences for Children - authored by Susan St John, Catriona MacLennan, Hannah Anderson and Rebecca Fountain - highlights the way government policy can miss the connection to adverse outcomes for children.

The focus of the paper is on relationship status, how this is perceived by government agencies and what this means in terms of benefits.

Work and Income consider whether a relationship is "in the nature of marriage" and may decide a solo mother is ineligible for sole parent support when, in reality, the relationship provides no stability or effective financial support for the children.

This may, in turn, result in penalties, accusations of fraud and demand for repayment.

Directed at adults as recipients of benefits, the policy lacks peripheral vision by defining "a relationship is in the nature of marriage" as being comprised of two elements - emotional commitment and financial interdependence.

This focus on assessing the adult relationship hides the impact on children caught up in often complex situations.

While the scrutiny of adult situations is a necessary element of assessing the need for a benefit, the circumstances of children, who are powerless in this dynamic, can become lost.

Penalising benefits where there is a question about the nature of a relationship can create another layer of disadvantage for children who are already caught in an inequality gap that can undermine their education, health and social belonging.

The paper notes that the financial repercussions of misrepresenting the nature of a relationship in a benefit context can be significantly harsher than those in cases of tax evasion where the amounts involved can be comparatively huge.

It also makes clear there is a difference between very deliberate fraud, where a person has intentionally provided false information,and a situation where the "nature of a relationship" does not represent the actual circumstance of a parent or the children.

This issue is but one where the interests of children become lost because there is no Minister of Children's Issues to monitor the effect of policy on children. We have ministers of nearly everything in Parliament to debate policy but there is no portfolio charged with specifically advocating for the interests of children.

On a more local level, Whanganui people should all put their hands together for the Gonville Library. They have proven that libraries can be community hubs that generate well-being with their knitting group.

Facilitated by Kelly Scarrow - librarian, bibliophile, mother, writer and knitter - the group has flourished as a community collective of people who see it as a purposeful, social and fun way to come together and create things that other agencies can pass out to those in need in the wider community. This lifts the health and sense of well-being of both participants and recipients.

It is a classic example of how, to quote the words of a Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody song, "from little things big things grow."

Other centres are now looking at how they can emulate this initiative, adding yet another example of how Whanganui people are innovators and enablers that know how to make things happen.

-Terry Sarten is a Whanganui-based writer, musician, social worker and sometime satirist - feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz