{"id":556463,"date":"2026-08-02T18:14:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T18:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/556463\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T18:14:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T18:14:22","slug":"disability-support-cuts-criticised-as-child-poverty-report-highlights-growing-hardship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/556463\/","title":{"rendered":"Disability support cuts criticised as child poverty report highlights growing hardship"},"content":{"rendered":"

An advocate for children with disabilities says families are skipping food to pay for essential items.<\/p>\n

A Ministry of Social Development report<\/a> revealed that child poverty is getting worse<\/a> and that an estimated 210,600 children – roughly the population of Wellington City – were living in households below the poverty line.<\/p>\n

Official statistics suggest<\/a> that more than a quarter of disabled children live in poverty and that children in disabled households are 4.5 times as likely to be experiencing severe material hardship compared with children in non-disabled households.<\/p>\n

The head of the group, Children with Disability New Zealand, Glen McMillan, said the true number of disabled children living in poverty was likely much higher and that many poorer families feared asking for help because of potential discrimination.<\/p>\n

McMillan, who is himself disabled as a result of a childhood accident, said cuts to disability support were pushing vulnerable families deeper into poverty.<\/p>\n

“In a lot of cases, the support is absolutely needed. They don’t have a choice. If there’s no funding for support, then the funding has got to come from somewhere,” he said.<\/p>\n

“For example, a child may need nappies. They may be 12 years old, and they still need the nappies… Either they [families] give up the food, or they give up the hygiene, one or the other.”<\/p>\n

Many disabled children were on special diets that added to the financial burden, he said.<\/p>\n

“They may not be able to digest or eat normal food. So, they’re on a diet. That diet might cost $90 a week, and they might get a subsidy. If you take away $45 of that subsidy, then it’s still going to cost $95, $90 a week. So, the extra $45 will need to come out of the household income.”<\/p>\n

McMillan said many disabled people saw the Disability Support Services (DSS) Bill as a withdrawal of support<\/a>, and instead, wanted the benefit abatement rate to be increased.<\/p>\n

“People that are on a benefit have an abatement rate. They can only earn so much before part of their benefit is removed. I think they [the government] need to increase the abatement rate to allow people to earn a little bit more because the cost of living is going up.”<\/p>\n

The Disability Issues Minister, Louise Upston, said one of the purposes of the DSS Bill was to make it\u202feasier\u202ffor disabled people to understand what support was available and to continue to improve support.<\/p>\n

“Without the DSS Bill, DSS policies – including funding policies – would remain operating without a legislative framework,” she said.<\/p>\n

Upston said the Bill did not change current eligibility and access settings, nor did it increase family responsibility.<\/p>\n

“It brings transparency to the current state of disability support services. People will continue\u202fto access support as they currently do, and all care and employment arrangements\u202fstay in place.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An advocate for children with disabilities says families are skipping food to pay for essential items. A Ministry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-556463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}