If Bronagh Key is a solo mum then I’m an Iraqi refugee

Bronagh Key has a husband who is home a couple of nights a week, who brings in a good income, who loves her and supports her, who goes shopping for tea pots and oven mitts with her in the weekend, who attends their kids sports matches and events, and who goes on family holidays with her and the kids. Apparently that’s what John Key thinks is the life of a solo mum.

Now I’m not saying that her life is as easy as it would be if he wasn’t PM, but it is nothing like the life of a solo mother. That Key thinks it’s a sensible comparison says a lot about the rose tinted world he lives in, and how disconnected he is from the real lives of real New Zealanders.

We live in a country where thousands of children will go to school hungry tomorrow, where nutrient deficiencies affect the health of one in ten children in our largest city, where poor overcrowded housing is linked to outbreaks of TB amongst children, and where about quarter of a million children live in households below the income poverty line. National has done nothing for those children and it has done nothing for the thousands of actual solo parents in New Zealand.

In the midst of the noise about the cycleway, the jobs summit, the recession, the credit rating and the fortification of bread the poor have been forgotten again as National, Labour and the media talk up the difficulties of the middle class.

So next time John Key waxes lyrical about the need to “balance the demands and requirements of all New Zealanders” it might be worth asking if he’s actually aware that there are poor New Zealanders, or perhaps we should just borrow Bronagh Dougan’s response to John Key’s aspirations:

“Whatever”


If you’re interested in more detail about our child poverty problem I recommend these reports by the Children’s Commissioner and the Child Poverty Action Group.

6 thoughts on “If Bronagh Key is a solo mum then I’m an Iraqi refugee

  1. If someone could pop round to my house to help me pick my jaw up off the floor that would be really nice.

  2. Pingback: … and I am the Cheshire Cat « Ideologically Impure

  3. Pingback: Life as a solo mother sure ain’t what it’s cracked up to be « LudditeJourno

  4. Oh lighten up Anita. Clearly a throwaway line, probably reported out of context. I’m sure he didn’t actually mean that Bronagh’s live is similar to that of a solo mum, more that (probably) half the time she has to take care of the family without him around to help out physically.

    I prefer our public figures to have a sense of humour and some humanity. It is a nice change.

  5. JD,

    Ah, of course! As long as Key’s not intending it to be reported then it doesn’t tell us anything about what he thinks.

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