You would have to be particularly obtuse or deeply cynical, or both, to claim as Minister Upston does that you lower child poverty by growing the economy and giving tax cuts.

Helloooo, anyone home?

The $3 billion required to keep to the previous Government’s targets on child poverty reduction is done away with in favour of giving landlords $2.9 billion.

So you make wealthy people more wealthy and this will magically lift tens of thousands of children out of poverty.

The tragedy for all of us is that this applied lunacy and cruelty in respect of child poverty is just yet another example of the Government’s worryingly weird decision-making.

Bruce Holm