The single best thing the government could do to combat child poverty is to index child benefits to wages and prices, the Children's Commissioner says.
Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
The government is expected to release a families package which may include changes to benefits next week.
Currently only the superannuation benefit is tied to the inflation rate.
The Commissioner, Judge Andrew Becroft, said he had talked to the government about the indexing of benefits.
He told Newshub's The Nation he hoped there would be changes.
"We have to get off the system we've used at the moment of one off single initiatives every six or seven years where we see an uptake, then a spike down and then up again. We've got to have parity I think and relativity, we can't leave benefits just to one side."
Judge Becroft said he would like to see draft legislation passed early next year.