Poverty and inequality denial are no reasons for celebration

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FeedtheKids
The headlines proclaim that concerns about poverty and inequality is just a lot of left wing PC guilt squawking because according to cherry picked statistics there isn’t really any inequality or poverty.

Cue a rousing round of ‘we don’t know how lucky we are’ from media pundits and editorials.

How on earth NZs child poverty returning to pre financial meltdown levels is a cause for celebration is totally beyond me. 240 000 children in poverty isn’t a reason for a round of bubbles and backslapping.

The report shows the bottom half of income earners made no gains between 2009 and mid-2013 while the top half of earners incomes rose by an average of 5%, and despite a slight decrease in the total number of kids in poverty, the number in severe poverty has increased to its greatest level since 1990’s.

As Child Poverty Action Group Spokesperson, Assoc Prof Michael O’Brien says…

“We are living in an era of severely diminished expectations if a small reduction in child poverty, back to 2008/9 levels, is hailed as progress. These numbers have been around now for the best part of two decades and give no cause for celebration. In effect we have accepted a terrible situation, which affects the lives of one in four children, as the ‘new normal’. Clearly, child poverty is too big to be dealt with by the Government’s current piecemeal approach. This problem requires an immediate and substantive response from government, especially around income improvements for our most vulnerable citizens.”

…poverty and inequality denial are essential for National this election. The economy has been warped into a vehicle for corporate welfare and crony capitalism. Borrowing billions in tax cuts for the wealthiest NZers while quarter of a million children live in poverty is a truth the Government and their allies will not acknowledge. It’s the responsibility of voters to remind them.

10 COMMENTS

  1. I agree Bomber, though its actually 260,000 kids in poverty. The real scary revelations in the report are that the kids at the really hard end of poverty – the 40 and50 % below median level – are increasing, despite the so-called recovery.
    So they get slammed by the GFC, and left out of any natural bounce back as a result of a post GFC correction.
    These are the kids living in homes where more than half of incomes are spent on housing.
    These are the kids who are even worse off than they were before the GFC. I agree, there’s nothing to celebrate about getting back to the horrific levels of poverty we had in 2008/09 and there’s even less to celebrate for the thousands of kids who’ve fallen even further behind that.

  2. Yes Martyn, you are right.

    Why don’t we ask the children?
    There are lots of them living in poverty, and 280,000 living BELOW the poverty line.

    We could ask 280,000 children if they would like something to eat, and then feed them.
    We could ask the schools to tell us which children they have observed as fitting this criteria. We could ask the schools not to hassle the families for their school fees. The schools could indeed sponsor these children, and help to feed and clothe them, and the ministry of education could get off the backs of the schools in low income areas – these are the schools that need the most fianancial input.

    Lets feed these children breakfast, lunch, and afternoon tea at school, as this is where most of a childs life is spent at school.

    I dont really understand how a school, which is a collective body of educated people – being teachers – can just stand by knowing they have starving children in their midst.

    Come on teachers and school principals at public schools – stop turning your blind eyes – open them wide, and feed the children.

    NZ qualifies for overseas aide on this very serious issue – why dont we apply for some?

    Opinion.

    • Raglan Area School has breakfast foods available for the kids to eat in each classroom. It’s obvious to anyone who spends any time with children that hungry kids don’t learn well so I’m sure they’re not the only school to do this.

      • If the teachers and schools are (or want) to do something about it, then why is it so very hard for Christian charity groups to take a free pot of vege soup and a bread into a school and feed the children once a day or once a week? Why?

        Parents give their children into the hands of teacher for 7 hours, 5 days a week and generally are in contact with their children for more hours in a day than their parents – they do need to share in this responsibility.

        Opinion.

    • From everything I see and read it is teachers who are crying very loudly about this situation. I know of teachers who feed these children out of their own pockets. This is nota case of teachers and schools turninga blind eye, but those who do not see this day in day or who seem to refuse that regardless of the cause it is the children suffering the most. The result of a quarter of our children living like this will be evident to all in another ten years.

    • No. Just… No.

      Stop putting the responsibility of this nation wide problem on the shoulders of overworked and stressed teachers.

      We go into the classroom to teach, passionately, about our subjects. We don’t go into a classroom to suddenly become parents to 30+ (or in the case of secondary teachers) 180+ kids.

      That is not to say that teachers don’t care, they do, and they care a hellava lot! They see hunger and they do feed kids. Every day.

      Lets have a community of people who care about kids. Lets have a government who cares more about reducing poverty than keeping inflation down. Lets actually develop an economy which can cope with zero growth, and heres a REALLY radical idea, aim for full employment too!

  3. Gandhi wrote: “Poverty is the worst form of violence.” So I guess that fact that we tolerate 260,000 children in poverty is about par with our appalling domestic violence statistics. Shameful and shame on the government for their complacency towards both

  4. The scariest thing about child poverty in New Zealand is how the right are trying to turn it into an institution, not an abheration. By doing this they can shrug their shoulders and just say “c’est la vie” and treat it as something of a normal state of affairs. Are we going to let these rich blue pricks, aided by their MSM toadies, get away with such an outrage?

  5. Like Mike I too am scared about the ‘normality’ child poverty is becoming. I see the ‘ho hum’ attitudes of the ‘haves’. Its horrid. This is my Facebook comment on Susan St John’s Herald article – “And the powers that be wonder why so many don’t bother to vote. Many folk were brought up under the misguided expectation that those we voted for were the LEADERS of our community, that they represented EVERYONE in their electorate. So as well as looking after the interest being earned on company shares and high rents by increasing profits through economic fiddling, our ‘leaders’ should also be looking after the interests of those whose few dollars are being sucked out of them by those landlords, essential service suppliers, supermarkets and companies charging for paper invoices because those poor suckers don’t have the wherewithall or ability to go online. Things are getting more shameful by the day”

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