“Well at least it’s a start”, has been the comment from those NZers who still want to publicly support John Key’s crumbs for children living in Poverty.
No, no it is not. With 270 000 children living in poverty and 80 000 of them going to school hungry every week. No, it is not much of a start.
A start would be to get Fonterra to pay their workers top dollar whilst their product is fetching top dollar while making domestic milk cheaper as recognition for allowing Fonterra to be a monopoly who does the most pollution to our waterways.
A start would be forcing a fundamentalist Christian tax dodger like Sanitarium to do more than provide some west-bix to help counter the bad publicity their charity status provides them with.
A start would have been recognizing those children going hungry live in poverty and come from a demographic that is likely to make them prone being lactose intolerant and allergic to wheat.
A start would have been acknowledging that when 70% of NZers wanted to feed the kids, it was more than a couple of weet-bix and some milk.
A start would have been having the Government step up
A start wouldn’t be $9.5m over 5 years, it would be the $40m National gave private education.
A start would have been appreciating that less than $2m per year for milk and west-bix in some schools can’t counter the $1billion each year National are trying to clawback out of welfare from beneficiaries.
A start would be to reverse the tax cuts for the wealthiest NZers that have cost over $2billion.
And finally, a start would have been allowing MANAs Feed the Kids Bill go to first reading.
So don’t let anyone tell you that this is ‘a start’. It bloody well isn’t. It’s a pittance! Doing nothing would actually have been better because at least that way the pressure to do something would still rest on the Government.
If we accept that children are hungry, if we accept they will face learning difficulties if they are hungry, if we accept that they need a breakfast – then what about lunch? This is just weet-bix and milk for breakfast – what do they have for lunch? If everything is true for breakfast, it must also be true for lunch as well.
‘Let them eat Weet-Bix’ isn’t a child poverty solution Mr Key. If less than $2m per year is the best we can do, our best isn’t anywhere near good enough.
Hear! Hear!
They cast scraps from the table and expect the polite grovelling of the poor. The poor react with fury! Why? Because they deserve more than scraps, the cry is raised, “Why are we not seated at the table!”
Such scraps are a bribe to cast away our democratic right to equality.
How about tackling one of the major causes of poverty -control of western society by bankers who decide (by way of interest rates and their fractional reserve banking Ponzi scheme) who can afford housing and who can afford food?
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