The latest child poverty stats are out and nothing is changing…
Child poverty: Rising housing costs punish children as more kids in ‘material hardship’
Rising rents and mortgages are helping to push children below the poverty line as the Government’s welfare efforts are yet to make a significant difference.
The latest child poverty numbers show a slight reduction in the number of children living below most poverty thresholds.
But there has been an increase in material hardship, with 4100 more children living without such items as two good pairs of shoes, and fresh fruit or vegetables in the home.
…there are 3 reasons why the Politics of Kindness is failing children in poverty.
Legacy – NZ never recovered from Ruth Richardson’s Mother of all Budgets that slashed benefits and caused the entrenched poverty we live with now. Not many NZers know this, but the cruel logic Ruth Richardson applied was they worked out the minimum calorie requirements of an adult and set the benefit just below those requirements. The belief was that if you made beneficiaries hungry, that would incentivise them to go to and get a job.
We’ve never recovered from this spite as social policy decision and we live with that legacy today.
Cultural – The 36 year neoliberal experiment in NZ had to impact everything. Politics, economy and most importantly cultural. if you succeed, it is TOTALLY your own to use as you wish, but if you fail, well that’s your problem and the State doesn’t need to care for your poor choices. In practice the de-unionised working classes have had pittance instead of real wage growth so they look at the welfare payment with envy and this envy is manipulated by the Right into voting resentment.
Political – The neoliberal welfare agencies are there to terrify and destroy the vulnerable who are unlucky enough to need assistance. Punitive sanctions, debt loading and sadists staffing the offices of misery all combine to ensure there is enough fear to push the vulnerable away. Labour had no idea they had won the 2017 election and so had no 100 day plan in place to reform the toxic cultures inside the public service with a mass purge.
Labour’s cowardice to anger the Public Service unions is their main reason why their policy is gong no where. After a decade under National, these departments are riddled with right wing sadists who get glee out of denying the vulnerable.
Because Labour failed to purge, the same toxic neoliberal cultures exist and that is the major reason why no policy Labour are promoting is gaining any traction because the toxic neoliberal cultures just have to wait this Government out and go right back to the damage they cause under National.
If and it is a big if, IF Labour get a second term, purging those toxic cultures must be a priority or all they will do for another 3 years is pay lip service and spin to explain why poverty isn’t being reduced.
Spot on post.
Another sad example; Forest industry workers are being displaced due to fall out Internationally over ‘the virus’. Working class people that live week to week and need some help. Mr Robertson says the 13 week stand down for “Job Seeker Allowance” will not be shifted or waived. Labour is keener on sucking up to finance capital and appeasing middle class welfare recipients–e.g. neo rentiers than growing the working class vote. Feed the Forest workers and others fer crissakes–when there is a downpour or a few days without rain the dollars soon get allocated to the farming community!
The Govt. could drop all beneficiary stand downs, abatements and sanctions right now–but they will not do so for the reasons Martyn outlines. In a dog eat dog society there must be winners and losers–especially losers. If labour does not start considering NZ’s generational working poor and implementing the Welfare Working Group recommendations they will be gone by the end of 2020 and a rare chance for transformation lost for the sake of pandering to middle class prejudice and beneficiary rage.
4) The labour government is a marketing exercise: “ let’s do this”, “know us by our deeds”, “ the politics of kindness”
Catchy and utterly devoid of action. A boardroom with no company to run.
4) The labour government is a marketing exercise: “ let’s do this”, “know us by our deeds”, “ the politics of kindness”
Catchy and utterly devoid of action. A boardroom with no company to run.
Twice because it’s true 🙂
It’s only going to get worse. You can’t have hundreds of thousands of additional people coming into a country on mostly low paid jobs or with zero incomes adding up to millions within a decade and think that will not take up housing and infrastructure. Where the hell do the woke think they live and obviously displacement is going to continue unless people still believe in magical thinking of the kiwi build and transitional housing placing…
What idiot has immigration policy to import in future beneficiaries and export profits!
Doh, NZ the land of rampant Neoliberals in Labour and National!
Wasnt it one of Winston’s bottom lines to drastically cut immigration? Whatever happened to that…
2017——————-Labour Campaign slogan ” LETS DO THIS ! ”
2020 —————–New Labour Campaign slogan ” LETS TALK ABOUT THIS .”
” LETS TALK ABOUT THIS.AGAIN ”
” LETS KEEP TALKING ”
” LETS NEVER STOP TALKING ”
Take your pick .Transformational my arse .
We had the smiling assassin run the show, now we have the ‘kind’ operator show her true face.
Easy credit from the banks has fuelled rising house prices. Totally enabled by the government. Plus fabricated land prices by council limiting the supply. Plus fomo. I’d say this is the most significant contributor to poverty. It’s not that the aren’t enough houses, there aren’t enough affordable houses to rent and buy.
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