Auckland Action Against Poverty (AAAP) are clear today’s increase of $20 to core benefits is not enough for people to be recognised for their dignity or value they are in our communities. The ideology the government continues to perpetuate in keeping people and families trapped in poverty is racist, and we need to draw on Indigenous values in the way we look after each other.
“Poverty is a factor that drives inequities across our whole system and once we address this with systemic change we’ll see how people, families and communities can thrive” says AAAP Coordinator Brooke Pao Stanley
This $20 increase and the second increase coming in next year isn’t going to protect people and families and communities from Covid. It doesn’t begin to address the ongoing impacts and trauma due to colonisation in Aotearoa NZ. It’s not even close to housing as a human right.
This doesn’t give people the agency to live full and free lives. It won’t help address the ongoing issues connected to intergenerational poverty.
Housing, food, and security are basic human rights for existing. We saw the government change the rules overnight during Covid, and they can do it again to address the poverty and housing crisis in our country.
We have been campaigning for Liveable Incomes For All and we’re not going to compromise on that. Too much is at stake for us and the communities we serve and we’ll continue to fight for what we believe are our birthrights.
We won’t let up until our people, families and communities are given what they’re owed – liveable incomes, individualised benefits, removal of sanctions from the welfare system, and universal essential services because what we need in order to thrive are our birthrights.
In some parts of new Zealand having 80% of the minimum wage (that’s where I would index benefit rates to, the only way to amend that I would write in a 75% majority so it must be brought in on a 75% majority the only way to do that I believe is The Greens or Mana or The Maori Party goes with National to force the issue I digrees) paid out as the minimum benefit rate is to much and in places like north shore is not enough so there needs to be supplementary befits the accommodation supplement and so on.
Only with the current benefit rate settings we have supplementary benefits doing the job of benefit rates and a bunch of unemployed economics preffesors wanting to boost funding to this crazy WINZ scheme we’ve got. It’s just crazy.
No the way I would pay for benefit rates at 80% of the minimum wage is try and create a new class of entrepreneur, double higher education spots with atleast a 90% pass rate in the traditional sense not thus new feelings bullshit, 90% pass in math and English, make them work part-time. Double energy harvesting to plug these knew graduates into the possibilities of the internet and fuck with the average wealth per capita so it reads an average of $82k even though some new highnetworth individuals will be artificially inflating the average and progressively raise benefits rates to 60% of the minimum wage and pay it out to all new Zealanders no mater of circumstances, as a UBI. That’s what I would do. And I’d just make fun of those opposing my ideas as weak, and inferior.
Sam Mao. No! Capitalism is the enemy. More specifically, neoliberalism. Everything else is just tinkering.
The real issue is the Nationalisation program underway of Water, Water infrastructure, Oceans and Coastal shore environments as well as the commodification of all the above.
$20 isn’t $20 to a beneficiary living in a motel or in private accommodation. Your just the middleman to transfer the cash to the landlord as you’re just a part of the rentier equation.
The current level of incomes v benefits is about 33% of the average wage. That’s it.
Then you have to go into debt to find money to pay the bills after all the deductions have been made.
Remember there’s 11.2% Unemployed. Not the BS 4.8%
You can’t take capitalism out of science just as no one can take Kim Jun un or what ever his name is out of a North Korean Movie.
And did I say borrow Mr big big mana man???
So 97% of the planets biomass is humans andbits domesticated animals. You take away capitalism and this planet will die. Do you honestly believe that if we took away capitalism and keant on 3% of the natural world to to recover to a state where humans can be more like woman would work??? That shits just crazy.
Literally the only way of replacing capitalism with something else, who the fuck knows what is to replace the US dollar as world reserve currency and the only commodity on the markets there’s only one, bitcoin.
Now that bitcoin is permanently stuck above $20k per token it is out of reach of the poor and disadvantaged until those with bitcoin can survive the onslaught from the unemployed proffesors of economics community to zip it once we’ve relegated the super power status to the history books.
You know you’re funny sam. 🙂
Seriously I get that a lot and when I want clarification in a face to face debate they’re like nah. Not you it’s just that no one wants to defend there position.
Like if trans rights are human rights then let’s have it out one on one – instant ban.
So cringe.
You are funny sam!
No I checked my WINZ dashboard, I get a weekly increase of $8 not $20 for jobseeker, paid on the 7th July not the 1st. Grant Robertson gets paid 500 times this increase every week to make wisecracks in parliament
The payment on the 7th covers the period from he 1st to the 7th so it does start on the first. Not that that helps but it is factually correct. If you are only getting $8 i would guess that some is being taken back as rent for a state house and changes to your extra entitlements because of the increase which is shameful in my opinion.
This rise is a clever move by this government to keep those that rely on the state for their income. Give a little and say that they will get more if Labour are returned to power .
I believe the next generation after me should have a better deal thanwhat I did.
Backwards looking moronic based layered changes prevents innovation on layers above it.
This is why the government has so many bad examples of engineering.
Another example of a political party way out of its depth.
Grant Robinson paid 500 times this increase every week to make wisecracks in Parliament?
Loved that. Thanks Jody you’ve made my day.
So.. Nobody has asked the question… Why is this rise being staggered the way it is? $20 now, with the next rise(April fools day) taking benefit levels to what was recommended as a livable minimum… Instead of time wasting,pointless carping about nothing much, shouldn’t the real question be why the two stage lift? By the time April 2022 comes around, is the level considered an adequate minimum now still going to be enough? Is this just a way of avoiding giving a greater lift at the end of the tax year 2022? maybe the silly comments about Grant getting paid simply to make wisecracks in parliament, is a symptom of how little forensic examination of the agenda behind the shape of the changes, is taking place out in the community…
When all said and done, the debating chamber is just that.. A place where debate happens.. it isn’t where the real work goes on, and Grant throwing the more ridiculous behavior, and utterances coming from the nats lately do need highlighting, if only to try to remind people of why the tories needed removing so badly.. To assert that one is getting paid to do no more than put a blowtorch to the feet of the bastards that created the shemozzle that NZ had become, utterly misses the point..
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