Poverty report highlights why Labour’s Neokindness isn’t enough

ByMartyn Bradbury

Poverty burden for children increases in first year of COVID-19 due to Government neglect – Child Poverty Action Group

Poverty, inequity, homelessness, and food insecurity have increased for New Zealand children throughout the first year of COVID-19, partially due to Government neglect, the latest Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) report says.

CPAG is an independent charity that works to eliminate child poverty in New Zealand through research, education, and advocacy.

Its report, called The first year of COVID-19: Initial outcomes of our collective care for low-income children in Aotearoa New Zealand, was released on Tuesday and outlines the impacts low-income children faced during the first year of the pandemic.

New modelling in the report shows young Māori and Pacific children were about 2.5 to three times more likely than Pākehā children to have entered poverty in the 12 months after the start of the lockdown last year. Also, changes in youth homelessness and chronic absences for low-income students were worse for Māori and Pacific people than for Pākehā.

Labour’s Neokindness is doing very little for the poorest amongst us.

Take last weeks supposed $20 per week benefit rise that wasn’t, over half of beneficiaries didn’t in fact get the $20 promised!

Majority of beneficiaries won’t be $20 better off despite Budget boost

In May’s Budget, the Government announced it would lift all main benefits by $20 a week on July 1 in order to help vulnerable New Zealanders put food on the table and pay their power bills.

But modelling from the Ministry of Social Development for Budget 2021 shows that 193,000 individuals and families are estimated to receive less than $20 per week because the additional financial assistance they receive for accommodation or other costs will fall as a result of their main benefit rising.

It is estimated 178,000 people will receive an increase of $20 or a little bit more.

You can’t promise $20 knowing that less than half would actually get it!

MSD have seen this increase as a way to make revenue by clawing it back from beneficiaries, this money is for the poorest, it’s not so fucking Wellington bureaucrats can build themselves a new glass palace in Wellington!

I’m getting a tad sick to death of listening to this Government tell us with straight faces that lifting 30 000 kids out of poverty is somehow a meaningful response to the poverty crisis.

It is not.

Look, even if, and I mean IF, they actually do lift 30 000 kids out of poverty (and I say IF because we saw how their promises of jobs from the Provincial Growth Fund were a joke) so even IF they lift 30 000 kids out of poverty, that still leaves a staggering 190,000 children in poverty!!!

You can’t boast about saving 30 000 kids while leaving 190 000 behind and still ask for a pat on the back!

This isn’t leadership, it’s capitulation. These new figures make the meaninglessness of Government Policy look even more pathetic!

If only we could put in as much effort  lifting children out of poverty as we do on middle class tax breaks for electric cars, a billion dollar bike lane and hate speech legislation.

We hate beneficiaries so much that a crumb is sold as a mountain.

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26 Comments

  1. One of my flatmates is on a benefit for health reasons. From the latest $20 “boost” she actually receives $14 due to clawbacks. From the $25 “boost” last year she got $6.

    1. “If we rank all MPs by the value of their property interests, National MPs take the top 14 spots, and none of the bottom 30. Despite making up a quarter of Parliament, their collective property wealth is worth more than the other parties combined.”

      And the muppets believe National are the saviors of housing. THEY WERE THE CAUSE!!!

  6. Yet again, the elephant in the room is housing. Now more like a herd of mammoths. The foundation to all the problems, our Labour government are too scared or too witless to take on.

    I mean what is it with this infuriating government that tinkering, to the point of actually not doing anything for anything, is seen as the best option? It seems the only mechanism Labour has the courage to use. And yet time and time again it fails in all its objectives and from the PM down, they just cannot see it.

    The list is building where the stated policy or objective is never met. It’s now getting beyond embarrassing.

    Someone with connections with the Labour Party must know the answer here. Why?

  9. “If we rank all MPs by the value of their property interests, National MPs take the top 14 spots, and none of the bottom 30. Despite making up a quarter of Parliament, their collective property wealth is worth more than the other parties combined.”

    And the muppets believe National are the saviors of housing. THEY WERE THE CAUSE!!!

    1. The muppets, like myself, knew National were greedy and anti poor. Thats why us muppets voted for Jacinda Ardern who has since turned out even worse than National in regards to rampant house price increases, rampant homelessness, rampant child poverty, rampant increases in rents, rampant increases in housing suppliments, rampant increases in the rich asset owners wealth. We voted for a change and got National on steroids. Should we feel happy about that?… or perhaps you own a house and you are doing fine…. that is the problem with kiwis….. sell outs.

      1. I owned twice, once in 1990 and a second time in 2001. When we sold in 2005 with the arrival of a second child we made a $7000 profit of which $5000 went to the real estate and $1000 to the lawyer. We rented with the belief that we could save enough in 5 years for a deposit. Of course National became government in 2009 and the damage continued up until the point LVR’s were implemented. Now we have next to no chance of owning. So no I don’t come from an “I’m alright jack” background unlike many of the neoliberalism group on steroids. The muppets who wish to return to a party , whose ministers own the most property of all ministers( just think about that for a.moment) will certainly not return for the better.

  11. Between 2010 and 2017 under John Key my house value increased 200% (30% per year), more than my salary in that period. The greedy speculators were making a mint – putting houses back on market within a week – obviously leading to the rock star comment from Keys mate. He made me a multi-Millionaire. At the same time I saw the streets of Auckland fill up with the homeless. The homeless are now less conspicuous and my property may have increased only 25% since 2017 (6% per year). The right-wing dont care about the poor, unemployed, homeless, Maori, PI’s, and other disadvantaged – no votes or $$$ in it. National and Act aren’t up to governing – hopeless useless friends of the speculators and other tricksters.
    Once again Ashley and Jacinda have stuck to their plans in spite of the unprecedented pandemic and so far have been right. Look at the carnage and covid raging around the world while we are operating as usual. Remember the Tory media fools promoting Sweden, Taiwan, Australia, Singapore, etc. Thank god i’m living in my ancestral lands in Aotearoa.

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