Covid kindness turns ‘wealth grab’

At first we showed our caring side, but then the selfishness kicked in, says the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner. Melanie Carroll reports.

New Zealand had the chance to become a more equal country after the Covid-19 lockdown but we blew it, says Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Saunoamaali’i Dr Karanina Sumeo.

The coronavirus pandemic was in some ways a triumph for New Zealanders – banding together regardless of race, gender or postcode for the greater good – but it has turned into tragedy as a wealth grab widens the gap between rich and poor, she said.

‘‘I think we all acted as a nation, and it was beautiful to see that.

‘‘After everyone chipping in, recognising how valuable our caregivers are, how valuable our supermarket workers are, just like that we switched, and we need our leaders to pay attention to that,’’ she said.

‘‘It’s almost like there’s a wealth grab going on, all within a short span of time from everyone caring for each other to almost, ‘now I want to get the most I can for myself’. It’s tragic.’’

For homeowners, the hot housing market was ‘‘like

Christmas come early, and it’s going to be Christmas for at least another year’’.

‘‘People who own wealth, their wealth might trickle down to their children, but for other people there’s nothing to trickle down apart from suffering and disadvantage.’’

With the world turned upside down, the commissioner was trying to keep her hopes for 2021 contained but eliminating child poverty would be high on her wish list, she said.

Also on her wish list would be another look at a capital gains tax, revisiting the Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations, and the country taking seriously the ethnic pay gap.

The year started with the first, slight, improvement in child poverty figures since Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern set the government target to reduce the hundreds of thousands of children living in serious hardship.

‘‘Then of course Covid hit. It’s really scary to think in terms of what the real [child poverty] numbers would be like now,’’ said Sumeo.

‘‘I really like the idea of looking at eliminating child poverty as our collective measure of ultimate success and prosperity.’’

New Zealand has so far avoided the carnage that had been expected on the labour market. However, a sharp rise in the underutilisation rate, which measures people who are employed and want more hours, as well as the unemployed, was worrying.

‘‘That to me is probably the more telling figure compared to looking at the unemployment figures,’’ she said.

‘‘Clearly there are lots of families that are scraping by still, so from an inequality perspective that’s really huge. I don’t know we talk enough about the underutilisation rate.’’

The underutilisation rate told the story of people working two or three jobs in order to survive, let alone afford to buy a house.

Young people and women, who often worked casual hours around childcare, took an income hit after the Covid-19 lockdown. Not all regions were affected equally, either, with areas such as Northland and Gisborne experiencing a higher unemployment rate than much of the rest of the country.

It was important to now build jobs that provided decent pay and secure work, she said.

‘‘I know we’ve got all those infrastructure programmes, and free apprenticeships, and that’s wonderful, but we really need to see what the figures are in terms of how many are fulltime, how many of those apprenticeships are going to women, and looking at the different regions.’’

The aftermath of the Covid-19 lockdown had been a chance to improve society in terms of equality, she said, and the country blew it.

‘‘We all talked about the recovery being the recovery for everyone. Well, that’s not happening now and unless there’s some significant intervention, we’re moving into a more unequal New Zealand, and that’s not the New Zealand we want.

‘‘We made that decision during Covid to pay people who had lost their jobs a different rate to those people who were already on the benefit. It’s kind of like we had this moment in time, we went back to who’s worthy and who isn’t worthy.

‘‘We’ve got to somehow get rid of that, we’ve got to somehow move on from that past thinking to considering every person to be equally worthy of life and of dignity.’’

The passing of the Equal Pay Amendment Act in July was a milestone, she said, but it was another missed opportunity because it failed to include wage discrimination beyond gender.

‘‘If the Equal Pay Amendment Act was equal pay generally then I would be happy, so we could look at making sure there’s no wage discrimination based on religion, based on gender, generally.

‘‘I think that would make that piece of legislation complete. At the moment the primary inequities it’s looking to address is on sex and gender, and that’s not enough,’’ Sumeo said.

‘‘We all talked about the recovery being the recovery for everyone. Well, that’s not happening now.’’ Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Saunoamaali’i Dr Karanina Sumeo