‘Courageous’ policy call to Government
WELLINGTON: The Covid19 pandemic could exacerbate ‘‘unacceptable’’ levels of poverty and inequity in New Zealand, the Salvation Army has warned.
In its latest State of the Nation report, the Salvation Army said the ‘‘rapid increase’’ in 2020 of the number of children living in benefitdependent households — up by 23,000 — is a sign child poverty rates may not decline but increase.
Official statistics released last year, for the year ended June 2019, showed some improvement in child poverty rates across seven of the nine measures.
However, Stats NZ said at the time the changes were not statistically significant.
While new figures are due to be released next week, for the year ended June 2020, the Salvation Army said they would not show the full impact of the pandemic — and those statistics would only be released in 2022.
‘‘Rising unemployment and the corresponding rising number of people relying on government income support mean increasing poverty and inequality seem likely without further changes,’’ the report said.
‘‘The changes made to income support and welfare policy to date do not seem sufficient to protect those losing employment from poverty, or shift inequalities existing before the Covid19 pandemic, or be enough to overcome the further pressures accompanying the Covid19 crisis, particularly rising housing costs and higher unemployment.’’
The Salvation Army also pointed to the ‘‘enormous increase’’ in the number of food parcels it had handed out last year — a sign that many households were only just managing to get by and still needed assistance keeping fed.
It said it distributed more than 113,000 parcels across the country — nearly twice the number handed out in 2019.
More than 37,000 food parcels were distributed in the eight weeks covering the national Alert Level 3 and 4 lockdowns.
Salvation Army lawyer and policy analyst Ronji Tanielu urged the Government to do more to help those who had been plunged into hardship by the pandemic.
‘‘What we do call on the Government to do is really ask them, urge them and challenge them to take some meaningful, courageous, brave policy action,’’ Mr Tanielu said.
‘‘They have the mandate to do it, they’ve got the power to do it, but we just don’t see that often enough.’’
The Salvation Army said while some progress had been made reducing Maori inequalities, in terms of income disparity and unemployment, other longstanding disparities are not improving, or are worsening, especially imprisonment rates and numbers of people joining the social housing register.
Housing continued to present concerns, and numbers were soaring of people on the social housing waiting list, in transitional housing, and those receiving emergency housing grants. — RNZ
❛ What we do call on the Government to do is really ask them, urge them and challenge them to take some
meaningful, courageous, brave
policy action