NZ needs immediate plan to banish poverty
It’s not until you’ve experienced the fast fall into hardship that you realise how tough some whānau are doing it. When the cupboards get thin on groceries because a roof over your head is first priority. When gas is too expensive to take the tamariki to kura, or medications are too expensive and so the oranga of your whānau deteriorates.
Don’t fool yourself it can never happen to you; unexpected job loss, big client falls over, or supermarket checkouts are replaced by selfservice. Just like that, whānau are finding themselves on the brink of financial and social collapse.
Whānau move in to help distribute the expenses, leading to overcrowding. Some work two or more jobs to alleviate the blow. But this only leads to overcrowding, and again jeopardising health, education and wellbeing to financially survive.
Tomorrow, the Government announces its second Budget in this parliamentary term. It’s easy to kōrero about all Labour promised and didn’t deliver. Remind people of the empathy that was expressed at the beginning of this Government’s tenure. The promises of transformation, the multitude of experts’ recommendations, some partly adopted, most ignored.
Similarly, I could raise National’s reference to “bottom feeders” and not wanting to address poverty at the cost of hardworking Kiwis whose wallets are stretched and the wealthy who want to turn a blind eye and get on with it.
Covid was a harsh reminder of those who fared the best. The world’s 10 richest men had fortunes doubling from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. For perspective, that’s $15,000 per second.
Truth is, there are so many experiencing so much hardship in this country that we need to get on with it and stop politicking at their expense. This year’s Budget needs to be about providing immediate investment to implement a plan.
During the March 2022 quarter, 647,571 hardship assistance grants were paid to the value of $239 million. The largest hardship grant by dollar value in the history of this nation. The biggest contributors to that sum, food and an emergency roof over people’s heads.
And that’s where this Budget needs to start.
Address the growing hardship
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Email editor@northern advocate.co.nz to have your say. Responses may be published. from the cost of living. The cost of living crisis is the single and biggest issue hitting whānau at this time.
Recent statistics show that a quarter of tamariki Māori live in households which frequently run out of food on a weekly basis. And while food in some schools around the country is helping, what are we doing to empower whānau and equip them with their own ability to put kai on the table and in lunchboxes?
In a recent Reid Research poll, 75 per cent of Aotearoa agreed with our calls to remove GST from food. The critics have been arguing that it would be too hard to implement and again turn a blind eye despite a solution to benefit everyone.
The second thing needed is for the Government to stop the duopoly between the big two supermarket chains. We would resource and force the competition commission to break up monopolies and duopolies and their control over the cost at the checkout. Ensuring suppliers of fruit and vege don’t get these losses passed on to create a more price equitable solution.
We also must address housing. The housing register as at March 2022, sits at 26,868, of which 51 per cent are Māori. This has grown by 21,000 since Labour took office in 2017, when a then-incumbent Prime Minister made it a priority to address poverty.
Thirty-four per cent of children live in unaffordable housing where more than 30 per cent of income is spent on rent. That’s 29 per cent of Māori tamariki.
But keep in mind that these solutions are most often better delivered by our own for our own. Devolving not just funds but also design. Surely after the Covid response, Māori have shown what can be achieved.
This Budget needs more than dollars. It needs to show we have the capacity within the bureaucracy that is government to ensure the pain our whānau feel is no longer endured. With only 47 per cent of Māori students regularly attending school we have a Government that is being transformative in all the wrong ways.
When we are well, we can learn. When we learn we can earn.
I will fight to ensure future Budgets deliver for Māori and honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That Budgets progress us towards our mana motuhake and enable us to live our best lives.
3
4
Truth is, there are so many experiencing so much hardship in this country that we need to get on with it and stop politicking at their expense.
5
History 1536
Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, is beheaded after being convicted of adultery.
A mysterious darkness envelopes New England and part of Canada in the early afternoon.
Explorer Thomas Brunner, accompanied by guide Kehu (Ngāti Tūmatakōkiri ) and Charles Heaphy reach Māwhera pā at Greymouth.
Ten people are killed in a gun battle between coalminers and private security guards hired to evict them for joining a union in West Virginia.
English Cardinal John Fisher and statesman Thomas More, who were executed by Henry VIII, are canonised as saints by Pope Pius XI.
In an address to US Congress, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pledges his country’s full support in the fight against Japan.
Film star Marilyn Monroe sings Happy Birthday to You to US President John F Kennedy during a Democratic fundraiser at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
The Soviet Union ratifies a treaty with the US and Britain, banning nuclear and other weapons from outer space.
Cabin crew foil the hijacking of an Air NZ Boeing 747 at Nadi airport, Fiji, by striking the hijacker on the head with a whisky bottle.
Britain’s Prince Harry weds US TV star Meghan Markle.
1780 1846 1920 1935 1943 1962 1967 1987 2018 Birthdays
● Actor James Fox is 83
● Rock singercomposer Pete Townshend (The
Who) is 77
● Singer-actor Grace Jones is 71
● Actor Steven Ford is 66
● Actor Polly Walker is 56
Quiz Answers
1. CODA 2. Pizza
4. Greg 5. Ka pai.
Complaints 3.
Arctic Monkeys
This newspaper is subject to the NZ Media Council. First email a complaint to editor@ northernadvocate.co.nz. If not satisfied, go to mediacouncil.org.nz.