Written By: - Date published: 6:17 am, May 12th, 2012 - 58 comments
Seems as though Dicken’s Oliver character was an ungrateful little ingrate who actually had it pretty good, all things considered. Gruel has to beat left over savaloy water, no?
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, April 4th, 2012 - 86 comments
NZ milk production has apparently risen by 30% since 2005. And, according to sources used by frenz.co.nz, back in 2006 over 14 billion liters of milk and 1.2 billion kilograms of milk solids (were) being processed by dairy companies annually That’s a lot of milk and associated dairy to spread around some four and a …
Written By: - Date published: 12:34 pm, February 25th, 2012 - 36 comments
National’s man in NZ on Air, John Key’s electorate chairman Stephen McElrea, was terribly worried about New Zealanders seeing a documentary about child poverty before the election. Informative TV has no place being funded with the public purse in National’s New Zealand. But no such objection to $1.6 million for New Zealand’s Got Talent. It’s the perfect pap to distract the masses.
Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, February 23rd, 2012 - 131 comments
Since New Zealand skulled the neoliberal cool-aid, hospital admissions for infectious diseases, the diseases of poverty, increased 51% while dropping in the countries we should consider our peers. The working class life has gotten worse; our wages are lower, our jobs gone, and our families living in unhealthy houses owned by slum landlords.
Written By: - Date published: 5:57 pm, February 17th, 2012 - 39 comments
Paula Bennett, in her rush to action, has a Green Paper that intends to create a White Paper that may result in some legislation that she hopes will help “vulnerable children”. But, much as National have spurned attempts from other parties for a non-partisan action on child poverty and looking after our nation’s children, we …
Written By: - Date published: 12:56 pm, January 31st, 2012 - 89 comments
We’ve been told about how bad poverty is here, and how bad it is for our future by the excellent Inside New Zealand documentary – but will it take an outside view to wake us from our slumber?
If so then Christians Against Poverty‘s John Kirkby is willing to provide it for us.
Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, January 25th, 2012 - 93 comments
National is letting children go to school hungry to try to teach their parents a lesson. Every fool knows the basic requirement for learning is food in the tummy. No decent person would turn their back on a hungry child. But Mike Sabin wants 20 children in his electorate to starve pour encourager les autres. And Paula Bennett has just cut the money that was feeding them.
Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, January 19th, 2012 - 16 comments
Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, January 18th, 2012 - 92 comments
A new study confirms that growing up in poverty means you’ll likely be impoverished as an adult. With the negative consequences for the individual and society. The Nats’ low-wage, high unemployment policies create the poverty trap. Poverty is a design feature of the rightwing economy. Hypocritical and useless to demand their victims save themselves from poverty. Change the policies, fix the problem.
Written By: - Date published: 11:56 am, January 18th, 2012 - 101 comments
A good article in the Herald today, not letting National’s attempt at censorship of the issue of Child Poverty get in their way. It points to a lack of social mobility; where those who are poor don’t have equality of opportunity – let alone equity of outcome.
Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, January 18th, 2012 - 91 comments
National is quietly using its power to try to prevent programmes about important issues from being broadcast during election campaigns, after a documentary on childhood poverty upset them. When Key finally gets back from holiday, he’s got to explain why his party and government are trying to dictate what should be on TV during election campaigns.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, December 31st, 2011 - 140 comments
Scott at ImperatorFish has a look at the moral blame game that some use when violence is used against children. If people want to talk about a lack of values, they could start with the set of neoliberal values during the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s. We are still paying the price for the massive trauma caused to communities in the name of greed.
Written By: - Date published: 2:33 pm, December 15th, 2011 - 37 comments
Key is playing petty politics as usual on poverty. He should have accepted Shearer’s call for a cross party process and his offer of help on the new “ministerial poverty committee”.
Written By: - Date published: 9:33 pm, December 13th, 2011 - 81 comments
Phil O’Reilly’s article in today’s DomPost headed “The rich get richer but so do the poor ” is appalling. Responding to the OECD report on inequality, he is following in the footsteps of Alasdair Thompson. BusinessNZ are still dinosaur employers from the Victorian age.
Written By: - Date published: 1:20 pm, November 25th, 2011 - 9 comments
In the end its pretty simple for me. I’m asking you to vote for the Left this election, for 100,000 reasons.
Both Labour and The Greens have policies that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty.
Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, November 21st, 2011 - 37 comments
25K Kiwi kids get infections like rheumatic fever and scabies each year. Disease sthey haven’t seen in Sweden since the 70s.We treat our kids like an expense, not an investment. Then we wonder why we have unhealthy, uneducated, unskilled adults and our country gets left behind. We’re becoming a 3rd world country. It’s 3rd world thinking that’s getting us there.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, November 9th, 2011 - 123 comments
Nothing separates the political Right and Left like their attitude to welfare. The difference is very starkly highlighted in the recent policies from National and Labour. Which approach better serves the children of New Zealand? How much do we care?
Written By: - Date published: 7:42 am, November 8th, 2011 - 272 comments
Labour released its excellent children’s policy yesterday that will lift 150,000 children out of poverty and enhance families’ quality of life. The Right is wailing. Fuck ‘em. They’ve turned a blind eye while 32,000 more kids have fallen into poverty. Only a Labour-led government will have the policies for a truly brighter future for all Kiwis, especially our kids.
Written By: - Date published: 6:56 am, November 7th, 2011 - 46 comments
Sunday morning’s RNZ Insight program was an excellent examination of poverty in NZ. Labour’s policies were slowly reducing poverty. National’s are making it worse again. How much do we care?
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, October 6th, 2011 - 212 comments
The PM gets paid $400,000 a year. That’s $45 an hour whether he’s in Hawai’i, talking about his cat, or sleeping. His cleaner, Sosefina Masoe, gets $13.50 an hour. Key has rejected calls to lift the minimum wage for workers like her to $15 an hour. Instead, the Right’s attack dogs have been trained on Mascoe for daring to speak out.
Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, September 13th, 2011 - 70 comments
The Child Poverty Action Group has released yet another shaming report on child poverty in NZ. The Nats’ cuts to Working for Families are making matters worse. If the election doesn’t return a Labour government, then we’re going to have three more years of inaction punctuated by brief ritual hand-wringing over each new report.
Written By: - Date published: 1:19 pm, September 6th, 2011 - 63 comments
Once again recent headlines prompt me to ask if in 2008 we really chose a brighter future after all.
Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, August 27th, 2011 - 67 comments
Following the release of data by the Chief Coroner, suicide is once again getting some time in the headlines. Coincidentally, news from Christchurch supports the suggestion that stronger communities reduce suicide rates.
Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, August 15th, 2011 - 61 comments
A better than usual interview of John Key by Guyon Espiner on Sundays Q+A. On the plus side Espiner was raising some serious issues. On the minus he let Key get away with his usual lies and evasions.
Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, August 4th, 2011 - 23 comments
The Greens have launched their policy to get 100,000 kids out of poverty. It’ll cost just 0.3% of GDP. We have a moral duty to do what we can to eliminate child poverty. Labour made a start. WFF basically ended working poverty. But there’s the kids of beneficiaries. 270,000 kids below the poverty line while the elite live in mansions. Not good enough.
Written By: - Date published: 6:09 am, August 3rd, 2011 - 56 comments
A bad mistake by John Key in the House yesterday. Phil Goff asked him about the gap between rich and poor. Key cited a new report on falling inequality. But he should have read the report properly. It credits Labour policies for driving down poverty and inequality.
Written By: - Date published: 7:28 am, July 31st, 2011 - 48 comments
Many other countries have cleared beggars from the streets in advance of big international sporting events. Such a thing would never be needed in New Zealand though. Would it?
Written By: - Date published: 7:13 am, July 27th, 2011 - 180 comments
Making sure that children don’t go hungry is not the responsibility of charity, it is the responsibility of all of us, of society. It is the responsibility of government. The National government is failing.
Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, June 16th, 2011 - 16 comments
Green Party MP Metiria Turei asked some very important questions of John Key in Parliament today. Once again, the Prime Minister wasn’t there so Bill English tried to answer for the absentee leader. And what we learned is that National not only has no answer to poverty but also doesn’t really give a damn.
Written By: - Date published: 6:25 am, June 8th, 2011 - 69 comments
Is it just me, or is Sue Bradford working harder, and getting more media coverage than all of the Greens put together? She’s not just campaigning for beneficiaries. Yesterday Bradford came out with a strongly worded attack on the Greens’ positioning for the November election.
Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, May 24th, 2011 - 24 comments
Prominent scientist Sir Paul Callaghan thinks Kiwis are choosing to be poor. I reckon he’s right too, but we probably disagree about the reasons.
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