poverty

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Auckland: Stop Niki’s Eviction!

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, February 15th, 2017 - 82 comments

Time to take action against the destruction of communities and privatisation of social housing.

Is this the impossibility turning point?

Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, February 14th, 2017 - 49 comments

There’s a wonderful fiction still propelling the world that the 21st century will bring an ever-expanding arc of freedom and prosperity to the vast majority of humanity but the reality seems to be anything but.

Herald documentary: Under The Bridge

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, February 11th, 2017 - 9 comments

If you didn’t catch up with this in The Herald this week – Under The Bridge – you should take a look now. An excellent piece of long-form journalism.

Salvation Army report – NZ “Off the Track”

Written By: - Date published: 8:56 am, February 8th, 2017 - 61 comments

“The absence of any meaningful progress in reducing child poverty rates over the past decade—and the lack of interest by Government in using welfare and income support programmes to do so—points to wilful indifference toward the long-term personal and social impacts of this avoidable harm.”

Poverty and health

Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, February 4th, 2017 - 43 comments

Socioeconomic status is a major health risk factor. Not exactly a surprise is it.

Minimum wage increase doesn’t meet real costs (the CPI is broken)

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, January 25th, 2017 - 53 comments

Any increase in the minimum wage is better than nothing, but National’s increases have not kept pace with the real cost increases (notably housing) faced by low income earners. That is why we are seeing the rise of the working poor, and increases in homelessness and poverty.

Oxfam on world wealth inequality

Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, January 17th, 2017 - 94 comments

Guardian: “The world’s eight richest billionaires control the same wealth between them as the poorest half of the globe’s population, according to a charity warning of an ever-increasing and dangerous concentration of wealth.”

Oxfam on wealth inequality in NZ

Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, January 16th, 2017 - 36 comments

Oxfam’s report on wealth inequality in NZ has some staggering headline numbers.

If home is where the heart is, then…

Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, January 4th, 2017 - 188 comments

What have we become?

Donate to Auckland City Mission

Written By: - Date published: 6:55 am, December 20th, 2016 - 6 comments

Auckland City Mission is calling for donations to meet Christmas demand. You can donate here.

Govt response to poverty report will tell us all we need to know about Bill English

Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, December 13th, 2016 - 264 comments

The 2016 Child Poverty Monitor Technical Report is out today. As usual it paints a bleak picture. What will Bill English’s government do about poverty – evasions, words, or actions? Update: Bill fails.

Child abuse and poverty – still with us

Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, November 28th, 2016 - 33 comments

As topics like Trump and the quakes take the limelight, the slow tragedies unfolding in NZ carry on in the background.

I’m a Muslim, an Immigrant and I voted Trump

Written By: - Date published: 12:54 pm, November 14th, 2016 - 234 comments

Take a deep breath and transcend your fear.

Rheumatic fever – treat the cause

Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, November 8th, 2016 - 14 comments

Millions of dollars are being poured into reducing rheumatic fever in NZ. However rates of the disease in Auckland are at least double the target level – and rising.

Michael Moore: why blowing up the system and voting for Trump will feel good

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, October 28th, 2016 - 182 comments

Trump is the “human molotov cocktail” that many Americans have been waiting for.

Tax-cuts or… fixing Child Poverty

Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, October 25th, 2016 - 128 comments

Before National get too excited about tax cuts, perhaps they should sort out some of the more pressing issues in the society they govern – like all those kids in poverty.

Poverty is too difficult in Key’s New Zealand

Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, October 17th, 2016 - 47 comments

Key is out of touch. But not so out of touch that he doesn’t know about the poverty crisis in NZ. The denial and evasions are deliberate.

How difficult to measure poverty?

Written By: - Date published: 9:47 am, October 3rd, 2016 - 104 comments

Amazing lead story on RNZ – Easier to count rodents than kids in poverty, suggests Key. There are a number of good measures, any one of which would do, but the new Children’s Commissioner just wants to get past that debate and get onto doing stuff to reduce the numbers. A government that is all […]

Fortress NZ

Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, September 16th, 2016 - 120 comments

TS regular Tony Veitch has some practical ideas as to how we insulate NZ from the ravages of neoliberalism and climate change. Readers may agree with some, none or all of the suggestions. However, whichever way you look at it, the time for hand wringing is over. It’s time for action.

UNICEF call for action on NZ poverty

Written By: - Date published: 7:08 am, August 18th, 2016 - 165 comments

Once again this country under National is rightly shamed in the international media.

The housing crisis and the diseases of poverty

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, August 15th, 2016 - 122 comments

Rheumatic fever is on the rise again. It is likely that other diseases of poverty are also or will also increase as the housing crisis drags on under National.

Financial capital is crazy OP. Time to strip it back to basics.

Written By: - Date published: 12:08 pm, August 8th, 2016 - 72 comments

Financial capital is way over powered in our current political economic system. Every aspect of our lives has been financialised and securitised, from our homes to our educations. From our drinking water to our power supply.

Al Jazeera on NZ homeless – watch it and weep

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, August 6th, 2016 - 291 comments

Al Jazeera: Once a pioneer of the social welfare state, New Zealand now has over 40,000 people who are homeless, forced to live in their cars and in garages as a result of rapid house price and rent rises and a shortage of social housing. Al Jazeera … charts the country’s fall from and egalitarian society to one with deep divisions of wealth

Meth Fries Housing NZ’s Brains

Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, August 3rd, 2016 - 129 comments

Housing NZ has admitted that it is evicting tenants when only tiny trace amounts of meth are found on the property. It further admits that the testing regime is not fit for purpose. But, hey, they have the power to make people homeless and they’re not going to let fairness or common sense get in the way of their moral panic.

When did the War on Drugs become the War on the Poor?

NZ being used as international example of a bad welfare system

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, August 2nd, 2016 - 104 comments

NZ under National is being used internationally as an example of a bad welfare system.

Do we care? Are we going to fix it?

NZ in the international news again

Written By: - Date published: 3:35 pm, July 30th, 2016 - 59 comments

new-zealand-guardian-small

What – you mean – the lefties were right?

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, July 11th, 2016 - 141 comments

Inequality, poverty, the rise of the working poor – people are pissed. Lefties have been saying it for a long time, but now Serious Market People can see it too.

Be Like Dad, Keep Mum (in fear).

Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, July 10th, 2016 - 62 comments

Temuera Morrison has made a powerful video for the Women’s Refuge annual appeal. He’s making a difference. You can do something the Key Government won’t do. You can make a difference. You can stop keeping mum about domestic violence and you can help fund your local refuge.

Suck-up economics proceeding as planned – rich getting richer

Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, June 29th, 2016 - 56 comments

Inequality in NZ is the worst it’s been in a decade. Key’s response is pathetic. We need to vote to end suck-up economics. We need to be a better country than this.

Speaking of inequality…

Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, June 25th, 2016 - 45 comments

“Poverty NZ’s ‘new normal’ – report”. “Food bank pantries bare, emergency food grant dropping – report”. “NZ egalitarian? That’s a pretty little lie”. Hello – National supporters – where do you think this is going to end?

Our zombie economy

Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, June 22nd, 2016 - 149 comments

It’s basically flat-lining – only partially animated by immigration and a housing bubble.