Poverty and the budget

Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, May 18th, 2015 - 13 comments
Categories: budget 2015, class war, national, poverty - Tags: ,

The neoliberal reforms of the 80’s and 90’s left this country with sharp increases in poverty and inequality. The last Labour government improved matters a little, mainly via Working For Families (which John Key called “communism by stealth”). The current National government is making things worse again.

The Nats’ only criteria for success is reducing the costs of welfare. So we get press releases like this:

REPORT SHOWS REFORMS ARE WORKING

Social Development Minister Anne Tolley has welcomed the release of a detailed report into the benefit system, which confirms that welfare reform is contributing to huge savings for taxpayers in the decades ahead.
…
“There are over 38,000 fewer people on benefits compared to three years ago, and the number of children in benefit dependent households has fallen by almost 42,000 over the same period. “The number of young mothers requiring a benefit has almost halved since 2009.

Here are some other headlines from this New Zealand in which welfare reforms are “working”:
Number of Kiwi kids in poverty jumps by 60,000
The shame of child poverty in NZ
New child poverty report shows NZ’s made no progress
Auckland homelessness: Rough sleepers tally doubles
Poverty blamed for leap in infectious disease admissions
Disease figures a national ’embarrassment’
Working poor at ‘crisis’ point
Working poor: When a job isn’t enough
AUDIO: HOW DO WE DEAL WITH AN INCREASING NUMBER OF BEGGARS ON THE STREETS?
Hamilton plan to ban rough sleeping
Tough times blamed for surge in food parcel demand
Big demand puts pressure on foodbank
Kiwi kids face school year without the essentials
and so on and so on.

With the budget coming up, these topics are “enjoying” one of their occasional bouts of media attention. Three good pieces on Stuff today:

Income inequality: How NZ is one of the worst in the world:

Rising inequality has been the norm in most developed countries, but few have seen it increase by as much as New Zealand. [read on for lots of good graphs]

Beneficiaries ‘scared stiff’ of Work and Income:

A Canterbury Community Law (CCL) investigation, which looked at access to justice for beneficiaries, said beneficiaries felt they were treated as “non-humans” by Work and Income – not even allowed access to toilets during lengthy waits at offices. Fear was at a level where people were forgoing entitlements from Work and Income, instead going to non-government organisation’s food banks, or the Mayor’s Welfare Fund because of previous negative experiences, the report said.

Pensioners profit while the young fall behind:

Pensions have risen by $67 a week in the last five years – while the incomes of parents of children born into low income and beneficiary households have fallen further and further behind. … Prime Minster John Key admitted on Sunday that children were increasingly worse off in relation to retired New Zealanders – and confirmed measures in the budget to arrest the decline.

So the budget will arrest the decline? We have heard such promises again and again from John Key, and nothing happens. Prediction – whatever moves are in this budget to arrest the decline they will be about as effective as National’s new capital gains tax.

Have you signed the Action Station petition to “End Child Poverty in New Zealand” yet?

13 comments on “Poverty and the budget ”

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  1. One Anonymous Bloke 1
    18 May 2015 at 12:30 pm

    The budget will arrest the decline by introducing more deregulation, privatisation, and tax cuts. /sarc

  2. Michael who failed Civics 2
    18 May 2015 at 12:57 pm

    If only we had a Labour Party, instead of a National-lite one, to campaign against the growing impoverishment of our people. Sadly, the NZ Labour Party went missing some time after 1984 and hasn’t been seen since.

  3. McFlock 3
    18 May 2015 at 3:12 pm

    I never cease to be amazed at how tories argue that “number of people helped” could ever be a metric for “number of people in need of help”.

    • Macro 3.1
      18 May 2015 at 10:18 pm

      It’s called “creative accounting” – you can create any illusion you like.

      • saveNZ 3.1.1
        19 May 2015 at 2:02 pm

        +1

        Illusion is the operative word here. The whole National policy is an illusion. Taking all that is good for society and turning it into capital sold cheap to cronies and overseas investors.

    • miravox 3.2
      19 May 2015 at 7:08 am

      “number of people in need of help”

      The tories can’t see them, certainly don’t hear them, so can’t count them.

  4. Charles 4
    18 May 2015 at 3:46 pm

    They say that Nerō Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus fiddled while Rome burned. He ruled for 14 years.

    We should follow M.Hooten’s example and be grateful that, thanks to modern fiscal responsibility, John Key is able to be preoccupied by playing Disco Bees as NZ crumbles, and will not likely rule longer than nine years.

    • ropata 4.1
      18 May 2015 at 8:47 pm

      FJK fiddles with hair, and
      tiptoes around tax reform,
      while watching our “aspirations” and dreams
      go up in smoke

  5. linda 5
    19 May 2015 at 4:01 am

    poor wont help themselves by voting , but a troy voter votes in there interests
    look at Scotland where they are voting what’s happened

    no party can position themselves for that target group if they wont vote what’s the point. if poor want meaningful change they have the tools its called mmp but they wont use it, so the status qua continues

    • Northsider 5.1
      20 May 2015 at 4:44 pm

      The working class voted for the SNP in Scotland and have achieved a hugh amount of power in Westminster. The level of voting was high than the rest of the UK. The level of voter registration is higher too.

  6. Mike 6
    20 May 2015 at 12:45 am

    And yet the definition of this so-called poverty is never explicitly made. Of course this is because how they measure it is never as hard-hitting as the word poverty.