When publicity stunts go bad

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, December 17th, 2024 - 16 comments
Categories: Christopher Luxon, Economy, national, politicans, poverty - Tags:

The beloved leader recently posted a photo of his wife and himself helping out the packing line at the Elim Christian Centre Christmas Box Initiative in Botany Downs.

He said that it was great to see 750 volunteers packing over a thousand boxes for families in need this Christmas.

He obviously thought it was something he should get praise for although my first thought was that as Prime Minister he has the power to do something significant for families in need.

And it jarrs because his miniscule effort to help is totally overwhelmed by government cuts for funding of food banks.

From Amy Williams at Radio New Zealand:

Some of Auckland’s largest foodbanks are warning they may need to close or significantly reduce food parcels after the government indicated it will not fund them next year.

It comes as many working households still struggle to put food on the table after a year of rising unemployment, while a predicted economic recovery is still many months away.

Auckland City Mission got a one-off government grant to continue its food bank services until the end of the year and is now wondering what comes next.

City Missioner Helen Robinson said it had asked the coalition government for annual funding so it could keep providing 50,000 food parcels in 2025 – but that looked unlikely.

“I’m worried. I know hundreds of thousands of Aucklanders rely on the mission for food and I know what it means when people don’t have enough food.”

Other charities are also struggling.

Dave Letele’s Buttabean foundation was on track to close until a couple of philantropists stepped in and provided needed support.

The Good Works Trust, which gets referrals from the city mission, state agencies and charities supporting people in need, only has enough to keep its school lunch packs going until term two next year.

Operations Manager Sophie Gray said this:

The vulnerable clients that we’re working with have less available to them in terms of support from [the Ministry of Social Development] and the foodbanks have less support in terms of also supplying them. So those two things have happened at the same time … it’s been a major shakedown.”

The Government’s excuse is that funding for food banks was temporary only and was due to end when Covid funding ran out. And according to Minister Louise Upston the government does not intend to extend funding past this year.

It shows their priorities.

Photo opportunities for the Prime Minister are more important than making sure people have enough to eat.

How utterly National.

16 comments on “When publicity stunts go bad ”

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  1. tc 1
    17 December 2024 at 9:52 am

    Rubbing it in is also very National micky.

  2. Anne 2
    17 December 2024 at 10:30 am

    Yeah… deny the kiddies from poor families access to healthy nutritious meals while growing up, and then when they rebel as teens and young men and women, throw them in boot camps and prison – too thick upstairs to see the correlation between the two?

  3. Grey Area 3
    17 December 2024 at 10:37 am

    We're not dealing with normal people here. They really don't give a shit how it looks. They are truly awful human beings.

    They have an agenda, and amidst what we think is chaos, they are following it and achieving the goals set for them.

    They simply do not share the standards and values most of us try to live by to create a fairish society for the benefit of as many as possible.

    • Tiger Mountain 3.1
      17 December 2024 at 11:41 am

      Yes Grey Area, luxury Luxon has gone about as far as any recent Parliamentary ruling class parasite has with his “I’m Rich and sorted” and “bottom feeders” comments. Working class people at least know exactly where they stand with this lot–nowhere!

      A photo op with fundamentalist Elim Church (no baked beans from them unless you suck up to the Church–I know several members) is bad taste indeed when funding is being withdrawn from the venerable City Mission and many other valuable NGOs.

      These vandals are wiping out jobs in public sectors particularly and then clamping down on resulting benefit applicants and recipients.
      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/536622/wellington-loses-11-point-6-percent-of-jobs-in-a-year

      What is the outcome they really seek? Create the numbers for and establish Private prisons, pay per lesson charter schools, rape and pillage the Conservation Estate? It was once a given that capitalists and SMEs needed cash flow and customers but that is declining in a low wage economy (again) so maybe they still think they can get by with FIRE–Finance, Insurance & Real Estate. If that is the case it is back to the 90s…with a twist however–Climate Disaster and the resulting events.

      • SPC 3.1.1
        17 December 2024 at 11:53 am

        Pentecostal prosperity religion is in line with the "I'm Wealthy and Sorted" ready for rapture (gated community) brand.

        Withdrawing state funding leaves groups more dependent on donors (there is still the 33% tax rebate on donations).

        • Tiger Mountain 3.1.1.1
          17 December 2024 at 12:02 pm

          Well that's the rub, philanthropy vs state support. Private donors can always withdraw in line with their latest “Muskesque” hissy fit.

  4. Kathleen Murdoch 4
    17 December 2024 at 11:22 am

    Does Luxon believe that this will go down well with the voters?

    What I'm saying to you is that we inherited a mess and we strive to make outcomes even more dire

  5. joe90 5
    17 December 2024 at 11:50 am

    Because publicity stunts are all they've got.

    @bernardchickey.bsky.social‬

    ·

    3h

    We've reached the 'find out' stage of the Government's economic & fiscal strategies. IE. They've 'fxxxed around' & now we 'find out' if its austerity strategy of cutting size of Govt to cut borrowing actually works to grow the overall economy & reduce Govt debt. 1/2

    […]

    Treasury is expected to downgrade NZ's GDP growth and tax forecasts this afternoon, which will widen deficits and INCREASE public borrowing by $6 billion to $132 billion over the next four years. The exact opposite of what the Govt said it wanted to do. 2/3

    […]

    And exactly what the conventional wisdom now from IMF/OECD/World Bank studies shows happens when you tighten the Govt's belt in a recession (or most times in reality): austerity doesn't actually work. It actually makes things worse. 3/3

    https://thekaka.substack.com/p/when-austerity-worsens-public-debt?

    https://bsky.app/profile/bernardchickey.bsky.social/post/3ldh2ecvnes2p

  6. Adrian 6
    17 December 2024 at 1:01 pm

    Hang on,hang on! That’s not fair , why just today we in National have given workers another 35 cents an hour, a whole 1.5% minimum pay rise. How much more are we expected to do? And just hanging around with those awful poor people at that scungey food thing for 15 minutes was stressful enough.. you bloody bottom feeders are so whiney and greedy.

  7. thinker 7
    17 December 2024 at 3:38 pm

    Thought it might have been the tryouts for the new LOTR series …

    "I've got my precious, I'm sorted"

  8. Obtrectator 8
    17 December 2024 at 4:18 pm

    Quite a long time ago now, I read an article about Naples and the sometimes desperate situations too many of its inhabitants faced every day. One of them remarked something along the lines of: "there is no crime here, only illegal solutions to our difficulties".

    Stand by for a good many more instances of blatant shoplifting, ram-raids on supermarkets and such-like "illegal solutions".

  9. Neelish B 9
    17 December 2024 at 8:42 pm

    I hope he didn't catch poorness!

  10. Wynston 10
    18 December 2024 at 5:15 pm

    Am I surprised that he is a professed Evangelical Christian and seemingly completely unaware of Matthew 6:1-4?

    https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206%3A1-4&version=NIV

    • Macro 10.1
      18 December 2024 at 6:31 pm

      And one wonders if he listened to last weeks lectionary reading – one constantly referred to in the weeks before Xmas:

      Luke 3: 7 – 14

      7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.*’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 9 The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

      10 “What should we do then?” the crowd asked.

      11 John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

      12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”

      13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.

      14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”

      He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

      John encourages self-sacrificial charity, honesty, and integrity. Those who truly repent should be expected to "bear fruit" matching their claims . Not boast or be proud that at the time they are packing a food parcel for some family that can no longer afford sufficient food, the Govt that they lead are at the same time cancelling all funding of food banks.

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/536762/auckland-foodbanks-face-closure-reducing-services-as-funding-to-stop

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018968990/more-people-in-financial-hardship-declined-govt-food-grants

      * Or we are Rich and Christian so we are sorted.

      • joe90 10.1.1
        18 December 2024 at 8:09 pm

        Feed the poor, shelter the homeless, care for the sick and disadvantaged?

        Nope, because Yeshua only cares about performance and worship is what will get you into heaven, not doing what the Rabbi Yeshua actually said should be done.

        /

  11. CharlieB 11
    18 December 2024 at 8:14 pm

    It doesn't speak well to the merits of the private sector if it takes 750 people to pack "over a thousand boxes".. I'm assuming that over a thousand isn't quite two thousand or the wording would probably have been "close to 2000 boxes".