The Fiji Council of Social Services (FCOSS) has warned that the nation needs to prepare itself to face more children being in conflict with the law.

Chief executive officer Vani Catanasiga highlighted this while responding to Attorney-General Siromi Turaga’s revelation at the Lomaiviti Provincial Council meeting last week that schoolchildren were being used to peddle the highly addictive illegal drug methamphetamine, commonly known as “ice”.

She said a concerted and coordinated approach was needed to tackle this issue.

If the issue was not resolved, there could be a drop in education attainment rates and pressure on national social services systems, she added.

Methodist Church in Fiji and Rotuma president Reverend Ili Vunisuwai said poverty was the root cause of the problem.

He said the issue was serious and the government, church and vanua should come together to solve the issue.

Rakesh Kumar is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Well, no one saw that coming. For those in New Zealand relieved that Christmas was over because it means politics resumes, this week held the promise of a cabinet reshuffle, the possible unveiling of some meaty new policy and — if we were really lucky — the announcement of the date of this year’s general election.

We got the last of these (it will be on October 14). What we also got, however, was the announcement that in three weeks’ time one of the most popular — and powerful — prime ministers in recent New Zealand history will be stepping down.

It isn’t difficult to divine why Jacinda Ardern has reached her decision. As she herself put it:

I believe that leading a country is the most privileged job anyone could ever have but also one of the more challenging. You cannot and should not do it unless you have a full tank plus a bit in reserve for those unexpected challenges.

She has had more than her fair share of such challenges: a domestic terror attack in Christchurch, a major natural disaster at Whakaari-White Island, a global pandemic and, most recently, a cost-of-living crisis.

On top of that, of course, she has had to chart a way through the usual slate of policy issues that have bedevilled governments for decades in this country, including the cost of housing, child poverty, inequality and the climate crisis.

Clearly, the Ardern tank is empty.

But it isn’t just about the policy. Along with other women politicians, Ardern faces a constant barrage of online and in-person abuse — from anti-vaxxers, misogynists and sundry others who simply don’t like her.

As others with direct experience of this have written, the deterioration in civic discourse in New Zealand has been profound and disturbing, especially since the violent occupation of the parliamentary precinct in early 2022.

🔴 #BREAKING: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will not seek re-election and has revealed the date she will stand down https://t.co/UET5ZoszD1 #Newshub pic.twitter.com/fPAROdI5l2

— Newshub (@NewshubNZ) January 19, 2023

Ardern has spent the past two years right on the frontline of this sort of toxicity. This has taken a toll — on her, on her family, on those close to her — and has played a part in her decision.

A tale of two legacies
In time, however, what people will remember most about Ardern’s term in office is the manner of her response to serious crises. She has faced more than any other New Zealand prime minister in recent history and, in the main, has responded with calmness, dignity and clarity.

There are always competing points of view on these matters, of course. But her refusal to engage in the rhetoric of abuse or disparagement (her recent reference in Parliament to an opposition MP as an “arrogant prick” aside), which has become the stock-in-trade of too many elected representatives, has marked her out in a world in which abuse has become normalised in politics.

Critics may deride this as “mere performance”. But politics is — above all else — a matter of controlling the narrative. And for a long time Ardern and her team were very good at this.

That said, there is plenty she hasn’t achieved. She came to power promising transformation, but inequality and poverty remain weeping sores on the body politic.

Her Labour government has not been able to alleviate the chronic shortage of public housing that has existed for many years, and workforces in public health, education and construction face challenges no future government will relish.

No obvious successor
Attention now turns to Labour’s leadership and the party’s caucus vote this Sunday. A majority of 60 percent plus one more vote is required to secure the position, and Labour will be hoping this is what happens.

If not, the party’s constitution requires it to establish an electoral college comprising the caucus (which gets 40 percent of the total vote), the wider party membership (40 percent) and affiliate members (20 percent). This would be time-consuming, potentially divisive and a distraction.

Look for a clear-cut decision to be announced on Sunday.

The other big surprise has been Finance Minister and Ardern’s deputy Grant Robertson ruling himself out of the contest. Many people assumed he was the logical successor, but his decision opens the field wide.

Even including Ardern’s inner circle of David Parker, Chris Hipkins and Megan Woods, the bench is not that deep, and none of the candidates has anything like Ardern’s wattage. The shoes needing filling are on the large side of big.

Australian PM Anthony Albanese said she has “shown the world how to lead with intellect and strength”. https://t.co/Mkg8u82vxL

— Stuff (@NZStuff) January 19, 2023

Mixed news for National
Unsurprisingly, Ardern’s announcement has dominated the news cycle in New Zealand, leaving no room for consideration of another important event this week — the National Party’s first caucus of the year.

One might imagine that on hearing news of Ardern’s resignation there might have been jubilation in some sections of the party. Labour’s polling has been falling for some time now, while support for centre-right parties National and ACT has been climbing.

Ardern is still significantly more popular than National’s leader, Christopher Luxon, and he will likely be quietly pleased he won’t have to face Ardern on the campaign trail. She was good at that stuff; he is still learning.

National will be thinking, too, that some of the support for Labour that is tied to Ardern herself — including the support Labour received in 2020 from people who habitually vote for National — can now be peeled off and brought home.

Wider National heads will counsel caution, however. As the covid years have rolled by, Ardern has become an increasingly polarising figure.

By stepping aside now she gives her party plenty of time to instal a new leadership group that can draw a line under the past three years and focus on the future.

It is far too soon to tell, of course, if the country will buy a new narrative in which Ardern is not the key character. But she is giving Labour every chance of having a decent crack at it.

Leaving on her own terms
Are there broader lessons in all of this for international audiences? Depressingly, perhaps the key one concerns the price paid by elected representatives in these times of polarisation and the normalisation of abuse.

Around the world, women politicians in particular have borne the brunt of the toxicity and there are many who will see in Ardern’s departure a silencing of a woman’s voice.

On the upside, perhaps there are also things to be learned about the exercise of political leadership. Ardern has chosen the time and manner of her leaving — she has not lost the position because of internal ructions or because of an election loss.

Her reputation will be burnished as a result, and if anything it will generate even more political capital for her — although whether or not she chooses to distribute that currency on the international stage remains unclear. But you rather suspect she might at some point.

For now, though, she will be looking forward to walking her child to school and finally being able to marry her long-term partner. After a tumultuous and more-than-testing time in office, that may yet be reward enough.

Dr Richard Shaw is professor of politics, Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Last month The Daily Blog offered its New Year infamous news media gongs — and blasts — for 2022. In this extract, editor and publisher Martyn Bradbury names the mainstream media “blind spots”.

Graham Adams over at The Platform made the argument this year that the failure of mainstream media to engage with the debates occurring online is a threat to democracy.

With trust in New Zealand media at an all time low, I wondered what is the list of topics that you simply are NOT allowed to discuss on NZ mainstream media.

Here is my list of 17 topics over 30 years in New Zealand media:

1. Palestine: You cannot talk about the brutal occupation of Palestine by Israel in NZ media. It’s just not allowed, any discussion has to be framed as “Poor Israelis being terrorised by evil angry Muslims”. There is never focus on the brutal occupation and when it ever does emerge in the media it’s always insinuated that any criticism is anti-Semitism.
2. Child Poverty NEVER adult poverty: We only talk about child poverty because they deserve our pity. Adults in poverty can go screw themselves. Despite numbering around 800,000, adults in poverty are there because they “choose” to be there. The most important myth of neoliberalism is that your success is all your own, as is your failure. If an adult is in poverty, neoliberal cultural mythology states that is all on them and we have no obligation to help. That’s why we only ever talk endlessly about children in poverty because the vast majority of hard-hearted New Zealanders want to blame adults in poverty on them so we can pretend to be egalitarian without actually having to implement any policy.
3. The Neoliberal NZ experiment: You are never allowed to question the de-unionised work force that amputated wages, you can never question selling off our assets, you can never criticise the growth über alles mentality, you are never allowed to attack the free market outcomes and you can’t step back and evaluate the 35-year neoliberal experiment in New Zealand because you remind the wage slaves of the horror of it all.
4. Class: You cannot point out that the demarcation line in a capitalist democracy like New Zealand is the 1 percent richest plus their 9 percent enablers vs the 90 percent rest of us. Oh, you can wank on and on about your identity and your feelings about your identity in a never ending intersectionist diversity pronoun word salad, but you can’t point out that it’s really the 90 percent us vs the 10 percent them class break down because that would be effective and we can’t have effective on mainstream media when feelings are the currency to audience solidarity in an ever diminishing pie of attention.
5. Immigration: It must always be framed as positive. It can never be argued that it is a cheap and lazy growth model that pushes down wages and places domestic poor in competition with International student language school scams and exploited migrant workers. Any criticism of Immigration makes you a xenophobe and because the Middle Classes like travelling and have global skills for sale, they see any criticism of migrants as an attack on their economic privileges.
6. Hypertourism: We are never allowed to ask “how many is too many, you greedies”. The tourism industry that doesn’t give a shit about us locals, live for the 4 million tourists who visit annually. We are not allowed to ask why that amount of air travel is sustainable, we are not allowed to ask why selling Red Bull and V at tourist stops is somehow an economic miracle and we are certainly not allowed to question why these tourists aren’t directly being taxed meaningfully for the infrastructure they clog.
7. Dairy as a Sunset Industry: We are never allowed to point out that the millisecond the manufactured food industry can make synthetic milk powder, they will dump us as a base ingredient and the entire dairy industry overnight will collapse. With synthetic milks and meats here within a decade, it is time to radically cull herds, focus on only organic and free range sustainable herds and move away from mass production dairy forever. No one is allowed to mention the iceberg that is looming up in front of the Fonteera Titanic.
8. B-E-L-I-E-V-E victims: It’s like How to Kill a MockingBird was never written. People making serious allegations should be taken seriously, not B-E-L-I-E-V-E-D. That’s a tad fanatical Christian for me. It’s led to a change in our sexual assault laws where the Greens and Labour removed the only defence to rape so as to get more convictions, which when you think about it, is cult like and terrifying. Gerrymandering the law to ensure conviction isn’t justice, but in the current B-E-L-I-E-V-E victims culture it sure is and anyone saying otherwise is probably a rape apologist who should be put in prison immediately.
9. The Trans debate: This debate is so toxic and anyone asking any question gets immediately decried as transphobic. I’ve seen nuclear reactor meltdowns that are less radioactive than this debate. I’m so terrified I’m not going to say anything other than “please don’t hurt my family” for even mentioning it.
10. It’s never climate change for this catastrophic weather event: Catastrophic weather event after catastrophic weather event but it’s never connected to global warming! It’s like the weather is changing cataclysmically around us but because it’s not 100 percent sure that that cigarette you are smoking right now is the one that causes that lump inside you to become cancer, so we can’t connect this catastrophic weather event with a climate warming model that states clearly that we will see more and more catastrophic weather events.
11. Scoops: No New Zealand media will never acknowledge another media’s scoop in spite of a united front being able to generate more exposure and better journalism.
12. Te Reo fanaticism: You are not allowed to point out that barely 5 percent of the population speak Te Reo and that everyone who militantly fires up about it being an “official language” never seem that antagonistic about the lack of sign language use. Look, my daughter goes to a Māori immersion class and when she speaks Te Reo it makes me cry joyfully and I feel more connected to NZ than any other single moment. But endlessly ramming it down people’s throats seems woke language policing rather than a shared cultural treasure. You can still be an OK human being and not speak Te Reo.
13. Māori land confiscation: Māori suffered losing 95 percent of their land in less than a century, they were almost decimated by disease and technology brought via colonisation, they endured the 1863 Settlements Act, they survived blatant lies and falsehoods devised to create the pretext for confiscation, and saw violence in the Waikato. Māori have lived throughout that entire experience and still get told to be grateful because Pākehā brought blankets, tobacco and “technology”.
14. The Disabled: Almost 25 percent of New Zealand is disabled, yet for such a staggeringly huge number of people, their interests get little mention in the mainstream media.
15. Corporate Iwi: You can’t bring up that that the corporate model used for Iwi to negotiate settlements is outrageous and has created a Māori capitalist elite who are as venal as Pākehā capitalists.
16. Police worship: One of the most embarrassing parts about living in New Zealand is the disgusting manner in which so many acquiesce to the police. It’s never the cop’s fault when they shoot someone, it’s never the cop’s fault when they chase people to their death, it’s never the cop’s fault for planting evidence, it’s never the cops fault for using interrogation methods that bully false confessions out of vulnerable people. I think there is a settler cultural chip on our shoulders that always asks the mounted constabulary to bash those scary Māori at the edge of town because we are frightened of what goes bump in the night. We willingly give police total desecration to kill and maim and frame as long as long as they keep us safe. It’s sickening.
17. House prices will increase FOREVER! Too many middle class folk are now property speculators and they must see their values climb to afford the extra credit cards the bank sends them. We can never talk about house prices coming down. They must never fall. Screw the homeless, scre the generations locked out of home ownership and screw the working poor. Buying a house is only for the children of the middle classes now. Screw everyone else. Boomer cradle to the grave subsidisations that didn’t extend to any other generation. Free Ben and Jerry Ice Cream for every Boomer forever! ME! ME! ME!

You’ll also note that because so many media are dependent on real estate advertising, there’s never been a better time to buy!

Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury is a New Zealand media commentator, former radio and TV host, and former executive producer of Alt TV — a now-defunct alternative music and culture channel. He is publisher of The Daily Blog and writes blogs at Tumeke! and TDB. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

This week’s Budget is a chance for the Labour Government to take the crisis of poverty and inequality seriously. They can do this by delivering something serious or even transformational for those suffering at the bottom of the heap in New Zealand. In particular, a big increase in core benefit rates would be the most effective way they could tackle the worsening problem.

Of course, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has already faced campaigns to increase benefits, and firmly said “no” to these as recently as December – you can see my roundup of this issue then: The Left’s challenge to Labour’s inaction on poverty and inequality.

However, pressure to deliver to those most in need is now just too great for the Government to ignore, and rumours are building that a benefit increase will be announced. Last week, Finance Minister Grant Robertson even signalled the Budget will include measures to deal with inequality and poverty, and Ardern came up with the term “The Compassionate Budget” for what is coming.

Business journalist Liam Dann forecast in the Herald yesterday some big spending to put more money in the pockets of the poorest: “There will undoubtedly be some big, new spending packages in this Budget. They will likely target child poverty and those suffering most from inequity” – see: Budget 2021: Why Grant Robertson won’t match big spending Aussies (paywalled). And Dann outlines how pumping money to the poor will tick both moral and economic boxes.

Arguments for a big “benefit boost”

If the Government ever needed permission to boost benefits, it received this in a landmark survey released in February showing overwhelming public support for increased income support for the poor – see Harry Lock’s Survey finds 69% want income support for those in need increased.

The question was asked whether “the government should increase the amount of income support paid to those on low incomes and not in paid work”. Across all demographics, incomes, and voting alignments, the result was clearly in favour of government action. Even Act Party supporters tended towards an increase in income support.

Responding to the poll, the ActionStation advocacy group said this about benefit increases: “The time for excuses is up. This poll shows the government has a clear social licence and mandate, on top of its moral obligation, to lift inadequate welfare payments to ‘liveable’ levels, and it needs to be done now, in this Budget round.”

Plenty of high-profile voices have also been urging Labour to do the right thing. For example, recently political journalist Andrea Vance highlighted that while Ardern had come to office on a promise to reduce inequality, she hasn’t done so yet – see: The social welfare net is threadbare – can Grant Robertson mend it?. In this, Vance suggests giving beneficiaries a proper payment increase as well as modernising the whole welfare system.

Similarly, writing in February, Branko Marcetic argued that lifting benefits is the “bare minimum” that the Government should be doing to work on fulfilling its promises. But he admits a benefit rise would have a downside for the Government: “Doing this will certainly mean Robertson may have, at first, less impressive debt numbers to show off to business leaders at lunches and breakfasts held in luxury hotels” – see: NZ’s economic “bounce-back” is a myth – but lifting benefits would bring it closer to reality.

Welfare researcher Louise Humpage has more recently argued that benefit increases and other positive welfare reforms are desperately needed, because what few initiatives the Government has already taken have only had a negligible impact – see: If New Zealand can radically reform its health system, why not do the same for welfare?.

Humpage also points out that the Government’s own Welfare Expert Advisory Group made a number of recommendations for reform, which the Government is largely ignoring: “It made 42 key recommendations but only a handful have been addressed. Almost two years on, we are still waiting for real action.”

Latest “grim” poverty statistics out

More evidence of the “grim” situation came out on Thursday, with the release of the Government’s first Annual Report for the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy and another report on Child Poverty Indicators. The most significant finding from these reports was that 20 per cent of children live in households where food runs out either sometimes or often. For details, see Rebecca Moore’s Advocacy groups slam ‘racist’, ”discriminatory’ system after Government releases child poverty report.

The article reports the response of Child Poverty Action Group’s Janet McAllister, who says “We should be angry about this” and she admonishes the Labour Government for only taking “small steps to address these big issues”, saying although there are indications of slight improvements in poverty levels, “It’s not okay to be a little bit better than four years ago.” She concludes that “The Government has power to change this terrible situation we’ve been in for far too long.”

Guardian journalist Tess McClure labelled the stats as representing “slow or non-existent progress” on dealing with child poverty – see: Ardern faces calls to boost child poverty spending in budget amid glacial progress. She reports Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft’s statement in response, that there was “an inarguable need to increase benefits”, calling “for more spending for children in the upcoming budget”.

The Prime Minister is also quoted defending her record, saying “Many of the issues facing children, young people and their families are complex, stubborn and intergenerational, so we know change will take time, and will require sustained action across government and across our communities”.

Similarly, researcher Max Rashbrooke’s message is to have more patience, because “Child poverty is like a huge oil tanker – it takes a long time to turn around”, “It takes time to convert income into greater wellbeing”, and “Some of the problems are so ingrained, that you spend a lot of money erasing the problems of the past”. But he lamented that the Government are “not willing to commit to the massive increases in benefits that would really see us slashing the rates of child poverty.”

Rashbrooke has also written recently about his attempt to track down planning for how the Government is going to deal with the poverty crisis, coming up empty-handed – see: Plan and budget both AWOL in child poverty fight. He says: “we need Ardern to tell us exactly how she will meet her long-term targets, how much it will cost, and where those funds will be found. The issue also cuts to the heart of her Government’s credibility.”

This article follows on from an earlier one by Rashbrooke in which he argues that the Government’s lack of a plan on poverty is troubling, and that making inroads will require much more boldness than is currently on offer – see: Tackling child poverty a mountain that keeps getting steeper.

Economist Brian Easton also responded critically yesterday to the latest poverty stats, suggesting that any purported improvements are just “statistical noise”, but that this shouldn’t be surprising “because the policy changes have been small, if trumpeted loudly. Therein lies the challenge. The assumption seems to have been that small incremental policy measures can eliminate child poverty. But they will give only small incremental gains” – see: Are we really serious about child poverty?.

Easton is very critical about Ardern’s vague attempt to find a moderate path to fulfil the radical targets set under law to fix child poverty: “Can it be done incrementally? I am sceptical unless the increments are larger and more focused than what has occurred so far. The statute says where we are to end up, but it does not provide a path to get there. So we are gingerly navigating our way; there is no map.”

The lack of a plan for dealing with poverty was also criticised earlier in the year by a Stuff editorial that said “we’re on a track that remains only half-built and the path ahead is anything but clear and, even now, we don’t really know where we stand” – see: Limited progress in child poverty, but it’s not on track yet.

The newspaper cites the arguments to increase benefits by between 12 and 47 per cent as the official advice dictates, and adds that the Government has a mandate to be much more radical: “the result of the previous election was nothing if not a mandate for boldness on fronts such as this.”

Also writing about this time, leftwing columnist Gordon Campbell said: “Voters gave Labour a sweeping mandate to pursue transformational solutions for this country’s most serious problems”, but that they’re taking “tiny, barely discernible steps to reduce poverty” – see: On Labour’s fudging on child poverty. He asked: “Is this really the transformational change we expect to see from the Ardern government, given how much political mileage it has got from claiming to care? Hardly.”

How much should benefits be boosted?

If a benefit boost does eventuate in Grant Robertson’s Budget on Thursday, the crucial issue will be how much they rise by. There seems to be a near-consensus amongst progressives and welfare advocates that such an increase would need to be in the range recommended by the Government’s Welfare Expert Advisory Group of 12-47 per cent. Anything less than a $100/week increase for single jobseekers, as recommended, will leave many on the left disappointed.

Some would even like to see benefit rates doubled. Writing in the Herald last week, the Auckland City Missioner, Helen Robinson, looked at this issue of how much benefits needed to rise by, and suggested: “The $490 weekly Covid Income Relief Payment for full-time workers who lost their job during the pandemic is a good starting point. That level of investment, compared to the little over $250 a week received by a single person over the age of 25 on Jobseeker Support, is a more realistic weekly income. Economically this is possible” – see: Impossible choices deprive our people of hope (paywalled).

Robinson commented further on this yesterday, saying to break the poverty cycle “the benefit needs to increase by around $200 each week” – see RNZ’s Major rise in benefits needed to get children out of poverty – Auckland City Missioner.

The City Missioner also points out that official statistics released last week on child poverty are out of date, and that things have got much worse due to the impact of Covid. As an example, she says “the mission before Covid was doing about 25,000 food parcels a year and this year we’ll get to somewhere between 45 to 50,000 food parcels – so the need has significantly increased.”

What else could the Government do?

If not a significant rise in benefit rates, what else could the Government do to help those at the bottom? According to the Child Poverty Action Group, they could start indexing Working for Families payments in line with the wage index, as is done for Superannuation and benefits – see Melanie Carroll’s Working for Families falls behind wage rises: Child Poverty Action Group.

According to this article, the “Government had not increased payment rates for Working for Families since 2018”, and research shows that the lack of indexation has left “some families up to $1900 worse off over two years”.

Additionally, Working for Families could be reformed, to provide the “In-Work Tax Credit” to the families of beneficiaries, as recommended by the Child Poverty Action Group – see Janet McAllister’s What the annual child poverty stats tell us.

In this piece McAllister also complains about the low rates of benefits, suggesting that Labour’s approach is still too rightwing: “Ruth Richardson’s Mother of All Budgets still has more influence on the miserly social welfare system than Jacinda Ardern does. In fact, net benefits and child assistance (Working for Families) combined are still lower now that they were immediately after Richardson’s social welfare cuts, as a percentage of net average wages.”

The free school lunch programme could be extended, as it is currently only funded for about a quarter of students. This is a call backed by the Children’s Commissioner, who says “free lunches for schoolchildren should be ‘a birthright'” – see Lana Andelane’s Free school lunches: One free meal a day means one less thing on parents’ plates – Kiwi mum. However, the Prime Minister has responded negatively to this, saying that such a universal approach would cost too much.

Finally, for a clever and satirical communication of “how New Zealand’s post-Covid economy has benefited some while hurting others”, see cartoonist Toby Morris’ The Side Eye’s Two New Zealands: The K Shape.

How determined are Labour to take the necessary steps to fix inequality and poverty? Will electoral calculations triumph over their principles and stated ambitions? These are some of the questions being asked on the political left, as the Government looks determined to stand by while social problems continue to get worse under their watch.

During their last term in Government, Ardern and colleagues failed to be transformational on their key promise of fixing inequality and poverty. And now they are choosing policies that massively increase inequality, while ignoring the plight of those at the bottom. That’s why this week over 60 charities and NGOs made an open plea to the Government to increase welfare benefits before Christmas.

Despite the extraordinary conditions at the moment, Ardern response was a firm “no”. Poverty advocates say Labour should be “ashamed”, with many suggesting that the PM’s own advocacy of kindness and compassion is directly contradicted by her actual decisions.

Writing in the Herald today, Matthew Hooton argues that the poverty advocates “have a point” in their dissatisfaction, as “Ardern’s response to these issues is unsatisfactory” – see: The left’s message to Jacinda Ardern: It’s time to fix child poverty (paywalled). He argues that this week’s rejection of benefit increases “has prompted the first mini-rebellion on her left”.

Hooton is particularly dismissive of Ardern’s plea for more time to consider benefit levels: “she says more ‘work’ is needed but it is not clear what ‘work’ is required to make a basic decision on benefit levels. Ruth Richardson, after all, took just 53 days after the October 27 1990 election to announce her benefit cuts. It is not obvious why any more ‘work’ is needed to make the opposite decision. In any case, the ‘work’ was presumably already done in Ardern’s now eight and a half years in the children’s portfolio and by her [Welfare Expert Advisory Group].”

So should the left be rebelling? And is Labour putting hanging on to power above tackling poverty? Hooton seems to believe so: “the Prime Minister just emotes her usual concern. This is not economically or socially sustainable — and surely not politically sustainable either. There must come a time when Ardern’s own political base demands something more on such issues than her frowny-concerned face. It will be another 100 years before Labour again wins a mandate like the one Ardern secured last month. If she won’t act now on the issues she says concern her, left-wing activists will be entitled to ask whether hungry children and young couples struggling to buy a house really mean anything to her beyond being useful walk-on parts during election campaigns.”

Similarly, writing in the NBR yesterday, Brent Edwards says the debate “is a pointed rejoinder to Ardern from those who do not believe she is as committed to reducing child poverty as her rhetoric suggests”, and he argues that the decision to keep benefits down is unsurprising, given that Ardern’s decisions are guided by electoral considerations – see: Benefit increase dismissal a sign of Ardern’s political conservatism (paywalled).

Brent Edwards contrasts the benefit decision with the first policy announcement of the Finance Minister: “Grant Robertson announced the Cabinet had decided to extend the small business cashflow loan scheme, which was due to end next month, for another three years and extend the interest-free period from one to two years. It is also looking at other changes to make the scheme more accessible for small businesses. It was the new government’s first decision of this term and is part of its attempt to woo the business community”.

So, just how long will beneficiaries and others in poverty have to wait until Labour delivers? Today’s Stuff newspaper editorial asks: “It takes more than one term to solve it, but will it take more than two?” – see: No Christmas present from the Govt for New Zealand’s poor. They argue that poverty advocates have already made a “persuasive argument” for benefit increases.

The editorial says Ardern is risking damage to her own brand by talking about kindness but doing the opposite: “Poverty advocates are used to hearing governments say one thing about poverty, especially the emotionally powerful issue of child poverty, but do another.” They also ask: “What is the political cost of kindness? Or conversely, what is the political cost of doing nothing?”

Poverty advocates are understandably upset by Ardern’s rejection of action on poverty, and some are starting to speak out strongly against her and the Government. Auckland Action Against Poverty’s coordinator Brooke Stanley Pao has said that Ardern is “choosing to keep people and families in poverty” – see Vita Molyneux’s Jacinda Ardern blasted as ‘disconnected’, ‘reeking of privilege’ by Auckland anti-poverty group. According to this article, Pao “challenged the Prime Minister and other politicians to try and live on the current benefit for a month and ‘see how they find themselves’.”

Brooke Stanley Pao also wrote about this just prior to the election, saying, You can’t eat kindness. Responding to Ardern’s mantra, she says “We want more than kindness. We want the political bravery necessary to lift people out of poverty. Anything else is lip service.”

Other leftwing bloggers are losing their faith that Labour and Ardern really believe in progressive politics. For example, No Right Turn says: “The message is clear: their ‘kindness’ extends only to rich people, who will be exempted from paying their fair share of the costs of the pandemic (or society in general). As for poor kids, they can keep on starving. Which once again invites the question: what is Labour for, exactly, if they’re not going to ever deliver anything?” – see: Labour’s “kindness” extends only to the rich.

The Child Poverty Action Group reports “the dismayed, disappointed and, in some cases, furious response to its dismissal” of benefit increases by Ardern and asks of the Government, “What, exactly, are they waiting for?” – see Janet McAllister’s Ardern tells us to be patient on benefit levels. But we’ve been patient long enough. She argues that increased payments would have an immediate impact on alleviating poverty.

McAllister also draws attention to the Government making decisions in the Covid environment that are likely to worsen inequality while ignoring the needs of those at the bottom: “Using children as economic shock absorbers – that’s unreasonable. Covid-response policies that stretch inequity even further – that’s unreasonable. Child Poverty Action Group research this year has shown that core entitlements for those receiving benefits are mostly far below key poverty lines, and in some cases will be tipping people into severest poverty. We modelled a scenario that shows 70,000 additional children are at risk of poverty due to Covid-19 on current policy settings.”

For more on what Janet McAllister thinks is wrong with the current Government policies, see: Why Labour’s tinkering of our welfare system just isn’t enough. Looking back at what Labour have implemented over the last term, she concludes: “by themselves, these policies are disappointing. It’s still just tinkering around the edges and far from big, bold moves to cut the mustard. They’re of no use to many of our poorest families.”

Another poverty advocate, Max Rashbrooke of Victoria University of Wellington, has written in the Guardian about how disappointed he is with progress on child poverty under the Government, and how things look set to get worse unless policies are implemented that live up to the lofty targets set by Ardern – see: Jacinda Ardern must use her mandate to tackle child poverty in New Zealand.

The problem according to Rashbrooke is that Ardern “has relied largely on the ‘third way’ policies of her Labour predecessor, Helen Clark, in her fight against child poverty.” And so although there has been some “modest progress” on some poverty measures, these are essentially the result of picking the low-hanging fruit. He points to Treasury modelling showing that “the number of families in ‘material hardship’ – those reporting they are unable to afford basic items – will ‘rise sharply’.”

Is it true that the Government can’t afford to increase benefits? Not according to business journalist Bernard Hickey, whose must-read column this week argues that Ardern and Robertson seem determined to massively increase inequality by following outdated economic philosophies – see: Government should use printed money to increase benefits, which will be spent in the economy. He asks: “Is it more important that homeowners are $100b richer? Or that hundreds of thousands of children are left unnecessarily in poverty?”

Here’s Hickey’s main point: “It is bizarre that a Labour Government and a Reserve Bank that talk a big game on their social responsibilities and sustainability are choosing to pump up to $150b into increasing housing market valuations for the richest half of New Zealanders who own homes, but don’t think they can afford increasing benefits at a cost of $5.2b for the hundreds of thousands of kids and their parents living in poverty.” He points out that “economists as conservative as those at the OECD, the IMF and the World Bank are now begging Governments to do things differently by spending money on the poor and on infrastructure, rather than just pumping up asset prices to make the rich even richer.”

Hickey also refers to a report out this week with findings from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study. You can read the report here: Now we are eight: Life in middle childhood. Hickey sums up the inequality findings: “Nearly 40 per cent are living in cold, mouldy and damp homes. About a third are obese. About 20 per cent of the families surveyed did not have enough money to eat properly. Nearly 15 per cent of the eight-year-olds had already moved school twice, largely because of having to move from one rental property to the next.”

Not everyone is criticising Labour’s rejection of benefit increases. Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking says that giving into such a demand would take the government down a “slippery slope”, and be too expensive for little real gain – see: Government can’t fall into benefit rabbit hole.

There is no doubt there is urgent need for relief for those at the bottom. And this week the Auckland City Mission launched a campaign to replenish their run-down stocks of food, noting that prior to Covid they estimated “10 per cent of Kiwis experienced food insecurity on a regular basis. Due to Covid-19, it believes the figure is now closer to 20 per cent – or one million people – who do not have enough good food to eat on a weekly basis” – see 1News: Auckland City Mission bracing for toughest Christmas in 100 years.

And today it’s being reported that the Government’s two-tier welfare payments have come to an end – see Sarah Robson’s Covid-19 income relief payment comes to end, thousands may be left without support.

Finally, what’s to be done about poverty and inequality, given this Government has no great interest in being transformational on this issue? According to veteran leftwing commentator Chris Trotter, It’s time for some “Earnest Struggle”. He argues that Labour will only ever carry out leftwing reforms if they are forced to. He wants to see less reliance on appeals to Ardern and Robertson to “be kind”, and more mass marches down Auckland’s Queen St.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won power in 2017 on the basis of statements such as “My goal is to eradicate child poverty in New Zealand”. The Government’s progress on child poverty will be under scrutiny at this year’s general election, but progress is slow, and many are claiming not enough is being done to address this urgent problem.

Statistics NZ has just published details of child poverty levels for the last few years, as required under the new Child Poverty Reduction Act. For the best report on this, see Sarah Robson’s New figures show little change in child poverty. She reports: “for the year ended June 2019, there was no significant change to the percentage of children living in material hardship, compared to the previous year – remaining at about 13 percent, or one in eight children”.

The Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft has described the figures as “underwhelming”.

The problem is the statistics can be interpreted in different ways – or at least cherry-picked by supporters and critics. Also, the statistics are limited in what they measure, particularly in terms of the time periods involved.

Some critics to the left and the right of the Government are pointing to various elements of the report to say things are getting worse, while the Government is highlighting elements that show they’re making progress.

Overall, there’s probably a consensus that if improvements have been made, they are marginal, and much more needs to be done to combat child poverty.

Interpretation of the child poverty statistics

Jason Attewell of Stats NZ gave an insight yesterday into why measures of poverty are contested and interpreted differently: “Now child poverty is a real complex issue, and it’s really hard to define who’s poor and who’s not poor… So we don’t look at just one measure we look at nine measures across.”

For the best discussion of the different interpretations of the new stats, see Jason Walls’ PM Jacinda Ardern and National’s Simon Bridges spin child poverty numbers – but who’s right? (paywalled). He points to the Government and Opposition arguments on the latest report, and declares “Both are right but for different reasons.”

Here’s the Government’s interpretation: “Ardern used what is known as the after-housing costs measure to argue her case for successfully combating child poverty. That showed that after housing costs, 235,400 kids lived in homes with less than 50 per cent of the overall median household income, in the year to June 2019. That’s a drop of 18,400 children, or a 2 per cent fall compared to the previous year.”

Here’s the Opposition interpretation: “Bridges used the numbers to suggest child poverty was getting much worse ‘under Jacinda Ardern’. He used the before-housing cost measure for the bottom 60 per cent of households and compared the year to June 2017 figures with those from 2019. On this measure, the 20,000 figure is correct – 243,300 kids were in this category in 2017, compared with 263,400 in 2019.”

In contrast, Walls points out that there is arguably a third and more important interpretation of the figures: “the most important measure – according to Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft – was actually increasing. Material hardship, which measures the things most people would consider to be essentials – such as access to fresh fruit and vegetables, going to the doctor and the ability to pay bills on time – increase by just over 4000 in the year to June last year.”

For further discussion of the different measures of child poverty and what is changing, see Thomas Manch’s Child poverty: Numbers show marginal change, but more children in material hardship. This includes reporting of Stats NZ’s principal statistician Diane Ramsay, who “said she could not be confident there was a downward trend in the figures due to margin, and results in the coming years would clarify this.”

Also, see Max Rashbrooke’s analysis, which is more positive, suggesting that the PM should be relieved to finally have “a tangible – if tentative – sign of progress” – see: Child poverty stats promising, but more is needed.

Rashbrooke also points to the contrast with what was occurring under the last National Government: “If the improvements are real, they will be all the more impressive when seen in the light of the previous National-led governments, of which the best that can be said is that they maintained, overall, a very high level of poverty. In their nine years in power, poverty fell on some measures but increased on others, and in general seemed to be becoming cemented into the foundations of New Zealand life. We may look back on this moment, then, and see it as a turning point”.

Criticism about the failure to deliver

Critics on both left and right of Labour are saying the Government is failing to deliver the promised improvements in child poverty.

On the right, Mike Hosking is calling this out as “another promise not met”, which he says is especially damaging for the PM, as child poverty reduction “was the Prime Minister’s calling card” – see: Child poverty is the KiwiBuild of social failure. Hosking concludes: “Every social indicator has gone backwards – food handouts, housing queues, jobless payments and poverty. Every single one of them in the wrong direction.”

Heather du Plessis Allan also has a hard-hitting take on the findings – see: Child poverty figures shows PM is not helping those she promised to. She says this about Ardern: “Remember when she promised to lift 100,000 children out of poverty by 2020. Well, it’s 2020, that is so far from happening… it’s just gutting. We expect centre-left governments to come and do the best they can for people at the bottom of the heap, because those people are there.”

Du Plessis Allan warns it will damage Labour and Ardern’s credibility with their own supporters: “It has charities, NGOs, churches, unions, all telling them to get on with it. Labour’s entire support base is telling them to help people, but they’re not. How can they expect those people to re-elect them or even respect them? How can the Prime Minister ever say again that she will help the worst off and expect us to believe it? Today’s figures haven’t just hurt the government’s credibility; they’ve hurt the Prime Minister’s.”

Those NGOs are also speaking out. Child Poverty Action Group spokesperson Susan St John says: “Put simply: these statistics do not show any change for the children living in the worst, most entrenched poverty… This confirms our view that the Families Package (implemented July 2018) was not designed to give the necessary income boost to those in the deepest poverty. This picture is unlikely to change when the full Families Package is counted in the next report due in 2021” – see: The latest child poverty statistics are a wake-up call.

Her group says “child poverty requires urgent and immediate action. Meaningful adjustments to the benefit system and working for families must not wait until after the election for implementation.”

And even in Max Rashbrooke’s cautiously congratulatory account, he warns much more action is needed, saying: “the government will have to marshal resources of which it has only just begun to dream. Most of its efforts so far have focused on taking those who are just below the poverty line and lifting them just over it. That is valuable, and makes a real difference to families’ lives. But there are still tens of thousands of families in far deeper poverty. Their situation, the new data suggests, has barely improved.”

Rashbrooke says the PM needs to take a bolder approach: “That will require considerably more political courage from a leader who has so far governed cautiously. But it is the reality of the task she has set herself. The early steps she has made, though valuable, may turn out to have been the easiest.”

Ardern is promising more, and she is reported as believing that her government is “on track” to meet its promises. She says part of the problem is that the latest statistics don’t reflect how much has recently been done – see Zane Small’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confident child poverty reduction policies ‘yet to show’ full results.

Finally, last month the Child Poverty Action Group commissioned Spinoff cartoonist Toby Morris to illustrate the need for “the government to fix the broken welfare system so all children and families can thrive” – see: Fairer Future: Fixing Poverty in Aotearoa.

The Minister of Finance visited his local soup kitchen one night last month, and tweeted “Good to catch up with folk I worked with/helped over the years+remember how important it is to give every helping hand we can”. But are Grant Robertson and his colleagues giving enough of a helping hand to those in poverty?

Yesterday’s Political Roundup column looked at the very poor state that the country is currently in with inequality and deprivation – see: How rotten is New Zealand?. The question is whether the Government is doing enough, and what is holding them back from doing more.

Big changes needed say advocates on poverty

The person leading the fight for the Government to do more is the Children’s Commissioner, Judge Andrew Becroft, who has been in the media saying that it’s time for a series of “big, bold” and permanent initiatives such as raising benefit levels. He recently asked: “Why didn’t Grant Robertson spend some of the $12 billion on children and families instead of infrastructure?”

Becroft also went on TVNZ’s Q+A programme recently and accused the Government of being “weak, supine and passive” in the face of overwhelming evidence for the need to make immediate and substantive moves to fix poverty – see 1News’ Children’s Commissioner urges Govt to take action on child poverty – ‘We’ve got the money, now’s the time’.

Becroft says the Government simply has to spend more money where it is needed, arguing “we’ve got the money, it’s in the piggy bank, it’s a rainy day – now’s the time to spend it – on children”. And he rejects calls for patience, saying “We can’t fiddle, as it were, while Rome burns. While 100,000 children remain in disadvantage… Change and action is urgently required”.

For more detail on some of the Children’s Commissioner’s concrete suggestions for the Government, see RNZ’s Child poverty: Commissioner says need for housing, income levels to improve. In this, Becroft says “I want to see family incomes dramatically raised by increasing benefits and making the minimum wage a living wage… And the government needs to move much faster at increasing the supply of social housing – building, buying and repurposing – and working closely with community-based housing providers.”

Although the Government have made some useful moves to deal with poverty, Becroft labels them “a fantastic start”, but a “band-aid”. He suggests enduring and transformative change is necessary: “we need to see significant and permanent changes to unlock opportunities for those doing it hardest. One-offs aren’t going to cut it anymore.” Other suggestions include: “free lunches rolled out across more schools, free dental and mental care through to ages 18 or 21.”

Similarly, long-time public policy expert, Victoria University of Wellington’s Jonathan Boston wrote last week that although the Government “has embarked upon some important social reforms”, “Modest adjustments to current policy settings, however welcome, will be insufficient. Transformative change is needed” – see: We need a step change to transform the welfare state.

Boston says, “all is not well with New Zealand’s welfare state” explaining, that “For the most vulnerable people, the welfare state is not delivering an adequate income, accessible public services or even a safe place to sleep.”

Other voices have been an important part of the debate – especially the Child Poverty Action Group, which has reacted to last week’s $12 billion spending announcement, saying the “plans don’t reflect the urgent welfare reforms needed” – see: Evidence of poverty relief lacking in 2020 Budget Policy Statement.

Spokesperson and University of Auckland economist, Susan St John, says “What is urgently needed is a significant increase across all benefits, higher abatement thresholds for earned income, and immediate policy changes to Working for Families”. She also criticises the Government’s Winter Energy Payment, which she costs at $2.4 billion over five years, as being “ill-focused” saying that this year it was provided to nearly 780,000 superannuitants, regardless of their need, and suggests it should instead be “turned into a permanent increase to core benefits”.

St John’s analysis is also reported in a very good article by Sarah Robson, which asks: “What happened to the Coalition government’s promise to overhaul the welfare system and lift families out of poverty?” – see: Solo mums on benefits having to decide between food and fuel.

St John looks at the very few changes that have been enacted as a result of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group, and says “Those two changes are simply completely insufficient as a response”.

The article explains that precious little has come of the report: “Its 200-page report concluded the welfare system was no longer fit-for-purpose and needed fundamental change. It made 42 recommendations. Implementing all of them would come with a price tag of just over $5 billion. So far, the government has adopted just three.”

However, the article reports Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni promising that more reform is indeed coming, and she “expects to be taking a three to five year plan for the overhaul of the welfare system to cabinet before the end of the year.”

Sepuloni, doesn’t appear keen to increase benefit levels, however – which was one of the core recommendations of her working group: “She’s defended the decision not to introduce a general increase to benefit levels, saying the previous government’s $25 one-off increase in 2015 was lost with the rising cost of housing.”

For more on this, see Thomas Manch’s Substantial benefit hikes appear off the Government’s agenda. This reports on the Minister addressing a Child Poverty Action Group forum, where she implied there might be some big movements in next year’s Budget: “Excuse me if I haven’t come with all the answers to the short term action you’d like to hear about… Much of what you wanted to hear today … that is the stuff that is budget sensitive”. And in general, she asked them to have “trust in the coalition Government”.

What the Government has already done

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern campaigned in 2017 on dealing with child poverty, took on the portfolio of Child Poverty Reduction, and then promised that 2019 would be her “Year of Delivery”. She is now being called to account for whether enough is being done.

Ardern answered some of these questions on TVNZ’s Q+A recently, saying she rejects the criticism from the Children’s Commissioner: “the Government has done some ‘significant’ and ‘enormous’ investment into the incomes of families with children in the greatest need” – see 1News’ Jacinda Ardern rejects criticism from Children’s Commissioner over Govt’s response to Welfare Expert Advisory Group.

The PM also stated: “Are we perfect? No. Do we have more to do? Yes. But I do not accept that what we have done has not been significant. It has”. According to this report, she also rejected the statement of the head of Christchurch’s City Mission who told Q+A that his organisation “was underfunded, better off under a National government and that poverty has worsened.”

The Government has some statistics on its side, with the release of a report last month showing that its 2018 Families Package was making a real difference – see Yvette McCullough’s Government quotes welfare stats after child poverty inaction accusations. Carmel Sepuloni is quoted saying “By the time the Families Package is fully rolled out in 2020/21 – 385,000 families with children will be better off by an average of $75 a week.”

Sepuloni also went on TVNZ’s Breakfast to point out the Government was therefore on target to meet their child poverty reduction targets – see 1News’ Government’s $5.5b Families Package on track to lift 74,000 children out of poverty – report.

Universal benefit for kids

If the Government is to do more for children in poverty, an increasingly popular suggestion is the resurrection of the old “family benefit” for families with children, which was abolished in 1991. There are various ways that cash payments could be assigned to children, as explained by Susan Edmunds – see: ‘Pension’ for kids could level income inequality between young and old.

In this, economist Shamubeel Eaqub is reported as saying that “the experience of superannuation showed that a universal payment was an effective way to reduce poverty in a swathe of the population. Doing the same for children would have the same effect, he said”. He is quoted saying: “Would it cost a lot of money? Yes. Would it provide lots of benefits? Yes”.

There are various ways to distribute the money – it could be universal, or targeted. Researcher Jess Berentson-Shaw is cited as proposing a highly-targeted version, while Eaqub favours universalism, albeit paid for by the means-testing of superannuation: “If I had my way you’d take it away from the decrepit old folk and give it to the young ones. Make super means-tested and a benefit for children unconditional. Older people don’t need it, they have money.”

Another advocate, Lana Hart, proposes a “universal child benefit of $60 a week for every child up to the age of 17”, which would cost $3.8 billion a year, and in “one single, bold stroke, we could take the biggest bite yet out of New Zealand’s child poverty problem” – see: Time to make significant inroads into child poverty.

Hart says the Government just needs to be courageous in adopting such a programme that is already relatively popular: “There’s plenty of public backing for the schemes that France, Ireland, Sweden and other countries have already adopted. In 2017, a survey asked New Zealanders if they would support or oppose a basic income payment of $60 per week to all 1.22 million Kiwi kids. More than half (55 per cent) said they would support it and only one in five New Zealanders surveyed said no.”

Also making the case for payments to children, economist and leader of TOP, Geoff Simmons writes today: “All children under three should get $200 a week, no questions asked. We give our elderly an unconditional benefit, so why not our youngest citizens? Currently the group with the highest rates of poverty in New Zealand is families with children” – see: Means-testing pension to free up money for young Kiwis should be a no-brainer.

Simmons also advocates finding the money through cuts to Superannuation. However, it’s worth noting Jonathan Boston’s arguments in his opinion piece that the use of highly-targeted approaches to welfare have reduced public support for such programmes. He advocates less means-testing, saying “Exclusion invariably breeds discontent and overrides compassion.”

Finally, there’s now a scheme for wealthy superannuants to give money to those in need, and for the cartoon explanation of this, see Toby Morris’ The Good Life: How superannuants can change NZ’s inequality story.