During Christopher Luxon’s tour of KidsCan’s Auckland distribution centre on Friday, the charity’s CEO and founder, Julie Chapman, used the opportunity to inform the National Party leader of the dire state of child poverty in Aotearoa. “We’re seeing unprecedented levels of need,” said Chapman. KidsCan was founded by Chapman in 2005, at the time providing Read more
Posts Tagged ‘Child Poverty’
Dear Pakeha NZ – Child poverty isn’t a ‘Māori’ problem, it’s an ‘us’ problem
Monday, May 30th, 2022
There is a real danger in NZ Politics that when you attack policy as racist to Māori we play the ‘is it racist’ game where everyone screams it is or isn’t, everyone goes back to their polarised corners, nothing progresses. We’ve done it with Police shootings, we’ve done it with Police taking photos of kids Read more
Third-rate outcomes belie government’s child poverty focus
Thursday, July 29th, 2021
Despite the Ardern government’s stated child poverty focus, more and more of New Zealand’s children, particularly Māori and Pacific children, are suffering. In the face of miserable outcomes in relation to child poverty, obesity, suicide and basic education, the Prime Minister remains upbeat about her government’s efforts to date. “You would be hard pressed to Read more
Combatting the dismal reality of child poverty
Thursday, July 22nd, 2021
When Pamela* found out her daughter had gone to prison last November, she didn’t know where to turn. Her daughter’s three children had been left without parents to look after them, and the whānau were struggling with the emotional load. Pamela took in her three grandchildren, but on top of the heartbreak was struggling with Read more
NZ children living in motels reaches record high
Monday, July 12th, 2021The Labour government promised to prioritise tackling child poverty. But for the 4368 children living in motels across the country as at 31 March, the problem is still all too real. That number jumped by 480 in three months. At the end of December there were 3888 children in motels. There were 465 children in Read more
Social agencies warn of child poverty issues
Monday, May 31st, 2021Only a small percentage of children will be lifted out of poverty over the next three years by Budget announcements last week, Tauranga social agencies have been told. About 40 members of social agencies gathered to discuss the effects of the Budget announcements on child poverty at a breakfast meeting organised by the local Western Read more
Income support rises welcome
Thursday, May 20th, 2021
Child Poverty Action Group welcomes the income support increases announced today by the Government, saying the rises will be a good step towards income adequacy for many children in need. “The changes today are useful if insufficient. Our modelling shows the changes fall short of liveable incomes, but these increases should still be high enough Read more
Unmet need: in 40 years I’ve never seen it quite like this
Thursday, April 15th, 2021
You may have heard an increasing number of child poverty experts and frontline support services calling on the Government to increase the amount of income support paid to effectively address poverty in New Zealand. What you may not have heard about is the recent UMR poll in February showing seven in 10 New Zealanders support Read more
New child poverty stats not reflective of current situation on the ground
Thursday, February 25th, 2021
New child poverty statistics from Stats NZ paint an optimistic picture for the period before the 2020 Covid lockdowns, Monte Cecilia Housing Trust CEO Bernie Smith says, but the months since then have been brutal for low-income earners and government support is desperately needed. “We’re always happy to see those arrows going in the right Read more
‘Children cannot wait’: Government slammed for ‘unjustifiably slow’ welfare reform
Thursday, December 3rd, 2020
Child advocates are slamming the Government for its “unjustifiably slow” action on welfare reform, with a new report finding just four of 126 recommendations have been fully implemented. And it found none the 42 key recommendations made by the Welfare Expert Advisory Group early last year have been achieved almost two years later. The Child Read more