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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has rejected a plea from 59 organizations to lift the level of welfare payments before Christmas. Trade unions, charities and poverty action groups were among those asking the government to address mass unemployment and poverty. Working through umbrella group ActionStation Aotearoa [New Zealand], the groups published an open letter, saying the Read more
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Calls are coming in for the government to fast-track its child poverty mandate. The Child Poverty Action Group is one of several advocating for the new government, led by Child Poverty Reduction Minister Jacinda Ardern, to immediately raise income support. Campaigner Janet McAllister said benefit levels were so low they locked many children into severe Read more
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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is refusing to take responsibility for the country’s damning social statistics; in particular child poverty. Amid the growing need for food banks and the accusation that Ardern, has done nothing to address the issue of child poverty, the Prime Minister told One News that she needs more than one term to Read more
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The latest statistics on childhood poverty in New Zealand suggest that, on some key measures, things are worse than previously estimated. About one in six children (16% or 183,000) live below a before-housing-cost relative poverty measure, but that figure jumps to almost one in four (23% or 254,000) once housing costs are accounted for. And Read more
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Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand is one of the thirteen New Zealand aid organisations have banded together to issue a warning over the millions of children plunged into hunger by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Adra, Caritas, CBM, ChildFund New Zealand, Hagar, Hope St, International Needs, Orphans Aid International, The Salvation Army, Save the Children, Tearfund, VSA Read more
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The Director of Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand, Julianne Hickey is calling for action from politicial leaders to address child poverty in New Zealand. Stats NZ figures show there has been an increase in material hardship and Hickey warns child poverty risks becoming ingrained. In voicing its concern, Caritas points out that 4100 more children living Read more
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At Lifewise, when we speak to rangatahi about their experiences of homelessness, many of them tell us that they can’t remember a time when they had a safe, secure, stable home. Imagine that, growing up without a home, living day to day, week to week, month to month, never knowing when you might find the Read more
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Rotorua has the second-highest number of homeless people in New Zealand. Only Auckland has more. In 2017 Tiny Deane decided to do something about it. Everyone told him he wouldn’t be able to. But he was not put off. He and his wife Lynley sold their rental property and remortgaged their family home to establish the Read more
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Thousands of Auckland families are forced to feed themselves on about $6:50 a meal this winter, Auckland City Mission says. Its Social Services general manager Helen Robinson (pictured above) said that, for many families, once they had paid rent, debts, power, transport and medical costs, there was little left to spend on food. Robinson said that an economist’s assessment Read more
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Churches in New Zealand have a long history of taking strong positions in the public square on social justice. In a well known example, William Rutherford Waddell found great inequalities and deprivation in the St. Andrew’s parish of Dunedin during an economic downturn in the 1880s. He was determined the church should make a difference Read more
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Jonathan Godfrey
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Antony Peter de Joux
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