New Zealand Should be Serious About Tackling Poverty

Advocates have called for major changes for New Zealand to seriously tackle poverty. Susan St. John from the Child Poverty Action Group said New Zealand had about 180,000 children in poverty but it has jumped to 254,000 children including the housing costs.

Andrew Becroft, the Children’s Commissioner said the statistics was nothing new. “But because its from the chief statistician and its comprehensive and its recent, there is some degree of reliability we can place on them. So, its nothing new but the extent of the challenge is laid bare.”

St. John said the data was collected before the families package came into affect. She said some of the measures were doing little to help the very poorest children. “On one of the measures of children living under the 40 per cent after housing costs poverty line, we have got 174,000 children there. That’s an extremely low income in those households for those children to be living on and one has to ask if the families package itself is going to be reaching those children.”

Becroft said clear things need to be done such as addressing the housing crisis because its clear the difference that housing costs make to low income families. “We need to realistically set benefit levels, I think index link them to wages and prices for benefits involving children. We need to look at some pretty new ideas, such as in-kind benefits, free school lunches and extending the reach of free dental and medical care.”

However, Christine Rankin, children’s advocate said pumping more money into households did not necessarily solve the problem. Rankin said how people use the money is the key.