Reformism Fails in NZ

The Ardern government has failed to reduce child poverty in New Zealand, the children’s commissioner says, despite the prime minister’s pledge to make the country the best place in the world to be a child.

148,000 children live in homes experiencing material hardship in six or more areas, including lack of access to basics such as warm clothing, health care and food. The figures are unchanged since the first report into child poverty in 2012.

Matthew Tukaki, executive director of the New Zealand Maori Council called the latest figures “appalling” and said while benefit rates needed to rise, so too did incomes for “the middle-class working poor. And let’s not forget we have working whanau living in their cars with their tamariki around places like Auckland because they cannot afford the rent or even then bond and lets not talk about the fact many will never won their own homes because of the lack of being able to save because they are just trying to keep up with cost of living.”

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