More than one-third of New Zealand children live in poverty, a draft report on
poverty finds. High housing costs are the key contributing factor, with children
under 15 being the most in need. One in three of them live in poverty. They made
up 44 per cent of all the poor in New Zealand, the study found.
The study, which combined official statistics with focus group analysis of the
daily hardship faced by many living in poverty, was conducted by Victoria
University public policy senior lecturer Bob Stephens, Charles Waldegrave, of
the Family Centre social policy research unit, and Paul Frater, of Business and
Economic Research. Mr Stephens said the high cost of housing was the key factor
in pushing many poor households below the poverty line.
"We did find that low-income households have on average higher housing costs
than the average family."
Some people had shifted to rural areas for cheap rental housing, but they had
little prospect of finding work, he said.
Those most at risk were children living with one parent. Nearly half of
sole-parent households fell below the poverty line.
Social Services and Employment Minister Steve Maharey said the previous
government had created a "poverty trap" by adopting the view in the 1990s that
beneficiaries "were probably their own worst enemy".
"We saw attack ads on beneficiaries, we saw massive cuts to benefit levels, we
saw a kind of testing which really made it almost impossible to get off a
benefit," Mr Maharey said yesterday.
(Christchurch "Press" (NZPA report), Thursday, February 03, 2000)
Meanwhile ...
Maharey has forced Work and Income New Zealand (the government department
responsible for paying benefits etc) to dismantle an "advisory board described
as a 'cosy support group' for chief executive Christine Rankin". Board members
were each earning more in a day than most beneficiaries got in a week. The pay
of the chairman, Victoria University graduate school of business and government
management chairman Lincoln Gould, was $750 a day plus GST, and board members
got $500 a day.
The other board members were former Employers Federation chief executive Steve
Marshall, Tourism Board and former TAB chief executive George Hickton, Birthcare
NZ managing director Lee Mathias, IHC chief executive Jan Dowland, Westpac Trust
government business manager June McCabe, and Infometrics director Gareth Morgan.
(Morgan is an extreme neo-liberal economist.)
("Winz 'support group' removed", Christchurch "Press", Thursday, February 03,
2000)
Bill Rosenberg
