Simon Collins has a useful article in today’s Herald. I look forward to the rest of the series and especially whether Key has the guts to try and make the solution to New Zealand’s poverty multipartisan in an attempt to get buy-in that lasts beyond this government. We all know that there isn’t a short term fix. :-
Auckland has changed from an equal city to an unequal one in less than a generation with the income gap between rich and poor widening dramatically over the past 25 years.
Whereas most people’s incomes were bunched tightly around the average in 1986, the spread has become increasingly vast, according to data prepared for the Herald by Statistics New Zealand.
Not only is the gap steadily increasing, but so too is the number of people who do not have enough money to eat.
The super-rich – such as the Chrisco hamper company owners who rented their $30 million Coatesville mansion to Kim Dotcom – have built sprawling homes on a scale the city had never dreamed of in the 1980s.
At the other extreme, food charity was unheard of in New Zealand, outside a tiny minority served by inner-city soup kitchens, until welfare benefits were cut in 1991.
Why did the Herald not publish this series before the election?
Is this not cynical timing!
Let’s see the lash from the gnats now.
Labour hard I am,but nonetheless,financial literacy will go along way for those on the lower end of the spectrum…i.e,save 10% of what you get and spend the rest!I know, I’ve lived on bread-crums,nothing to eat at night but water to keep my stomach full..
rents also are very unaffordable, as are house prices, countrywide.
1) What about budgeting advise?
2) Many things which we perceive as needs are just wants.
3) Why not cycling to work to save on petrol.
I would respect the case more if a budgeting advisor stood behind them.