Every day volunteers throughout New Zealand are giving their time for free to help others in their community. The Citizens Advice Bureau has 2400 volunteers and operates in 82 communities, equipping people with information, advice and support so that they are able to navigate issues in their lives.
We help people with any issue, and every day people come to us in such desperate situations that they can’t afford food.
This year more than 5700 people — 110 people each week, 22 people every day of the working week — have come to us seeking emergency access to food.
More than 1500 have come to us urgently needing emergency housing.
Just recently, our volunteers worked with a young mother who couldn’t afford formula for her 12-week-old baby or food for herself.
Other volunteers worked with a 79-year-old woman who had been living on instant noodles because of her high housing costs.
This is Aotearoa in 2021.
While we can help with short-term measures, such as food parcels and advocacy for special needs grants from Winz, it is disheartening for our volunteers to see these situations getting worse. We recognise at the Citizens Advice Bureau the real solution is systemic and lies in the hands of Government.
Sometimes the CAB has been cautious in the past to speak up on political issues. But the situation has become so desperate, and the solutions so clear to us, that we have to speak up now.
What has to be done, at least as a start, is clear. The Government must increase income support levels so that people have enough to live on.
The Government’s Welfare Expert Advisory Group identified that main benefits needed to be increased by as much as 47% to be adequate.
The $490 Covid income relief payment, which was available to people who lost their jobs because of Covid-19 was nearly twice the amount of the usual Jobseeker benefit — an admission that benefit levels are set too low.
Given the network of kindness that the vast number of volunteers in New Zealand represents, it is not a surprise to me that a UMR poll taken in February this year found that seven out of 10 New Zealanders believe the government should increase income support for those on low wages or not in paid work.
This poll reflects a widespread awareness that some of our team of five million are experiencing severe hardship and the wish of the majority of people to have this alleviated.
In our CAB service we see the grimness of those who are carrying the brunt of poverty.
Nearly half of those coming to us for food parcels are Maori, even though Maori make up only approximately 17% of the population.
Poverty drives other issues. It is one of the key factors in people who seek our help because of experiencing digital exclusion, which then exacerbates disadvantage and barriers to participation.
In 10 years at the CAB, I’ve never seen the situation as desperate as this.
We have seen what is possible when the Government has a will and takes a compassionate, common-sense approach. We are looking to it to increase income support in the Budget to match the kindness shown in communities by neighbours, social services, iwi and hapu, and volunteers.
When everyone has a liveable income and an opportunity to thrive, then we will really feel like a team of five million.
- Andrew Hubbard is acting CEO of the Citizens Advice Bureau.
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Comments
Why should the government pay? When does it end? When are people individually held accountable for the choice's they make? We can't keep forking over money to people who make bad decisions! Why do I have to pay money to support all of the unwed mothers in new Zealand? Stop already with the "Team" crap. The concept of a team means everybody on the team is working towards a common goal. Everybody in new Zealand isn't. Many of the people detailed in this article skipped practice. How do you define a liveable wage? Who defines it? You've done a great job glossing over that eh? There is no reason many of these people can't do public service in exchange for the compensation they receive. There is no such thing as utopia. There will always be the "haves" and the "have nots". The social benefits many of these people recieve are designed as short term fixes not careers. Much of the working poor make about the same amount as these people so how is that fair? You talk team...well make everybody show up for practice and participate equally before you start lecturing me about the rights of the poor to recieve more. I work 40hrs a week at min wage so I don't have to begging for help.
What a load of rubbish! No form of government guarantees equity of outcomes. Most governments try and guarantee that all of their citizens get the opportunity to compete. I sympathize with the woman who couldn't afford formula for her baby. Why couldn't she afford it? If she couldn't afford to feed her baby maybe she shouldn't have gotten pregnant. Its her responsibility to take care of the baby, not mine. Equally, the 79-year woman who couldn't afford her housing; whose fault is that? What has she been doing with the money she earned during the past 60 years? My wife and scrimped and saved our entire life so we wouldn't end up being that woman. Why should we have to pay for her inability to do the right thing? The New Zealand people are kind and compassionate. Unfortunately, they often don't think about the details concerning how to fund things they are compassionate about. It's not fair for all the hard-working kiwis who scrimp and save to be forced to pay more and more of their income to subsidize the poor. I really do sympathize but I am sick and tired of being forced to go without the things my family needs so these people continue to be subsidized by the government.
What? I know we wouldn't want to reform the system would we? I wish Hubbard would explain why the existence of poverty is never the fault of the individual but always the fault of the wider society who, as a consequence, must bear responsibility for the poor life decisions of all its citizens. Maybe Hubbard can explain why we have insulated Kiwis from the full consequences of failure? Why we are hampered by a progressive tax and social regime that places a drag on success. Liberals like Hubbard are responsible for the rising numbers of single-parent families, record levels of incarceration, and persistent pockets of poverty and low academic achievement. No, we certainly wouldnt want to reform the system, it obviously does what it was designed to do.
Maybe Mr Hubbard should give more of his CEO salary to help these people. God knows Ive given my fair share!