The release of the Salvation Army’s 2026 State of the Nation report, read alongside the government’s ‘‘move-on’’ policy for homeless people, reveals a judgemental and accusatory attitude problem about people living in poverty.
New Zealand is exposed as a nation that would rather criminalise and demonise the symptoms of poverty than cure its causes.
The report, ‘‘Foundations of Wellbeing’’, shows increasing deprivation in families. The data is unequivocal: child poverty and material hardship are rising, with over 70,000 tamariki Māori living in poverty. National efforts to halve child poverty are at best stalled.
This isn’t just about statistics. It’s about the reality of whānau forced to choose between kai and housing, with one in three tamariki Māori experiencing food insecurity.
It is against this backdrop that the government proposes to introduce move-on orders. These orders would grant police the power to direct individuals — including children as young as 14 — to leave a public area for up to 24 hours if they are deemed to be begging, sleeping rough or causing disruption.
Failure to comply with the police could mean a fine of up to $2000 or a three-month prison term.
How innovative of them to solve homelessness by housing people in prison. How rational of them to punish poverty by taking away people’s money.
Because what happens if they don’t pay the fine? Yet more housing of the homeless in prison.
This is justified by ministers who say they were ‘‘elected to restore law and order’’. Not to solve poverty.
The conflict between the evidence and the government’s response lays bare the attitude problem. The report identifies the drivers of this crisis — unaffordable housing, insufficient income and systemic inequities — and calls for investment in repeated, but as yet untried, solutions.
The fastest, easiest and most effective way to solve almost all child poverty in New Zealand is to move the most poor, that is those on benefits, on to benefits that can genuinely sustain a rental property, power, food and clothing.
This is the primary cause of poverty, not under-education, not lack of skills or inability to manage. If there is not enough money, no amount of budgeting will fill the gap.
Poverty has nothing to do with not being good enough. Poverty is not having enough.
Child poverty therefore is a government policy. They choose it, that is why it persists.
Homelessness is a government policy. Government treats homelessness as a private choice and a public order issue for the police — but it is not. Homelessness is the result of government economic illiteracy and policy negligence.
By targeting the visible signs of personal struggle and government failure, the government prioritises the comfort of the public and businesses over the dignity of the most vulnerable.
The government believes the problem is the existence of poor people, and their presence in public spaces, not the poverty itself. The government approach is to make poverty invisible, not to make it history. And the New Zealand public is complicit in this.
Instead of investing in proven models such as Housing First, or benefit increases, or reforming Working for Families, the government persists with policy that is widely condemned as inhumane and ineffective.
And New Zealanders, by and large, reward these governments for it.
If it is a National government we know they would rather help two imaginary tourists called Chuck and Mary have a fun time than help New Zealand children living in a van with their parents.
If it is a Labour government, we know they know what the right thing to do is but are too terrified of a judgemental voting public to ever do it.
By choosing to move the homeless out of sight instead of moving them into homes, New Zealand is not just failing to solve poverty, it compounds the trauma of those who are already suffering.
Was nothing at all learned from Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Care? Was nothing at all learned ever?
Last Sunday it was Te Rā o Ngā Tamariki — Children’s Day. It is a day to make time for tamariki, to recognise their desires, strengths and value to us all.
A compassionate nation would, for them, invest in the housing and support its children’s need to live good, healthy lives. An effective nation would implement policy proven to deliver bang for buck, fixing poverty at its source when children are young and saving billions in health, education and social disorder later down the track.
Instead, we pay to police our failures rather than invest to fix them.
- Associate Prof Metiria Stanton Turei is a law lecturer at the University of Otago and a former Green Party co-leader.
