Child poverty, especially amongst Māori, is a national disgrace. Photo / Richard Robinson
Child poverty, especially amongst Māori, is a national disgrace. Photo / Richard Robinson
Opinion by Rob Campbell
THREE KEY FACTS:
Approximately 63,600 children experienced severe material hardship in the 2022/23 financial year. That is one in every 18 or 5.5% of New Zealand children.
One in five(19.8%) lived in households with less than 50% of the baseline year’s median income.
Rates for Māori tamariki are 18.8% – almost double the average.
Rob Campbell is a professional director and investor. He is chancellor at AUT, chair of Ara Ake, chair of NZ Rural Land and former chair of Te Whatu Ora.
OPINION:
One of the many frustrating things about our political debates is how much time is spent talking about the wrong things. It is fair to say that actions speak louder than words but the words are important in framing the actions we take and do not take.
The current discussion on child and whānau poverty is a great example. You will not find many people who will argue that we have too little child and whānau poverty and if you do find any, feel free to deal with them as you will.
The issue is not that we recognise the issue. Nor is it the establishment of targets for reduction. We have had those and when they are inconvenient, they get brushed over like a corporate greenwash campaign.
Targets are neither the problem nor the solution
The coalition Government’s position seems to be neither denial nor targets but rather the idea that “we” cannot afford to solve the problem and/or the only solution is some version of economic growth and trickle-down. If the TAB were taking bets on that outcome, the odds on the quinella would be huge.
Louise Upston is Minister for Child Poverty Reduction.
Of course who “we” are is critical. If you are part of a whānau living in poverty with children, “we” cannot afford not to solve the problem.
On the left, if I may use that term very loosely, the response is often that “we” in the sense of “the Government” can afford to solve the problem by spending money that is otherwise being applied to tax reductions for whānau who are not in poverty, or redirecting corporate subsidies and other support according to need, rather than according to influence.
The idea that current and future government spending allocations are a choice and that currently the choice is not being exercised in favour of whānau poverty is surely true.
If the number required to “fix” the issue is $3 billion, as has been estimated, then it may be that it could be found.
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster has been announced as the new CEO of the Government's Social Investment Agency. Photo / Mark Mitchell
There would be opportunity costs in terms of options to spend on those not in poverty but the option has been exercised against the poor. The Government, in financial terms, has met a call option it had issued some groups in the election process and any option the poor might have thought they held has expired, worthless.
But the bigger issue really is that simply spending more money is itself not the answer. Child and whānau poverty is not a bug in our economic system, it is a feature of it.
That is surely clear from the demonstrated fact that most whānau experiencing poverty are not simply beneficiaries but many are, where able, employed. They will often be pushed into unemployment or deeper into precarity but they are not simply dependent on government spend. They get the pay the system offers and face the food, rent and other living costs which the system offers. Their poverty, to repeat, is not a bug in the system but a feature of it.
That is why the new “Social Investment Agency” can commission services with its $12 million a year (some way short of $3b) to its heart’s content. It can also try to “influence” the wider and much larger government social spend to reduce child and whānau poverty. It can try to do that without targeting ethnic or class identity groups in line with coalition policy – but that is about as possible as being a carnivorous vegan.
Rob Campbell.
The truth is that our economic system creates and recreates child and whānau poverty so long as it regards that as a side-effect of “rational” economic activity – an outcome which can be treated if those not in poverty choose to.
It is not hard to see why so many Māori increasingly see solutions to whānau and child poverty for their people in terms of their own economic activities, objectives and process. Not in waiting for the absurdly outside quinella to pay off.
The “left” will have to shift its focus away from the “tax and spend” slur which is applied to its policies to identifying and delivering structural changes in the economy which have whānau prosperity, health and sustainability as the key features, not just as possible and currently unlikely side-effects.
