Diane Robertson: Too many children in the poverty trap

The Government is struggling to put a positive spin on the degree of poverty existing in New Zealand.

For the past five years at the Auckland City Mission we have been seeing an increase in demand for food parcels and other services. Our food parcel numbers almost doubled, from 2870 in 2000, to 5550 last year.

Food parcels are only one indicator of what's going on. Demand for clothing, bedding, basic household items and our other services has also been steadily rising.

We have been seeing an increasing sense of hopelessness and resignation about not being able to get out of the poverty trap.

Yet when we have talked about these things the Government has accused us of lying and exaggerating.

They have accused us of inflating our food parcel statistics, of not checking people's benefit entitlements.

During the last winter appeal they said we were using false figures, exaggerating the numbers of children living in poverty.

It turns out that we were not - and that a mistake had been made with the statistics used in the last Ministry of Social Development Living Standards survey in 2000.

The reported figure of 29 per cent of children living in hardship should have been 36 per cent.

There had been no big fall in child poverty. And in the current Living Standards survey this figure has increased to 38 per cent. Two percentage points may not seem much, but they translate into around 20,000 more children dealing with the unhealthy realities of poverty.

The New Zealand Living Standards report from the Ministry of Social Development released this week showed a million New Zealanders living in hardship, with a quarter of a million reporting having to cope with severe hardship. And a disproportionate number are in the Auckland region.

Despite the buoyant economy and falls in unemployment levels, not only has there been an increase in the overall percentage of those living in poverty since the last survey but people at the bottom of the heap have slipped deeper into poverty.

A disproportionate number of those trapped in the "severe hardship" category are children, with more than a third being brought up in hardship. That represents around 380,000 children.

While the Working for Families package will lift half of these out of poverty, the Child Poverty Action Group's evaluation of Working for Families clearly shows that around 175,000 children are being left behind.

These are the children of beneficiaries who do not meet the criteria to benefit from the package. Seventy-five per cent of the children of beneficiaries are living in hardship.

This disregard for the needs of our children is unacceptable. The authors of New Zealand Living Standards express "special concern about the well-being of children". And so they should.

We should all be concerned.

We need to collectively treasure every New Zealand child.

As the report says, childhood hardship "can have lasting negative effects through compromising their development".

Not only is caring adequately for our children the sign of a caring, democratic society, it also makes sound economic sense.

Again, quoting from the report: "effective policy interventions - both preventive and remedial - deserve attention not only on the basis of advancing social justice, but also because they have the potential to give high returns on expenditure".

What is the reality for these children who, through no doing of their own, are caught in an unending cycle of poverty? (As the report notes, children are not able to affect their own living standards to any great extent.)

These children are not starving, but they are not being fed good, nutritious food. Their homes are all too often overcrowded and/or damp and cold. They lack adequate clothing. Their parents put off visits to the doctor and buying medicines, because of cost.

The results can be seen in our appalling child health statistics.

Too many children are ending up in hospital with Third World diseases.

Educational achievement is also affected by poor nutrition, poor housing, poor health - and lack of money to participate fully in school life.

Lack of achievement at school leaves children ill-equipped for employment, for fully participating in society. The cycle becomes self-perpetuating.

We have to stop being punitive, and look at what those living on benefits really need. Our children are suffering. Benefits have gone down in real terms. We need to raise benefit levels.

The Government needs to put resources into addressing the needs of all those living in hardship - the children, the isolated elderly, those battling with mental and physical health problems which impact on their ability to participate in the community.

The current shortfall in resources means that more people are being forced to come to agencies like the Auckland City Mission to get their basic living needs met.

In the face of government neglect, we are seeing the rise and rise of dependence on charity.

* Diane Robertson is the Auckland City Missioner.