Garth George: When will we tackle poverty?

TALK IS CHEAP: Andrew Little (pictured) and John Key's speeches have focused on social housing. PHOTO/FILE

IN HIS so-called state of the nation address last week, Prime Minister John Key rambled on about "social" housing - or, rather, the lack of it. In his version, the Leader of the Opposition, Andrew Little, rambled on about jobs - or, rather, the lack of them.

And I cringed, for here we have our political leaders once again looking for band-aid solutions to what are merely symptoms of the deep underlying cause of all of our social problems. That underlying cause is poverty, which afflicts hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens. That is the state of our nation.

I can understand why politicians avoid this dreadful predicament like the plague, for it seems to be unsolvable and its amelioration will require sacrifice on the part of most Kiwis and certainly a radical change in business practice.

Yet I still wonder how it is that we have allowed this degree of poverty, particularly among children, to blight this richly-blessed country, which by its size and population is probably the best-placed in the world to get rid of it.

It is much too simple to try to blame the inequality of wealth for the poverty that persists all over the world, for there have always been rich and poor.

Granted, in societies in which the rich get richer - as in New Zealand today - the poor always get poorer and more numerous, but there has to be more to it than that.

State welfare doesn't work either, because if it did there would be no poverty, certainly in this country which spends untold billions of taxpayers' money every year in trying to alleviate the sufferings of those who are, or who see themselves, in need.

And it has to be said that the avarice that drives the rich to become vastly richer is the same cupidity that drives the poor to rip off the welfare system, the health system, the tax system or accident compensation system. Which New Zealanders do - by the thousands.

I have long believed that a large part of the problem is, and always has been, the incongruity of trying to run a socialist wealth-redistribution system within a capitalist economic system.

I guess that leads most of us, having paid our income taxes and GST and a multiplicity of other indirect government duties, levies and fees, to adopt the attitude that the poor are the Government's problem.

So we salve our consciences by tossing a few dollars to one of a multiplicity of charities and try not to resent even that because God knows we've paid the Government more than enough that we shouldn't have to.

Yet still we see that health, welfare and education have shown no improvement - in fact they are all going downhill faster than ever. And until we commit all our resources to overcoming poverty that slide will continue.

When, oh when, will we stop attacking the symptoms and ignoring the causes, such as our abysmally low-wage economy? Surely, giving everyone a liveable day's pay for a day's work would be a great start.

Higher wages mean more spending power and more spending power means not only a more active economy but a more willing workforce.

Paying a minimum wage brings a minimum of effort on the part of workers; pay them a decent wage and they will give a decent and more productive day's work; and sooner rather than later more jobs will be created.

What happened, I wonder, to the truism that a well-paid and well-looked-after workforce is a happy, loyal and productive workforce?

When will we stop seeing them as mere "human resources"?

Some 2000 years ago, Jesus said: "For you have the poor with you always, and whenever you wish you may do them good ..."

I would have thought that by now we might have found an effective and lasting way to do that comprehensively. But it seems to me that our politicians, of most persuasions, are like possums helplessly captured in the headlights of the Big Business juggernaut.

-garth.george@hotmail.com

-Garth George is a veteran newspaper journalist, retired and living in Rotorua