Statistics NZ yesterday released the annual child poverty statistics. The reveal small achievements and big shortcomings, writes Janet McAllister from Child Poverty Action Group. Successive governments have neglected families with disabilities – with appalling results Here’s a fact to change the conversation: more than half of the New Zealand children in material hardship, 53%, live … Read more
Statistics NZ yesterday released the annual child poverty statistics. The reveal small achievements and big shortcomings, writes Janet McAllister from Child Poverty Action Group. Successive governments have neglected families with disabilities – with appalling results Here’s a fact to change the conversation: more than half of the New Zealand children in material hardship, 53%, live … Read more
The prime minister has been quick to rule out benefit increases before Christmas – but the welfare system is failing our communities, which she ignores at her peril, writes Child Poverty Action Group’s Janet McAllister. More than 60 organisations – and counting – have signed an open letter to the government, urging it to increase … Read more
Significantly reducing poverty in New Zealand needs serious commitment and investment, something which Child Poverty Action Group’s Janet McAllister says she’s yet to see from the party of Jacinda Ardern. “We can’t just tinker with the so-called social welfare system … it’s just not going to cut the mustard.” – Professor Cindy Kiro, chair of … Read more
Following a terrorist attack targeting NZ’s Muslim community, Scott Morrison has been keen to hug his NZ counterpart, and talked of a ‘bright stream of light to come from the darkness’. Until he overhauls Australia’s immigration and deportation policy, it’s nothing but platitude, writes Janet McAllister Ostensibly, the Aussies were there to support the Kiwis, … Read more
Our welfare system is more miserly than I thought and the government needs to get a move on, writes Janet McAllister Exactly two years ago, I expressed scepticism about Labour’s concern for poor kids. Since then, Jacinda Ardern, minister for child poverty reduction, has convinced me via the Families Package that her coalition is at … Read more
In an opinion piece for the Spinoff yesterday, the Labour leader said his party will work to ‘eradicate’ child poverty. Janet McAllister explains why she’s raising a sceptical eyebrow. When it comes to cutting the granite rock of child poverty, it takes a lot more than a plastic pair of pinking snips. These are the … Read more
Canberra’s offshore detention camps can be seen as an example of ‘necro-politics’, argues Janet McAllister. This week, The Spinoff published Amnesty International’s piece calling for New Zealand to protest Australia’s offshore detention centres, and then The Guardian published mountains more evidence of abuse and atrocities on Nauru. It costs Australia billions of dollars every year to violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights so spectacularly. But simply … Read more
The day after the Brussels bombings, Auckland’s War Memorial Museum released a bizarre statement on history, terror and good vs evil. What on earth were they thinking, asks Janet McAllister. Who said it: George W Bush or Auckland Museum? 1. “Terror only wins if we flinch.” 2. “Terrorists commit atrocities because they want the civilized … Read more