Poverty and Inquality

November 24, 2022

Josephine Varghese: From Obama to Sunak–do representational milestones mean anything more than symbolism?

New Zealand media have recently discussed two major representational milestones in politics. Firstly, New Zealand Parliament achieving 50% women’s representation with the induction of Labour list MP Soraya Peke-Mason. Secondly, Rishi Sunak becoming the UK’s first non-White Prime Minister. Major media outlets have been celebrating these events as watershed moments in history. Indeed, these are …

February 27, 2020

Bryce Edwards: “Significant” increases in benefits not necessarily enough

Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni described this year’s annual benefit increases of 3 per cent as “significant”, and “a way of sharing the wealth”. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also heralded them as the biggest increase to benefits in nine years, if National’s 2015 one-off adjustments are excluded. The details of this year’s annual increase in …

February 26, 2020

Bryce Edwards: Is enough being done about child poverty?

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won power in 2017 on the basis of statements such as “My goal is to eradicate child poverty in New Zealand”. The Government’s progress on child poverty will be under scrutiny at this year’s general election, but progress is slow, and many are claiming not enough is being done to address this …

December 3, 2019

Bryce Edwards: Labour risks losing the Māori vote

Labour chose a pākehā over a Māori as president at its annual conference in the weekend. Some believe this could have ramifications for a sector of the party and a demographic feeling ill-served by the party and the Government. Commentators have argued that this is symptomatic of bigger problems in the Labour-Māori relationship, which could …

Bryce Edwards: National’s law and order populism savaged

November 28, 2019

A thorn in the side of National, former MP Chester Borrows punctured his party’s “law and order week” before it even started, by framing its new crime and punishment stances as ignorant and dangerous. Appearing in the media early in the week, he painted National’s discussion document as populist, opportunist, and a knee-jerk response where …

November 18, 2019

Bryce Edwards: Why “OK boomer” generational warfare is a dead-end

Chlöe Swarbrick’s “OK boomer” retort in Parliament has proved to be the spark that set alight a dry field of latent generational angst. The debate over the remark rolls on and on, revealing that generational warfare is a growing cleavage in New Zealand. Increasingly, political problems of housing, inequality, climate change and so forth, are …

October 11, 2019

Bryce Edwards: Why isn’t the Govt using its super surplus for doing good?

It’s surprising that no cartoonist has yet portrayed Finance Minister Grant Robertson as Gollum, fiendishly protecting his “precious” surplus. His obsession over keeping government spending at low levels while the tax take soars is starting to look more than a little odd – and not just in the eyes of supporters of the coalition partners, …

September 6, 2019

Bryce Edwards: Shouldn’t the Government be spending more?

What sort of topsy-turvy political world have we arrived at? This week, the Government continued to defend its fiscally conservative approach, in direct opposition to economists who suggest more spending is warranted. Even Treasury, the Reserve Bank, the private sector, and National appear to be open to much greater spending. On Tuesday, Finance Minister Grant …

September 5, 2019

Bryce Edwards: Labour’s KiwiBuild reset disaster

The Government has been widely panned over its major announcement yesterday on housing. There are a few positive takes on the “reset”, but generally it has been viewed as an embarrassing backdown at best, or at worst a sell-out of those needing the housing crisis addressed. One political journalist has even branded yesterday’s announcement as …

Bryce Edwards: Ihumātao reflects the Zeitgeist of 2019

July 30, 2019

The extraordinary Māori land protest at Ihumātao in Auckland is symbolic of our time. It is unlikely to have occurred, say, five years ago. It perfectly reflects heightened concerns and increased radicalism over racism, economic inequality, and the history of colonialism in New Zealand. This meant that when the police moved in last week to …

July 10, 2019

Bryce Edwards: What’s changed for welfare beneficiaries?

The plight of welfare beneficiaries came into focus last week with a photo taken outside an Auckland Work and Income office, of clients who had been queuing from 2am in order to apply for emergency hardship payments. This has sparked a debate about whether the Labour-led Government is doing enough to provide for this group …

July 5, 2019

Bryce Edwards: Is it time for a programme of mass state house building?

Call it “state housing”, “social housing” or this Government’s preference, “public housing” – it’s the accommodation solution that continues to be overlooked and neglected by both Labour and National governments. Sure, the current government might talk a lot about “public housing” and they might be building more state houses than the previous government, but it’s …

May 31, 2019

Bryce Edwards: The other side of the Budget story

For each Budget, the government of the day spends huge amounts of resources getting its message and branding across about its spending decisions. Careful attempts at framing their Budget are made, and all of this largely gets reported. This year is no different, and so you can read, watch and listen to hundreds of media …

May 6, 2019

Bryce Edwards: Expediency rather than transformation on welfare reform

Have the political left and supporters of the Labour-led Government been conned again? Big changes were promised in welfare reform, but with the response to the just-released working group report on the welfare system, it looks like very little is actually going to be delivered. Of course, the left has already been feeling shocked and …

April 23, 2019

Bryce Edwards: What will Labour do about inequality now?

What is a leftwing political party and government for? Ultimately, they exist to ameliorate inequality, making the world better for working people, the poor, and marginalised. The point is to transform society – restructuring in favour of the powerless, against the wealthy. That’s the theory, at least. In the wake of the Labour-led Government’s capitulation …

February 26, 2019

Bryce Edwards: The biggest problem with the CGT – it won’t do enough

Are the purported benefits of the Tax Working Group’s proposed capital gains tax an illusion? So far, questions about the potential effectiveness of the tax are the biggest challenge to the proposal, as there are strong doubts about whether the new tax would really achieve its desired aims. The best arguments in favour of introducing …

February 25, 2019

Bryce Edwards: The best arguments for the capital gains tax

During the last decade, there has been an explosion of concern around the world about economic inequality. Here in New Zealand there has been a growing debate about how to deal with this, and virtually all parts of the political spectrum now pay attention to this problem. It is in this context that the Tax …

February 4, 2019

Bryce Edwards: Back to school poverty and inequality

Many children were supposed to start back at school today – but how many actually turned up? On an average day in New Zealand schools, only 64 per cent of students show up. Many absences are obviously due to illness, but there are ill-effects from societal problems that are preventing children from getting a basic …

January 23, 2019

Bryce Edwards: Extreme inequality a test for the new Government

Jacinda Ardern has just arrived in Davos for the World Economic Forum, where she is promoting her Government’s “economics of kindness” approach to other world leaders and elites. Her message is in line with the fact that her Labour-led administration was elected on the basis of dealing with New Zealand’s severe inequality and associated social …

Bryce Edwards: Rolling back “neoliberalism” in our schooling system

December 18, 2018

Equality, fairness, and cooperation look set to become the priorities underpinning the operations of the schooling system. They’re the values that are explicit in the radical new proposals to overhaul education and roll back the “neoliberal” Tomorrow’s Schools model that was imposed in the 1980s.The status quo, based on competition and a business model is …

Bryce Edwards: Kiwibuild is now “socialism for the rich”

July 5, 2018

If there was any excitement brewing at being able to enter a lottery to buy an affordable Kiwibuild house, it was certainly short-lived, as further details revealed that the “lottery of birth” has probably already scuttled most people’s chances. Disappointment is setting in as more people realise that the scheme is really only going to …