Campbell Roberts warns against the inequality developing in New Zealand society and invites us to join with imagination and courage to grow an alternative future.

Inequality between people is socially damaging and personally destructive. Disparities of wealth, privilege, education and opportunity have existed in each era of human history, but in recent times the inequality between people has become more concentrated and extreme.

Mtumiki Njira writes powerfully from Limbe, Malawi about the corrosive impact of inequality in her region. “When we in Malawi were all poor together, you didn’t need doors, let alone locks. Today, with a grossly rich elite having been developed, one lives behind walls with bars on every window and door.”

A compassionate society is where people are loved and wanted, where we don’t allow them to be hungry, uneducated or homeless. When we see growing inequality, unnecessary deprivation and hardship in New Zealand, we are witnessing a poverty of compassion. We don’t care enough. It is also a poverty of imagination — we are unable to imagine a world that gives priority to addressing poverty and growing inequality.

Inequity in New Zealand

In New Zealand income inequality has been increasing. In comparing income inequality across countries, the OECD uses the Gini coefficient. Gini coefficients measure income inequality, with a score of 1 indicating perfect inequality and a score of 0 indicating perfect equality. The most recent OECD comparison (from 2017) gives New Zealand a rating of .35, indicating higher inequality than the OECD median of .32.

But the inequity in New Zealand is not just numbers on a graph. It is a conscious national decision that leaves some of our fellow Kiwis in poverty and need. Such disparity between households is seen in these two families presenting at the Salvation Army community centre.

Family One

Mother and father with two children — net weekly income $2,577, housing costs $1,430. The family’s total weekly income available after housing costs is $1,147.

Family Two

Solo parent with two children — net weekly income $507.22, housing costs $450.00, advance offset to Ministry of Social Development (MSD) $17.00. The family’s total weekly income available after housing costs is just $40.22.

Does that inequality of income of $1,107 a week matter for the future of those two children? Yes, it matters. Even if the love, attention and care of each of the parents is constant and comparable, it will matter. It will matter in their nutrition, health resources, in their education, socialisation, their housing and their holidays. Income inequality of this degree matters and requires our immediate action.

A few of the problems contributing to inequality in New Zealand include: work that does not deliver a living wage, the ongoing impact of colonisation on Māori, social policies built on the belief that the primary cause of inequality is poor budgeting and household management skills, and insufficient investment in education, particularly early childhood education and care (ECEC). Then there is the appalling failure of the housing policy in New Zealand. In these and other ways, public policy has sometimes developed, supported and nurtured systems which have sustained and even expanded inequality.

For too long, inequality in New Zealand has disabled individuals, destroyed families and damaged communities. It is heartbreaking to see people robbed of hope. Parents are struggling to give their children a future, sometimes fighting a society stacked against them, depriving them of the opportunity to nourish and provide for the children they love.

Change Is Possible

Change is possible. It will require a fight of determination, compassion and justice to achieve social justice. But it is possible. Change to inequality requires, among other things, a living wage, child poverty reduction and access to affordable, secure housing.

A Living Wage

In its first 100 days the New Zealand Coalition Government signalled plans to bring the minimum wage nearer to the living wage. This represents a significant step in reducing inequality. Eventually, though, the country must ensure the living wage becomes the minimum wage in New Zealand. Recent minimum wage experience is that when wages for those on the bottom rise, so too do wages for those not far from the bottom — in other words, minimum wage legislation is effective in raising incomes for a more significant number of workers than those on the minimum wage, therefore decreasing inequality.

Universal Child Allowance

Child poverty can no longer be allowed to destroy the future of the nation’s children. A universal child allowance is required to ensure that the most vulnerable families not only dream of a hopeful future for their children but are able to achieve it. We know that our universal income provision in superannuation has mostly lifted the elderly from poverty. It is now time to do the same for the nation’s children.

Early Childhood Education

Universal and free access to early childhood education (ECE) for children living in the most impoverished two and three decile communities is another goal we should prioritise. Seeds of inequality grow into significant disparity when we don’t provide early opportunities for young children’s education and brain development.

Stable Housing

The failure of some people to access affordable, healthy and secure tenure housing continues to drive and deepen inequality amongst New Zealanders. Thankfully, this inability of families to obtain adequate housing is being recognised and successive governments have started to give increased focus to housing needs. Overcrowded houses with two or three families in residence, camping grounds that become permanent homes, a massive rise in emergency housing and people living on the streets are all signs of our increased inequality. The housing crisis New Zealand is experiencing is the result of government inaction over some years. Fixing this crisis will require sustained and consistent action for years to come.

KiwiBuild and the increased provision of social housing alongside other planned government initiatives will help, but they will not fix the problem. Further solutions are required — a larger government budget allocation in Vote Building and Housing will help create the opportunities for even more creative solutions.

The government’s KiwiBuild initiative is essential to ease housing supply problems but it needs, also, a KiwiBuy programme. This is a programme giving households the ability to buy the KiwiBuild homes that are presently projected to cost between $600,000 to $700,000 each. KiwiBuy would allow low-income families to enjoy home ownership. Shared equity, rent to buy and leased land options are some of the possibilities that could be considered in a KiwiBuy package.

Additional action is required in reforming our tenancy laws to encourage private sector investment into rental housing, for the building of more social housing and rethinking of the accommodation supplement.

If New Zealand continues to foster inequality in the way it has over the last 20 years, we will create a damaging economic and social cost with a consequential deterioration in our national well-being.

Change is needed, ensuring we include and value all Kiwis, giving them the ability to enjoy and participate in this fabulous country. Real change happens in the hearts and minds of ordinary people — when we gain an imagination to see an alternative future and the courage to seek it.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 232 November 2018: 4-5