In New Zealand there is sufficient evidence to show that poor peoples’ lives are cut short because of poverty related poor nutrition. While food banks are alleviating the worst impacts of hunger, their kindness may well be contributing to the problem. Food poverty is a systemic issue and requires a systemic response, a response that successive governments are able to avoid while charities continue to provide a buffer for the system.
Inequality in NZ is the worst it’s been in a decade. Key’s response is pathetic. We need to vote to end suck-up economics. We need to be a better country than this.
Yesterday’s NZ Herald editorial gave a hard-line conservative view of what a charity should be. Charities should and must deal with ills of society on a person by person basis without attempting to fix the causation. That sounds more like a parasitical “charity” like the workhouses of the 19th century or the adoption factories of the 20th than anything that a person of goodwill would choose to support.
Key’s old arm cast has sold for $18,500 on Trademe. The money will go to the Fred Hollows Foundation to help blind people in […]
