We’ve finished our summer, tired, constantly worried, and for too many, brutalised by the gap between income and the increases in the cost of basic necessities.
Resilience, the ability to recovery quickly from difficulties is in shorter supply for lots of us.
Our connections with each other have frayed in the face of lockdowns and isolation, our confidence battered by the constantly changing Covid situation, and our financial and emotional resources depleted in ways that aren’t well understood by those in power, but include rampant increases in the cost of fuel, rent and food.
For whanau who are working in low wage jobs, with kids, and renting, the situation is bordering on dire.
Early childhood centres like Little Citizens in South Dunedin are providing three meals a day, and it is barely denting the sides.
Dunedin foodbanks are under the hammer, and it’s not even winter yet.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of support have been pumped into businesses in just the last few weeks.
Why are we not seeing more support for families? For pensioners on fixed incomes? For the 12% of Kainga Ora residents who can’t afford their rent?
Why are Rats not free for people with Community Services Card?
Where is the doubling of the winter energy payment provided in 2020 but not since?
Where is the $50 a week emergency lift in benefits MSD recommended to ministers in December 2020?
Yes there is an bump to benefits coming on April 1. Of $15 a week.
That won’t even cover the increase for half a tank of petrol.
In the late 1980s New Zealand went through radical economic change that doubled the rate of child poverty (where it has stayed largely ever since), with lifelong consequences for those families and for us as a nation.
The Government moved with astonishing speed when Covid-19 arrived. It should do so again.
The Government’s budget lands in two months’ time.
There must be significant increases to Working for Families, and main benefits.
There must be reinstatement of the doubled winter energy payment and reductions in the cost of accessing healthcare.
The mental health reforms must be expedited.
If you would like to support the Mission’s work with a donation, please visit www.givealittle.co.nz and search for The Methodist Mission.
