December 12, 2018

At last – A fundamental shift in social policy

Ian Shirley

The child wellbeing strategy represents the most significant shift in social policy in over four decades because of its focus on children as a population group and its emphasis on addressing structural issues in promoting economic and social wellbeing. This shifts from the four decades long treatment of children as

 

February 27, 2018

Food for Thought – Free of charge school lunches

Pii-Tuulia Nikula

Few would disagree with the contention that all children deserve healthy, nutritious meals before, during, and after their school days, yet there is plenty of evidence showing how food insecurity and malnourishment are prevalent issues among many New Zealand school children. However, there is less consensus on whether the government

 

March 21, 2017

What have future generations ever done for me?

David Hall

His stake is in the ground. Prime Minister Bill English is progressively raising superannuation age of eligibility from 65 to 67. The change will be complete by 2040, but won’t start until 1st July 2037, twenty whole years away. No one born before 30th June 1972 will be affected. Many

 

March 14, 2017

School competiton vs cooperation

John Laurenson

I have been a principal of a secondary school for more than 20 years. In that time just about every principal I have come across will privately acknowledge that the way the country’s school network functions has to change. However until the central government recognises that legislation is required to

 

March 7, 2017

School governance overhaul

Bernardine Vester

Why removing decile and creating communities of schools is not enough to transform learning in South Auckland   Jane and Cory send their children to Stonefields School, a Decile 9 primary school within walking distance of their home. This fits perfectly with the family’s aspirations for free, compulsory, quality, public

 

December 20, 2016

And so this is Christmas…

Alicia Sudden

Christmas time comes with many certainties in New Zealand. There won’t be any snow. Every mall becomes home to a Santa Claus. There will be a variety of fake and real Christmas trees in workplaces and homes, decorated with lights that take too long to untangle and tinsel that has

 

September 20, 2016

The plight of the beneficiary

Alicia Sudden

To be a beneficiary in New Zealand is to be innately separate from the rest of the population. It comes with connotations about who you are as a person, your motivations, your worth. This is the result of decades of homogenising and dehumanising discourses. And these have very real impacts

 

April 26, 2016

Schooling in an era of economic inequality

Liz Gordon

In mid-2015 I published an article revealing the effects of 25 years of ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ on the schooling system in New Zealand. It showed that, as a result of families choosing ‘up’, socially and economically, the schools serving New Zealand’s poorest communities were now, on average, 2.5 times smaller than

 

April 4, 2016

The Precariat and the Future of Work

Guy Standing

For many foreign observers, New Zealand seems like an oasis, while the rest of the world economy plunges from crisis to crisis. But no country can escape the forces of globalisation, the ongoing technological revolution and the slow fuse impact of several decades of neo-liberal policies that have transformed the

 

October 22, 2015

Unequal Health In New Zealand: Always Like This?

Alistair Woodward & Tony Blakely

There are large inequalities in health in New Zealand. This much is well-known, as is the fact that health care interventions and public health efforts often fail to make things better, and indeed may entrench disadvantage. Was it always like this? In fact, no. We are not suggesting there was

 

October 16, 2015

Age And Inequality

Philip Morrison

Introduction In a recent issue of Policy Quarterly I expressed some surprise over where New Zealanders positioned themselves on a scale between 1, ‘Incomes should be made more equal’ and 10, ‘We need large income differences as incentives for individual effort’. Not only were we less inclined to favour greater

 

October 13, 2015

Perceptions Of Inequality

Peter Skilling

In the last decade or so, the issue of economic inequality has achieved a high level of academic, media and public awareness. One notable theme in this recent attention has been the repeated representation of current high levels of inequality as bad for everyone. (There are notable exceptions of course:

 

October 8, 2015

Wealth Inequality: Who Owns How Much?

Max Rashbrooke

When it comes to economic inequality, most of the discussion focuses on income: how much money people get every year (usually after tax), and how the difference between incomes for rich and poor people has widened in the last 30 years. But there is another related inequality that is also

 

October 6, 2015

An Egalitarian Society?

Brian Easton

Once upon a time New Zealand identified itself as egalitarian. Phrases like ‘a classless society’, ‘jack’s as good as his master; ‘a working man’s democracy’ were bandied around, often without much critical thought. A distinction was made between ‘egalitarian’ and ‘equalitarian’. Certainly the aim was that New Zealanders were equal

 

July 14, 2015

Generation Rent

Shamubeel & Selena Equab

Home ownership is a defining characteristic of being a Kiwi. It had been an attainable aspiration for more in each generation, but it ended with the baby boomers. After rising for nearly a century, home ownership has been falling since 1991 and is now at the lowest level since 1951.

 

May 14, 2015

A Step Change For Children: Fix Working For Families.

Susan St.John

New Zealand now has two classes of low income children; the worthy who can be supported to the full extent of social security legislation, and the unworthy who are consigned to remain in poverty. This shameful disparity is between the treatment of children in families who can find paid work

 

March 1, 2015

Insecure Work

Max Rashbrooke

The debate now raging in New Zealand over zero-hours contracts – in which an employer does not give its contractors any guarantee of hours, but, in many cases, forbids them from working for anyone else – is just the latest symptom of the rise of insecure work. Also known as

 

December 17, 2014

Inequality: OECD Report

Max Rashbrooke

For years now, one of the main reasons given for dismissing inequality as an issue has been about economics: you need income gaps to generate growth. Without a wide gap between rich and poor, who would have the incentive to work harder and do the things that generate income for