Child poverty in New Zealand

How political polls in prime-time + no serious political debate in prime-time = catwalk values and dumbed-down voters

Is John Key such an inspirational leader that he deserves to enjoy the support of 57% of New Zealand voters? Is Phil Goff such a hopeless leader that he deserves the support of only 8% of New Zealand voters? Has the National Party’s record in office been so impressive that it deserves to enjoy the support of 56% of New Zealand voters, including one might surmise, a significant number of Labour defectors? And has the Labour opposition been so feeble that it deserves the support of only 30% of New Zealand voters?

Well, if the polls are right – and there is no great difference between one and another – then the answer to all of these questions would seem to be Yes. But are they right? The extremity of their findings – the adulation of John Key and the seeming invisibility of Phil Goff; National having twice as much support as Labour – seems curious, given the parlous state of the economy, the high level of unemployment and the near-Third-World conditions in which so many of our citizens, both adults and children, are currently living.

Brian Edwards raises a question that is worth asking in this blog: why is the National government receiving so much support under economic conditions which for one in four children mean living in poverty?

The notion of poverty is contentious in New Zealand. This is perhaps why the debate is failing to gain traction. One only had to watch Back Benchers the other night to see the crux of the debate in action - it is difficult for New Zealanders to call their own poor, in comparison with global conditions. These are, after all, the global poor that most in this country are aware of who pick their tea, make their shoes, and sew their designer brands. This is hardly surprising considering that national debates have erupted over the last few weeks over Adidas jumpers costing $220 when they cost $8 to make; we are now in the kind of globalized world where we are aware of global inequality, and the contrast between our own kids and the images that we see on TV often leads people to overlook the poverty in our own society.

While the National government has made cuts to early childhood education and is placing increasing pressure on beneficiaries as a result of the plan to get 100,000 beneficiaries into work, the effects of the quite serious poverty that affects one in four children in New Zealand seems to be hardly making its mark in the mainstream media, which tends to focus on upbeat stories that boost ratings or appeal to the demographics with disposable income that can be sold on to advertisers. The 25% of children that are in poverty are read through the lens of crime statistics in this environment, which tends to reinforce narratives that position the threat of poverty as one that can be individually sold through effort, as foretold in John Key's own rags to riches story, or as one that is not a white problem. This is not to say that National have not made some important incentives towards reducing child poverty - whanau ora is one - but that by and large, these concessions have been made under the pressure of supply and demand agreements, and lack overall organization and cohesiveness. To put it bluntly, it is difficult to construct cohesive social policy when Key has to run the gambit between the hard right elements of his party who believe in minimizing government intervention and the appeal to ideas of social justice that must be made in order to appease the so-called centre ground.

The research that is emerging on poverty in this country is very clear: it does exist, regardless of whether the poverty is relative in global terms. People who are in poverty are defined as those that earn 60% less than the median income. A UN Committee Report on the Rights of the Child found that cuts in early childhood education were having a significant impact on our appalling levels of child poverty. We have made headlines in Australia for ranking 28th out of 30 in the OECD in the Every Child Counts report. We spend only 1.5% of our GDP on social services for the early days of life. As Executive Director of UNICEF in New Zealand Dennis McKinlay argues, "New Zealand spends $US14,600 ($NZ17,500) per child whilst, in comparison, Scandinavian countries spend $US50,000 per child under six. Other countries, like the Netherlands, spend less but have better outcomes. The stark reality is that poor outcomes for children are costing New Zealand $NZ6 billion per year in areas such as health, welfare services, crime and justice."

Take for example the Children's Social Monitoring Group's Report that was released yesterday, which found that:

In New Zealand, children and young people living in more deprived areas experience significantly worse health outcomes across a range of measures (e.g. infant mortality, hospital admissions for infectious and respiratory diseases, non-accidental injuries) [1]. Growing up in a low income family also increases the risk of longer term negative outcomes, such as leaving school without formal qualifications and economic inactivity.

Similarly, Dr Elizabeth Craig highlighted the links between child poverty and health outcomes yesterday.

Child health and poverty linked: study

As the economic downturn progresses in New Zealand, hospital admissions for children with poverty-related conditions such as asthma, pneumonia and skin infections has increased, Dr Elizabeth Craig, of the University of Otago, says.

"We've got to really look at the impact our economic environment has on our kids," the head of the university's Children and Youth Epidemiology Service said yesterday.

She was commenting on the Children's Social Monitor's 2011 update which is to be released today at a public forum at the University of Otago in Wellington.

Dr Craig said they could not prove the uncertain economic times were the cause of the hospital admissions as the data provided was anonymous, but it was "concerning".

While the rapid increases in children's hospital admissions for "socioeconomically sensitive" medical conditions seen during 2007 to 2009 appeared to have slowed, rates rose further in 2010, with 4890 extra admissions per year compared with 2007.

It is costing us socially and economically to have these levels of poverty. As Professor Innes Ashir, the head of the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Auckland highlights in her open letter to the Ministerial Group of Welfare Reforms, the current policies are punitive on solo parents whose children already face many challenges. The equation is simple: penalize parents and you will pass on the stress to their children. Reducing the threshold for abatement of earnings to $20 as proposed by the Welfare Working Group will mean that for every $100 a parent earns, they will take home $40 (ibid). Perhaps the most telling social statistic is that New Zealanders are only 6th in the OECD with the percentage of the working population in paid work (ibid), meaning that the myth that parents are in this situation to breed and out of generations of welfare dependence is a damaging one.

Child poverty is a serious problem that affects every thread of our social fabric and must be addressed through a cohesive approach. Labour intends to establish a Children's Commissioner if elected (I have to agree with Annette King on this one that it seems ridiculous that we have a Gambling Commissioner and not someone who represents the rights of our children), Mana intends to address poverty more generally, but it is the Greens in this instance that have the most comprehensive social policy for lifting 100,000 kids out of poverty. ACT have some policies that, while arguably well meaning in nature (establish mentors, etc), work to further extend the current National government's raison d'être of penalizing parents for their inability to find work. Whatever your perspective, it is clear that there are serious social issues that deserve discussion.

Economy: Statistical Recovery

'World pulling out of recession'

WYOMING - Central bankers from around the world are increasingly confident the worst of the global financial crisis has passed and that recovery is beginning to take shape.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said the world economy was pulling out of its deepest recession since the 1930s.

Prospects for a return to growth in the near term "appear good", while "critical challenges remain", including possible further losses for financial firms, Bernanke said.

Trichet said "green shoots" weren't enough for him to declare the recovery sustainable but "we see some signs confirming that the real economy is starting to get out of the period of free fall".

Another widely syndicated article on the economy that oversimplifies the movements that are going on at the moment, evidencing the contradictory news reporting that has characterised this recession. While the above article reads like a selected snapshot of all the best quotes from Trichet, in another article from the same source at Bloomberg.com, the ECB President warns that it will be "a very bumpy road ahead". Certainly, things are not looking great in Europe at the moment. Although France and Germany have made some economic gains that are pulling up the value of the Euro, it is difficult to tell whether this will last, and Trichet is well aware that Europe is anticipated to buck the trend of marginal growth next year with a retracting economy.

I'm not sure whether this desire to be resolute on whether we are exiting the recession is social or comes from the need to generate decisive headlines. Economists call it the 'statistical recovery', where any minor gain in growth looks better than the statistics that went before. At any rate, it's misleading journalism and things are not as cut and dry as we have been lead to believe in New Zealand.

Just a couple of weeks ago, predictions on rising property prices in Auckland and the rise in sales of alcohol and shoes were seen as green shoots that evidenced that the NZ economy was on the up again. The problem with this is that property is not necessarily the best marker of how the economy moves (as we learnt through this crash) and secondly, alcohol is generally popular during recessions (just look at how the US responded to the recession with a rise in the sales of take-home boutique beers, whiskey and a 20% rise in online dating). Similarly, the cheap cost of parallel imported shoes makes them the equivalent of the lipstick economy after the Great Depression, where people restricted spending but bought little items to treat themselves. This feels like irresponsible journalism to me, taking a fragment of the movement and using it to dictate an determining headline. The reality is that we will not know until we see sustained growth over more than one quarter.

Interestingly, the view of the recession ending that the Herald repeats over and over again is currently under staunch debate amongst economists, a number of whom are saying that green shoots don't necessarily signal good times ahead just yet. A number of economists are saying that this recession will be W-shaped, where small statistical recoveries are followed by another collapse. New York University Professor of Economics Nouriel Roubini argues that these grass shoots disguise the longterm need for new sources of economic growth in the US that will kick in after the marginal recovery in 2011. Conceptualised in terms of letters of the alphabet that symbolise the trajectory of economic recovery, debate is emerging over whether this is an L-shaped, V-shaped, W-shaped, or the new proposed triple-U shaped recession. All of this should indicate that a level of skepticism should be taken in regards to news on the economy, which is all too often dictated by the influence of parties or organisations that are partisan to its effects (for example, why a mortgage broker might be considered an independent, expert voice on the property market on our news is beyond me).

There is a danger in being too celebratory of green shoots: in popularising the notion that the recession may be conveniently over by the next election, we run the risk of lessening the pressure for National to create long-term strategies for growth that don't simply repeat the party line of privatization of public resources and tax cuts.