Promises and plans to change poverty in New Zealand

By Kieran Madden

A few weeks ago, my colleague wrote about Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s “courageous move” to introduce the Child Poverty Reduction…

Labour’s courageous move on poverty

By Jeremy Vargo

Labour’s announcement last week of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill was almost instantly hailed by many as a huge step…

Discussion Paper: Acknowledging Ability

By Danielle van Dalen

 People who are living with a disability are vastly overrepresented in New Zealand’s poverty figures, and 74 percent of those…

Save Social Investment

By Kieran Madden

National’s Social Investment Approach must stay, but not as we know it. Imagine, for a moment, that policies are cars….

Investing in people, regardless of return

By Julian Wood

Like the proverbial frog in the slowly heating pot, many of us are blissfully unaware of the change currently going…

The State must serve

By Kieran Madden

Is the government’s flagship Social Investment approach simply the “incremental privatisation of social services?” When journalist Richard Harman posed this…

The trust trade-off

By Kieran Madden

The Government is going all in on its Social Investment strategy for fixing social ills, but the big data it…

Creating opportunities to contribute

By Danielle van Dalen

Last week New Zealander Robert Martin took up his position in Geneva as Spokesperson for Disabled People on the United…

Valuing access to work

By Danielle van Dalen

Unemployment is costly. It costs the unemployed person and it costs society. For plenty of people with disabilities this cost…

Poverty in New Zealand – The Heart of Poverty

By Kieran Madden

Research Series Every society tells a story about the good life, getting a fair go, or what it takes to live…

Welfare to work?

By Kieran Madden

Just where do people go when they move off a benefit? It’s a serious question that demands an answer. Why?…

Removing the barriers

By Danielle van Dalen

I was 12 when my grandfather lost his eye and was declared officially blind. In the following months and years…

The true cost of getting “Ready for Work”

By Julian Wood

Labour’s “Ready For Work” policy is a great idea. Unveiled at the party’s conference, the plan offers on the job…

Not helping harms us

By Julian Wood

Last week the Hamilton Central Business Association enacted the “Your Help May Harm” campaign, aiming “to educate the public on the…

Posturing doesn’t help those facing poverty

By Alex Penk

“I know that’s not PC, but you know, that’s me,” said Judith Collins last week as she commented on child…

Between risk and reality

By Kieran Madden

We use statistics to inform policy development and public discourse—it is a tool to better society. But like most tools,…

Working hard, still struggling

By Danielle van Dalen

In New Zealand’s poverty debate, work is often touted as the silver bullet solution, the one thing that will solve…

Changing the Story – Poverty panel discussion

By Maxim Institute

Every society tells a story about the good life, getting a fair go, or what it takes to live well….

Social insecurity

By Kieran Madden

Humans deeply yearn for security. Safety, in both its physical and economic forms, is solidly perched just above physical survival…

“Hopeless” Kiwis

 “A lot of the Kiwis that are meant to be available [for farm work] are pretty damned hopeless. They won’t…