Foodbanks consider limiting support and increasing opening hours as demand surges
Data released in May suggest 485,000 New Zealanders needed food support every month. Foodbanks are reporting record demand and a struggle to keep up
Mōrena, and welcome to The Bulletin for Tuesday, November 21, by Anna Rawhiti-Connell. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: a weet-bix fuelled milestone for coalition talks; record number of medical graduates signed up to train as GPs next year; questions emerge about who is benefitting from a scheme touted as an indigenous approach to carbon farming; but first, on the frontlines of our foodbanks
Foodbanks limiting number of parcels
As Christmas bells begin to ring and advertisements for sales blare, Virginia Fallon writes, “If foodbanks are the canary in the coal mine of a nation’s wellbeing, then New Zealand’s bird is starving.” Fallon’s excellent feature for the Sunday Star Times this week finds food banks nationwide reporting huge demand for food parcels. Nelson Community Foodbank has reported a 23% increase in the past financial year. Manager Neville Hadfield says that the service has little option but to limit its support. “We now operate on one parcel per family per month,” he said. In Hāwera, Foodbank chairwoman Hazel Robinson says the demand for food parcels is the highest she’s seen in the 45 years since setting up the service. In Lower Hutt, the foodbank is considering increasing its opening hours.
Export prices push up domestic food prices
A May survey by the New Zealand Food Network (NZFN) found that more than 480,000 people in New Zealand need food support every month. As economist Susan St John tells Fallon, “They’ve become a necessary evil; we shouldn't have them, and we didn’t used to have them.” The Spinoff’s Charlotte Muru-Lanning reported on similar sentiment from community groups and advocates in the lead up to Christmas in 2021. As Fallon reports, Brooke Pao Stanley, who heads Auckland Action Against Poverty, also says foodbanks aren’t the answer. Stanley says, “It’s ironic that Aotearoa is such a big food provider exporting so much of our kai but so many people here go hungry because they don’t have the money.” Stuff’s Susan Edmunds has recently embarked on a quest to find “something that's cheaper in New Zealand”. She failed. Food and Grocery Council chief executive Raewyn Bleakley says, “As our exports, particularly dairy products and meat, fetch higher prices, so the pressure goes on what New Zealanders have to pay for them.”
Inflation may be easing but cost of living still high
While food prices fell slightly in October, prices were 6.3% higher than a year earlier. Inflation is easing, but Stats NZ also produces household living-costs price indexes which capture costs like home loan interest payments not covered in the consumer price index, the way we measure inflation. Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson said in May that a whole range of people were going to the city mission for support. “People would pay the mortgage or rent, make sure their kids got to school, to the doctor and that there was enough for transport to work” but “there’s simply not enough so people are coming to us for food.”
‘A perverse and sad money-go-round’
In another excellent feature for the Sunday Star Times, Eugene Bingham dug into the issue of the number of beneficiaries in New Zealand also paying down debt to the government. New guidelines quietly introduced in July are attempting to prevent pushing people further into hardship. As Bingham reports, about 560,000 low-income earners, mostly beneficiaries, owe about $3.5b of combined debt to the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Justice and Inland Revenue. Heather Lange, manager of Family Finance Services Trust in Upper Hutt, says, “We see very few beneficiaries who aren’t paying money back to MSD.” Bingham describes it as “a perverse and sad money-go-round.” “Clients will come in and they can’t afford food and now the car’s broken down or they’re behind in their power or whatever the crisis is and we’ll say, ‘Go to [MSD]’, and we know that what is going to happen is their debt will just grow and grow,” says Lange.
Bingham and his colleague Todd Niall, a dedicated veteran of local government reporting in Auckland, left Stuff last week — Niall has retired, and Bingham says it’s time for some new projects. Their work as journalists has been regularly featured in The Bulletin. Go well, enjoy the grandkids.
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Seymour pours cold milk on Luxon’s milestone weet-bix, but we’re on the home straight
National leader Christopher Luxon announced yesterday afternoon that a significant milestone had been reached in coalition talks and that policy agreements with Act and New Zealand First had been finalised. NZ First’s Winston Peters said there were still checks left to do. Act’s David Seymour suggested Luxon had had “too many weet-bix” in making the announcement. While it sounds like Peters and Seymour were surprised by the announcement, it looks like the “big rocks” are sorted, and we are on the home straight, although no one knows how long that straight is. Attention will now turn to ministerial positions. The Herald’s Audrey Young details (paywalled) where the problem points lie and how they might solved.
We did get an indication about the shape of the government from Seymour yesterday. He told the AM show that a “never been done before” agreement is in the works, confirming a three-way coalition is on the cards. Here’s a refresher from RNZ on the various agreements parties can come to after an election, including the likely coalition. The Herald’s Claire Trevett writes (paywalled) that Luxon should be cut some slack on the time taken to complete talks as this is the first time a New Zealand government has three different parties sitting inside cabinet, and “the complexity of what is facing him should not be underestimated if his government is to last the distance.” As RNZ’s Jane Patterson notes, there are no constitutional deadlines by which a government must form, but parliament must reconvene within six weeks of the return of the writ, which this year, happened on November 9. The last sitting day for parliament this year is one month from today, on December 21.
Record number of medical graduates sign up to train as GPs
Some good news in the health sector as a record number of medical graduates have signed up to train as general practitioners from next year. The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners said 239 doctors would start the training programme in January, a 25% increase from previous years. Meanwhile, the Nursing Council estimates between 4-5% of the more than 70,000 nurses with current practising certificates were not working as nurses in New Zealand when they renewed them. “That's 3500 nurses, which is nearly as many nurses as would fill the vacancies that we need,” the council said. Nurses Organisation kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku said many were just “burned out”, and she knew nurses who had opted to work in supermarkets and one who had joined a roading crew.
Who is benefitting from a scheme touting ‘an indigenous approach to carbon farming’?
Launched in 2018, the Māori Carbon Collective (MCC) was touted as an indigenous approach to carbon farming, enabling iwi to prosper from the Emissions Trading Scheme while helping to tackle climate change. Five years on, the relationship between one iwi and MCC has ended in legal action. An investigation by Mihingarangi Forbes and the Mata team has uncovered questions about the conduct of MCC, who is benefiting financially from the scheme and whether carbon farming is helpful or harmful to Māori communities and whenua. The MCC is backed by leaders like Sir Mark Solomon and Hone Harawira, but at the centre of the collective and its related entities is managing director Jevan Goulter, the former campaign manager for Hannah Tamaki’s Coalition and Vision NZ parties and one of the people hired by convicted sex offender James Wallace to bribe a complainant to drop a sexual assault case.
Click and Collect
New National MP Cameron Brewer apologises for celebrating the return of “stale, pale males” in his election night victory speech after ousting Vanushi Walters
Reported Covid cases up 32% week-on-week
Key Supie investor defends pulling funding, saying the online grocery company was already insolvent before she withdrew
Credit rating agency S&P Global warns of likelihood of council credit rating downgrades around the country
Around 500 OpenAI staff (the firm behind ChatGPT) have signed a letter threatening to leave unless the board resigns and reinstates Sam Altman as CEO
In 2013, Sophie Barclay commissioned an opinion piece about Palestine. It did not end well. Shanti Mathias reports on how New Zealand retailers are responding to Bangladeshi garment workers striking for better pay. Sam Brooks and Gabi Lardies have some suggestions on how not to get stuck in a mall car park for three hours. Gabi Lardies reviews the new Britney Spears book. Tommy de Silva explores how a new curriculum brings Māori history to the fore.
Sporting snippets
Hamish McLennan has been sacked as chair of Rugby Australia
Daniel Vettori’s role in Australia’s Cricket World Cup victory
Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.
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