Is poverty the Government's fault?

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Ultimate Geek
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#899127 20-Sep-2013 17:05

A couple of points:
(These are all my own personal opinions - I'm not going to attempt to dissuade anyone of their own entrenched positions)

1) Inherently, all children live in poverty. The only things that they have in life are those provided for them by their parents or care-givers. The common use of the phrase "Child Poverty" is merely an effort to dress up the word "Poverty" in an even more emotive manner. The root of the problem in question is that the parents either cannot (through "Poverty") or do not (through "Neglect") provide adequately for their children.

2) "Child Poverty" is much better suited to describing situations of neglect. Where the child is deprived of love, attention, encouragement, support, engagement, etc. rather than being deprived of food, clothing, etc. I.e. it's being deprived of a loving, caring, nurturing environment to grow in - a failure of parenting if you will, rather than being deprived of material things. (which is covered more than adequately by the generic term "poverty".) In this context, child poverty can (and does) occur amongst the very wealthy as well.

3) Children are expensive. Irrespective of how wealthy a family is, having a(nother) child will always make them financially worse off.

4) (Where it gets contentious...) Families living in poverty that continue to have children are being extremely selfish.

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1080p

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#899129 20-Sep-2013 17:13

KiwiNZ:
1080p:
KiwiNZ:
Klipspringer:
Fred99:
Klipspringer:

But not 'lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society' - unable to afford food, clothing, housing, education and healthcare

There's plenty of evidence that many of the poorest children in our society aren't provided with adequate food, clothing, housing, and healthcare, and that impacts on their education.
You seem to think that arguing about definition of "relative" poverty excuses you from recognising that there is a problem in NZ.
If you stick with the dictionary definition or etymology of the word "poverty", and open your eyes a bit, perhaps you'll see.

I'm not denying that.

IMO the majority of those cases are the parents fault. Those children are living in homes with parents who are NOT living the same level of so called poverty. (yet their children do)

I dont think there is a household shotage of cash in most cases (ie unable to afford food, clothing etc...) Its just the household distribution of that cash. Unfortunately booze, cigarettes and drugs seem to be on the top of these family shopping lists.

There is an element of that but it is a small percentage. However even for those cases where there is an element of parental cause child poverty still exists and needs to be dealt with. And again the cases where there is apparent parental cause it is not necessarily the actual cause.

This is not true. Even for someone with the smallest income (welfare or a minimum wage position) there is always adequate funds to meet basic human needs like food, shelter, and education. If that money is mismanaged then basic human needs might go unmet but that is an active choice on behalf of someone, not unavoidable poverty.

with respect, you are not correct.

Please elaborate. The minimum wage is plenty to meet basic human requirements for survival.

ajw

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#899130 20-Sep-2013 17:14

A recent documentary screened on TV3 recently concerning this debate.

http://www.tv3.co.nz/INSIDE-NEW-ZEALAND-Mind-The-Gap/tabid/3692/articleID/94816/MCat/3061/Default.aspx

MikeB4

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#899132 20-Sep-2013 17:20

@ 1080p. The minimum wage only applies to those who are earning.

Klipspringer

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#899138 20-Sep-2013 17:33

KiwiNZ: @ 1080p. The minimum wage only applies to those who are earning.

Agreed

But for everyone else there is WINZ
Check what you might get

There really is no excuse for living in "poverty" in NZ
We have a world class social welfare system that other countries can only dream of

MikeB4

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#899144 20-Sep-2013 17:49

Klipspringer:
KiwiNZ: @ 1080p. The minimum wage only applies to those who are earning.

Agreed

But for everyone else there is WINZ
Check what you might get

There really is no excuse for living in "poverty" in NZ
We have a world class social welfare system that other countries can only dream of

there are those that for various reasons do not qualify for income support.

Byrned

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Ultimate Geek

#899145 20-Sep-2013 17:58

My personal opinion is that by and large we don't have poverty in NZ (not by the definition of the public at large anyway) but we do have a large portion of the population that (constantly) make poor financial decisions.

1080p

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#899148 20-Sep-2013 18:05

KiwiNZ:
Klipspringer:
KiwiNZ: @ 1080p. The minimum wage only applies to those who are earning.

Agreed

But for everyone else there is WINZ
Check what you might get

There really is no excuse for living in "poverty" in NZ
We have a world class social welfare system that other countries can only dream of

there are those that for various reasons do not qualify for income support.

So there are people who do not have jobs, do not qualify for assistance (health, inability to find work, etc...). What is one reason this might occur? I cannot think of a single instance that this kind of situation would arise.

MikeB4

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#899149 20-Sep-2013 18:07

1080p:
KiwiNZ:
Klipspringer:
KiwiNZ: @ 1080p. The minimum wage only applies to those who are earning.

Agreed

But for everyone else there is WINZ
Check what you might get

There really is no excuse for living in "poverty" in NZ
We have a world class social welfare system that other countries can only dream of

there are those that for various reasons do not qualify for income support.

So there are people who do not have jobs, do not qualify for assistance (health, inability to find work, etc...). What is one reason this might occur? I cannot think of a single instance that this kind of situation would arise.

if you read the Social Security Act it is actually easy to work out.

jeffnz

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#899162 20-Sep-2013 18:54

an interesting article I found here but as yet to read whole thing.

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alasta

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#899190 20-Sep-2013 20:01

There are a lot of people in this country who live in conditions that are really unacceptable by first world standards. Some of them work bloody hard but are victims of circumstance, others make poor decisions, and others are just downright lazy and apathetic. Unfortunately politicians will never accept that this spectrum has varying problems with varying solutions because they want to tar everyone with the same brush to suit their own political ideology.

The trendy lefties are going to hate me for saying this, but people who are struggling to fend for themselves should not be having children. Yes, I'm well aware that some people run into difficulties through no fault of their own after they've had children, but that's not the scenario I'm talking about here. The problem is that the state can't use punitive measures to prevent people from having children because it would violate their civil liberties so you end up just picking up the pieces.

MaxLV

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Ultimate Geek

#899201 20-Sep-2013 20:25

Klipspringer: IMO I don’t believe we have any poverty in New Zealand. Its not true poverty and I think anybody that uses the term in relation to NZ’s very poor is a little oblivious to what real poverty is. IMO its disrespectful to the millions of kids that live and die in real poverty in Africa etc. In NZ we use the term quiet frequently as an excuse for a lot of things.

That said, when it comes to child “poverty” in NZ, I blame the parents first. Parents could do more for their kids (it’s not always a money issue). Parenting is not a right, it’s a privilege. Sadly the only kids that I see living in so called poverty seem to all have parents that don’t know when to stop with the boozing, drugging and smoking. Granted, not all of them, but it sure does seem like most of them. A little while ago we had an episode on Campbell live about kids being sent to school without lunch. What do we do? We start looking at ways to supply lunch for these kids at their schools. We need to wake up as I think we are just further worsening the problem. Nothing gets done about these parents, how much does it cost for a a few slices of bread every day? There is no excuse for this, who the hell sends their kids to school without lunch?! We play the “poverty” card and we allow ourselves to believe that these parents cant afford it, they poor. I know parents in South Africa that are raising their kids on far less than parents here, parents who are far worse off than people living in so called “poverty” here in NZ (parents with access to no social services, no healthcare like we have here, no free education, no state housing). Sad to say it, but a lot of parents in NZ could learn from them.

I also blame the government for not taking action against these lousy parents. After all, we live in a great country, we have access to plenty of social services etc .. (all provided by the government), everyone in NZ has access to it. I feel that parents who don’t take responsibility for their kids and send them to school hungry etc are in a way performing child abuse. We have laws to ensure the safety of our children against violence etc. .. We often read in the news about parents that have been prosecuted for physically hurting their kids. But we allow parents to not feed their kids? In fact things will have to get pretty bad before the child protection system can intervene.

So yes I also blame the government for not taking action. Why is it allowed to continue? Why do we see so much of it? Poverty in NZ is being used as an excuse by bad parents and the media for something which can simply be defined as self-centered.

What a Black and White, them and us society you believe you (want us all to) live in.

MaxLV

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Ultimate Geek

#899209 20-Sep-2013 20:42

Inphinity:
Fred99:
There's plenty of evidence that many of the poorest children in our society aren't provided with adequate food, clothing, housing, and healthcare, and that impacts on their education.

This is, without doubt, true. However, the topic in question is whether or not it is the governments fault, is it not? To which I would still argue, that in most cases, it is not. I would argue that, in many of these cases, the parents of said children have the power to change things, but they either do not realise that, or they choose to not act on it. If it is the former, then education for said parents is required. If it is the latter, then removing their children into proper care is required. But how well would that go down... go and take all the children who are living in poverty, and put them in a government-run camp away from their families.

You mean going back to the 'health camps' social experiments that existed from the 1930's to the early 1970's?

Note: not referring to the 'modern' Health Camps' service, as they appear to be run a damned sight better than they used to be prior to the 1970's.

Or worse, like the Aussies did, take the children away, and give them to wealthy (white) members of society where the vast majority ended up as little more than unpaid 'skivvies' for the families that were supposed to be giving them a 'better' life.

Or as the UK did, shipped the children of poor families off to the colonies, again where the majority ended up as unpaid 'labour' for the wealthy families that were supposed to be offering them a better poverty free life.

Yeah right... Didn't work then, and it's even less likely to work now.

MaxLV

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Ultimate Geek

#899235 20-Sep-2013 20:58

jeffnz:
KiwiNZ:
jeffnz: Government meaning the tax payer, some how I knew it would be my fault

I don't believe that finding fault is of use, seeing the issue and finding remedies fights poverty, the former only provides a vehicle for which people can ride to say it's not my problem.

its Friday it was humor my apologies for not indicating it was a joke.

To be real honest, it isn't my problem but a fair percentage of my tax goes to funding poverty.

However taxes for social services for those that dont live the 'privileged' lifestyle you take for granted, is the price you (we) pay for living in a society that (tries to) care for those less fortunate than ourselves.

And that is the governments job, to distribute the tax take fairly to ALL New Zealanders' benefit, not just those (in this 'discussion) believe they're the only ones who should benefit from the society they live in.

When the government (such as the current government, and most previous National governments) fail to distribute the tax take fairly, then the government is to blame for the resulting negative consequences of their failed 'policies.'

And personally, if you, or anyone else doesn't like the way the society you live in looks after those less well off than yourselves, then you can always leave and go to live in a society that doesn't care.

PaulBags

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Ultimate Geek
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#899236 20-Sep-2013 20:58

playspent.org is worth a look. Slightly different scenario to New Zealand since we "have better social services", although the hoops and time required to get even a sliver of what the law allows out of winz pretty much leaves no time for work or family.

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