MrsFychan

The hidden homeless: Families forced to live in cars | NZNews | Newshub

I was lead to this article after reading about the situation within Kapiti itself,
Dire emergency accommodation needs met | Stuff.co.nz

surely WINZ should be doing a hell of a lot more about this.

LoCarb

What do you expect from a right-wing neoliberal government.

NZ has gone seriously downhill in terms of social equality.

WINZ is really the government's Gestapo.

MrsFychan

I have dealt with people who are on WINZ and some even had there car repairs and wof all paid for. guess its down to how you play the system

LoCarb

And people with cancer now have to be "work ready"....... disgusting.

jmh

Usually it's a loan - my neighbour had a washing machine paid for but she had to pay it back.

jmh

Two things shocked me when I arrived in London in the 1980's. Beggars and children playing in the street. Now we have both of those in Auckland.

Bo-Jangles

Hmm, that's somewhat of a contradiction. Children playing in the street has always been a thing since forever, it only started to disappear in the UK since later in 80s when the world decided that kids were in danger and no longer allowed out of the house or to walk to school on their own, because every second person on the street was a danger to kids or a paedophile.

I though actually that NZ prides itself on not having gone down that route and not pandering to the kids and letting them have freedom to walk to school alone etc. I quite often am more shocked to see five year olds with backpacks and scooters heading out to school alone in the mornings.

Having grown up with freedom to roam and do as I please on the way to school, I know which I would prefer.

jmh

The kids thing is probably more to do with homes having large gardens in the olden days. I remember playing rounders on my neighbour's lawn, so there was no need to play on the street. Different in Auckland today of course. You do see kids playing in the street now.

Charismatic

The crux is however that, while we all want better public services, there is much less agreement on where to collect more taxation to fund such services.

LoCarb

Despite what we are told (and believe), government doesn't spend taxes.

Government is the issuer of the currency, not the user of the currency.

All government spending is new money.

See Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) for an explanation of how the system actually works.

Bo-Jangles

Aye of course that'll be it, we all had it tough in the UK and didn't have gardens to play in. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

scrubbedexpat094

Luxury!

MrsFychan

Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah.
and if I had time I would play out on the road

Stormer999

I was brought up in Alice Street South Shields, the houses were built downstairs and upstairs. both had front doors straight off the pavement. We were upstairs, front and back. Upstairs and downstairs shared a wash house and netty in the back yard. The back yard fed out into the back alley that ran between the house rows. We had no front or rear garden like everyone else. The only grass grew up between the cobble stones. No we had no garden to play in. I now live in a country which boasts a reserve on nearly every road covered in grass that the kids make use of. It's bloody nice...

Parnell

Below their pay grade


Mind that what WINZ staff could get real jobs?


ie customer focused