Social progress in NZ hits brick wall
The Salvation Army’s fourth State of the Nation report suggests that New Zealand’s social progress in recent years has ground to a halt.
The 2011 State of the Nation report, entitled Stalled, examines the social policy areas of child welfare, work and incomes, housing, crime and punishment, and social hazards – such as gambling, alcohol and drugs.
The report identifies what The Salvation Army considers to be significant social policy failures. These include the growing number of children living in workless households, the continuing education disadvantage to Maori children, the burgeoning housing shortage in Auckland, high youth unemployment, and the record number of people in prison.
It shows that over the past two years, social progress has been flatlining. Gains like an improvement in academic achievement at secondary schools and a decline in gaming machine numbers are overshadowed by child poverty rates climbing back to 2006 levels and violence against children and youth unemployment rates as high as five years ago.
With The Salvation Army facing record demand for emergency food aid, budgeting and counselling services and addiction treatment, Salvation Army social policy spokesman, Major Campbell Roberts, says the lack of meaningful progress is deeply worrying.
“What is more concerning is that our political vision has narrowed to the point where it appears to be limited to a fixation with acquiring the same material wealth as Australia, and that is hardly a national vision,” he says. “The picture our report paints, and our current and limited political aspirations, would indicate that we have less regard for our young and disadvantaged.”
Major Roberts says that while governments need to be fiscally responsible in the wake of the recession, there is scant evidence that the long-term social and financial costs of letting a large proportion of the nation languish and suffer have been taken into account.
“There has been sufficient money to bail out the investors of failed finance companies, provide tax relief for the highest earners and fund new prisons, but the message seems to be that we don’t have the funds or the will to solve or at least mitigate our most pressing social problems,” Major Roberts says.
Historically, times of economic and social adversity have inspired the great social advances in New Zealand. The Salvation Army implores politicians to look beyond the narrow confines of debt and public service cuts to a fairer deal for the nation’s most vulnerable citizens.
Issued on the Authority of Commissioner Donald Bell (Territorial Commander)
The Salvation Army, New Zealand Fiji & Tonga Territory
Download Stalled
Stalled and previous State of the Nation reports are available to view at:
The Social Policy & Parliamentary Unit