Think Pieces

If you know where to look in many towns and cities around Aotearoa New Zealand, you will see homeless people—on the streets, in cars and tents, in parks and areas in and around town. In fact, very often you don’t need to look very hard. There is no more visceral...

Governments are often criticised as being overly intrusive in people’s lives and taxing people excessively, while still being inefficient at providing community services. This leads to calls for small government, lowering taxes and handing over the running of things to private enterprise, in the hope of reducing the influence and...

Last month, we were privileged to host 15 Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum as they visited Corps and Centres across the country. These visits offered a valuable opportunity to showcase the incredible work of our frontline staff, advocate for whānau we support, and explore how we can...

Sometimes when I hear news items, in my head I am going “hang on a moment” – because what is being said does not sound quite right. I had a “hang on a moment” situation a few weeks ago when the Minister of Social Development put out a press release...

Did you know there is no such thing as "Pacific People"? This term, a Western-created category of convenience, fails to capture the vastness and diversity of the Pacific region, which spans over 25,000 islands scattered across the largest ocean on Earth. Covering a third of the planet’s surface, each island...

Some problems we face as a society are so important, that the only ethical thing to do is resolve them, even if that seems impossible. Our levels of child poverty are one of these problems. The goal of the Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit of the Salvation Army is the...

In Aotearoa we are proud of our democracy—the idea of ‘one person one vote’. It is the very essence of an equal and fair society. For the most part it is good but, as Winston Churchill once said, ‘democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other...

What a roller coaster of a year 2023 was! Major weather events devastating many communities around Aotearoa; many homes were damaged beyond repair and roads were closed cutting off communities. Many families were also made homeless, impacting local and national economies. Cost-of-living pressures have been affecting many families. Foodbanks have...

The Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit (SPPU) of The Salvation Army 15th report ‘Whakatere Ana I Ngā Tere Navigating the Rapids’, right in the midst of the continuing rough waters of the Covid-19 pandemic. The first State of the Nation report in 2008 began by asserting that social progress has...

It’s time we truly disrupted the food insecurity status quo in Aotearoa. Dream with me for a bit whanau. What if we had a national network of social enterprise supermarkets, run by a partnership of churches, iwi groups, NGOs, and corporate stakeholders? What if this network was rooted in local...

Tugging away at the strands of the web of injustice that holds people in poverty and re-weaving the kete of social connection to create lives of dignity, purpose and hope. That is the daily work of social transformation that The Salvation Army seeks to be part of. How does the Budget 2021 help bring transformation for the people and communities we work with? ...

A Close Call for ‘No’ 50.7% to 48.4%. Our nation has spoken and voted not to legalise cannabis – but not by much. So, what happens now? Firstly, recreational cannabis remains illegal. The debate during the campaign was tough as community advocates from both sides argued about the evidence and...