Submission on Strategy to Prevent and Minimise Gambling Harm 2025/26 to 2027/28

Consultation document Manatu Hauora Ministry of Health

About The Salvation Army

The mission of The Salvation Army is to care for people, transform lives and reform society through Gods power. The Salvation Army is a Christian church and social services organisation that has worked in New Zealand for one hundred and forty years. It provides a wide range of practical social, community and faith-based services around the country.

The Salvation Army employs almost 2,000 people in New Zealand, and the combined services support around 150,000 people annually. In the year to June 2023, these services included providing around 86,400 food parcels to families and individuals across 70 welfare centres, providing some 2,400 people with short-or long-term housing, over 2,900 families and individuals supported with social work or counselling, around 6,600 people supported to deal with alcohol, drug or gambling addictions, around 3,100 families and individuals helped with budgeting, and court and prison chaplains helped 5,000 people.

This submission has been prepared by the Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit (SPPU) of The Salvation Army. The SPPU works towards the eradication of poverty by encouraging policies and practices that strengthen the social framework of New Zealand. These comments have been approved by Commissioner Mark Campbell, Territorial Commander of The Salvation Army’s New Zealand Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa Territory.

The Salvation Army Te Ope Whakaora welcomes the Ministry of Health’s consultation document on the next three-year Strategy to Prevent and Minimise Gambling Harm. This Strategy is integral to achieving the purpose of the Gambling Act 2003 (the Act). We note the issues and questions raised in the consultation document and broadly support the direction and content of the proposed strategy.