March 08, 2024
How do military boot camps, harsher Emergency Housing reviews and taking from hungry children help?
Posted On March 8, 2024
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The Government has pushed ahead with Military Boot Camps for young offenders, while looking to limit access to Emergency Housing while looking to slash 30%-50% of free lunches in school.
It feels like we are going backwards.
Labour Party Governments and National Party Governments have locked New Zealand into an economic straightjackets by sticking to a 30% GDP debt ratio so we don’t fully fund our social infrastructure.
This new National/ACT/NZ First Government are funding a $1billion per year tax cut that benefits the richest amongst us by taking food from hungry children, narrowing eligibility for Emergency Housing and implementing Military Boot Camps that we know don’t work!
We’ve had these boot camps for young offenders before. Between 1981 and 2002 they had a 95% reoffense rate while when John Key implemented it again, they had an 83% reoffense rate.
When you consider the reoffense fate for prison is 70%, these previous Military Boot Camps have been counterproductive.
The drive to cut free lunches to schools because 10 000 lunches are wasted misses the fact that’s out of 220 000 students who get them!
Limiting the availability of Emergency Housing by narrowing the qualifying requirements seems incredibly cruel.
“MSD staff assessing anyone applying for emergency housing will increase their scrutiny of whether they have unreasonably contributed to their immediate emergency housing need, whether they have taken reasonable efforts to access other housing options and whether they have previously paid their emergency housing contribution.
That is a means of throwing people off the Emergency Waiting List, not helping vulnerable people.
This is a way to shut out vulnerable people and make them homeless.
Taking from hungry children for tax cuts that benefit the rich, implementing military boot camps that don’t work and generating more homelessness are all strategies that punish the vulnerable for being vulnerable and because Māori are so over represented in these social statistics it demands a response that is far more holistic than draconian.
This Government;’s first 100n days has been a ventuiry if damage to our poorest brothers and sisters and I am yet to see solutions.
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