Over the weekend Jacinda Ardern appeared on Newshub The Nation and made some problematic comments about lifting people out of poverty, saying the Labour government has prioritised targeting families with children.
“This is the problem – Jacinda Ardern and this Labour government are ok with having some levels of poverty exist in New Zealand. They’re about reducing poverty, not eliminating it which are two very different things” says Co-ordinator and media spokesperson for Auckland Action Against Poverty (AAAP) Brooke Pao Stanley.
It also shows the government’s ideologies and values about people are rooted in racism, because in Te Ao Māori, in Pacific communities, in ethnic communities, we don’t believe in leaving anyone behind. We don’t believe that people should go without because they can’t afford it – we share what we have to ensure that everyone has enough. We believe in valuing the existence of each other because of whānau, whakapapa and community. Jacinda Ardern and this Labour government keep talking a big game about how the changes they’ve made in the welfare space are the most significant in decades but given nothing’s been done in this space for decades, they didn’t have any competition to begin with.