It’s almost impossible to know, exactly, how many people sleep in cars. “None”, would be the best answer. But this isn’t a “best answer” world.
One measure is how many people on the Housing Register (essentially a waiting list of people assessed as eligible for public housing, but not yet in it) give their address as a car.
How many applicants for public housing, Chris Bishop asked, indicated they were living in a car in June 2023, compared with October 2017?
Priyanca Radhakrishnan answered that in June 2023. “There were 480 applicants who put ‘car’ down as their accomodation type, compared to 102 in October 2017.”
From 102 to 480.
“I refuse to stand by while children are sleeping in cars”, Jacinda Ardern said, in the 1 News Leaders’ Debate, pre-election in 2017.
It was one of those memorable lines that contained a zeitgeist fury. Back then, sleeping in cars was evidence of the kind of failure that defines a Government.
Now? It gets less attention.
Some of this is down to a paradox. The Housing Register has grown because it has some meaning. In her answer to Chris Bishop’s question, Associate Minister Radhakrishnan reminded us: “This Government has added 12,198 net additional public homes, as compared to that member’s Government who left us with 1,500 public homes fewer compared to when they took office.”
Yes. You only join a queue when you believe it’s leading somewhere. Albeit slowly. Besides, the previous National Government appeared to get its State housing policy from Humpty Dumpty.
This is a recurring theme in Labour’s response when National attacks its provision and management of public housing.
Housing Minister, Megan Woods, responding to Nicola Willis in 2021, brandished the derisory “they” for National’s performance when in Government. A finger-wagging “they”. “They finished Government with 1,500 fewer houses than they started with. If they'd built at even our minimum level of 1,600 houses a year, we would have had 15,000 more public houses in New Zealand.”
Fair point.
But Chris Bishop’s point is also fair. And important. And if Labour and its supporters were appalled by people sleeping in cars in 2017, surely they’ll be appalled by it now? - Won’t they?
Judging by Twitter traffic – maybe not.
An interesting thing happened on Friday morning. Bernard Hickey tweeted out the same link to the Parliamentary exchange between Chris Bishop and Priyanca Radhakrishnan that I’ve attached (above), with an accompanying twelve-word commentary: “This says it all. As the rain comes down. And it's cold.”
Had it been 2017, and had National been in power, this would likely have had so many retweets it would have got dizzy. But in the twelve hours that followed it going up, it was retweeted only once. Once. By the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).
CPAG didn’t hold back. “Touché @bernardchickey”, their tweet commenced, ending: “The state of the nation can be summed up in this headline. The children living in cars are not included in @Stats_NZ child poverty data. Abhorrent, outrageous, unacceptable.”
Take that!
But no-one did. CPAG, whose commitment to addressing child poverty is rigorous, intelligent and admirably non-partisan, weren’t retweeted at all in the following twelve hours. That despite the excellently Twitter baiting fodder of those three furious words: “Abhorrent, outrageous, unacceptable.”
Not even National supporters went near it.
Indeed, if you go to National’s website, there’s no mention whatsoever of the information Chris Bishop elicited from Priyanca Radhakrishnan in Parliament on Thursday afternoon.
Instead, as I write this, National’s issue of the moment (and obviously their website is constantly updated) is crime.
Yes, a third of National’s front twelve “press releases” at the close of the week were on crime, with ram raids mentioned nine times.
Imagine, the power if National had linked the impacts of a childhood in which economic deprivation was so great that their “home” was a car, with the tragically increased likelihood of criminality.
The link is established. Starkly. “Children born into poverty more likely to become criminals”, RNZ headlined a story in 2018, reporting on research by the Ministry of Social Development.
Priyanca Radhakrishnan answered that in June 2023. “There were 480 applicants who put ‘car’ down as their accomodation type, compared to 102 in October 2017.”
From 102 to 480.
“I refuse to stand by while children are sleeping in cars”, Jacinda Ardern said, in the 1 News Leaders’ Debate, pre-election in 2017.
It was one of those memorable lines that contained a zeitgeist fury. Back then, sleeping in cars was evidence of the kind of failure that defines a Government.
Now? It gets less attention.
Some of this is down to a paradox. The Housing Register has grown because it has some meaning. In her answer to Chris Bishop’s question, Associate Minister Radhakrishnan reminded us: “This Government has added 12,198 net additional public homes, as compared to that member’s Government who left us with 1,500 public homes fewer compared to when they took office.”
Yes. You only join a queue when you believe it’s leading somewhere. Albeit slowly. Besides, the previous National Government appeared to get its State housing policy from Humpty Dumpty.
This is a recurring theme in Labour’s response when National attacks its provision and management of public housing.
Housing Minister, Megan Woods, responding to Nicola Willis in 2021, brandished the derisory “they” for National’s performance when in Government. A finger-wagging “they”. “They finished Government with 1,500 fewer houses than they started with. If they'd built at even our minimum level of 1,600 houses a year, we would have had 15,000 more public houses in New Zealand.”
Fair point.
But Chris Bishop’s point is also fair. And important. And if Labour and its supporters were appalled by people sleeping in cars in 2017, surely they’ll be appalled by it now? - Won’t they?
Judging by Twitter traffic – maybe not.
An interesting thing happened on Friday morning. Bernard Hickey tweeted out the same link to the Parliamentary exchange between Chris Bishop and Priyanca Radhakrishnan that I’ve attached (above), with an accompanying twelve-word commentary: “This says it all. As the rain comes down. And it's cold.”
Had it been 2017, and had National been in power, this would likely have had so many retweets it would have got dizzy. But in the twelve hours that followed it going up, it was retweeted only once. Once. By the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).
CPAG didn’t hold back. “Touché @bernardchickey”, their tweet commenced, ending: “The state of the nation can be summed up in this headline. The children living in cars are not included in @Stats_NZ child poverty data. Abhorrent, outrageous, unacceptable.”
Take that!
But no-one did. CPAG, whose commitment to addressing child poverty is rigorous, intelligent and admirably non-partisan, weren’t retweeted at all in the following twelve hours. That despite the excellently Twitter baiting fodder of those three furious words: “Abhorrent, outrageous, unacceptable.”
Not even National supporters went near it.
Indeed, if you go to National’s website, there’s no mention whatsoever of the information Chris Bishop elicited from Priyanca Radhakrishnan in Parliament on Thursday afternoon.
Instead, as I write this, National’s issue of the moment (and obviously their website is constantly updated) is crime.
Yes, a third of National’s front twelve “press releases” at the close of the week were on crime, with ram raids mentioned nine times.
Imagine, the power if National had linked the impacts of a childhood in which economic deprivation was so great that their “home” was a car, with the tragically increased likelihood of criminality.
The link is established. Starkly. “Children born into poverty more likely to become criminals”, RNZ headlined a story in 2018, reporting on research by the Ministry of Social Development.
If Labour and its supporters were appalled by people sleeping in cars in 2017, surely they’ll be appalled by it now? Won’t they?
— John Campbell
The then Children's Commissioner, and former principal judge of the country’s Youth Court, Andrew Becroft, is quoted. “He said children suffering from material hardship were more likely to end up with a poor education and in crime when they grew up.” Yes. "We know that long-term education is going to be a challenge”, Andrew Becroft is reported as saying. “We know that they are, the kids, especially the boys, are at risk of criminal offending. So this isn't just a theoretical issue, this [has] significant life ramifications."
And here we are. Five years later. Living with them.
I’ve written, at length, about the backgrounds of ram raiders. I’ve gone out with a pilot scheme that appears to be having success targeting children at risk before they become seriously criminally problematic.
And I’ve spoken to the new Principal Youth Court Judge, Ida Malosi, about the young offenders she sees in her court.
Some characterise this work as being soft on crime. It isn’t. I’ll tell you what’s soft on crime. Not addressing its causes and then responding after the damage has been done.
Which brings me back to where we started. With people living in cars.
In 2017, poverty was a genuine election issue. In 2020, it was usurped by Covid. In 2023, it appears to have fallen between the cracks created by the two major parties wilfully looking elsewhere.
In part, tribalism does this. Issues that don’t reflect well on a party aren’t issues that party supporters will focus on.
But it’s more complex than that. Tribal voters don’t decide elections. Non-tribal (floating) voters do.
There’s a fascinating paper out of Harvard University, that looks at the sway of tribal politics. In part, its definition of tribalism is, well, tribal. But when it gets closest to a democracy like New Zealand, it’s truly illuminating.
“Since tribal agents vote inelastically for their tribal candidate, a winning tribal candidate must choose policies that cater to the swing non-tribal voters. Thus, in a tribal regime, the policy serves the independent voters from the majority group. Typically… this means a policy that serves the better-off segments of society.”
It’s easy to forget that Jacinda Ardern became Prime Minister in 2017 when Winston Peters decided to go with Labour. If you watch the speech in which he announces that decision, it’s not only compelling because he hasn’t aged a day in the six years since, nor changed his suit, nor seemingly ever used the handkerchief he keeps in his jacket pocket, but because its culmination sounds like a 1970’s student activist speaking through a fog of weed to the Young Socialists Club at Victoria University.
“Far too many New Zealanders have come to view today’s capitalism not as their friend, but as their foe.” “Capitalism must regain its human face”.
Preach, Comrade Winston. Preach.
And now?
I’ve written about this, in a piece years in the making!
If you haven’t read it (or listened to it), please feel free to do so! It recalls the aspirations of Jacinda Ardern as incoming Prime Minister, in 2017. And it looks at what each of the major parties is offering in response to widening inequality and the toll that being left behind takes.
The dreadful toll. That can end with homelessness, hopelessness, and deprivation.
That can end with children made criminal by the damage they suffer, and with shopkeepers living in fear of the damage those broken children do.
And that can end with politicians who know the problem but aren’t quite sure what to do about it, or who would rather pick up the broken pieces than take meaningfully pre-emptive action to stop the damage from being done.
John Campbell is TVNZ's Chief Correspondent. This article was first published HERE
7 comments:
The poor are just a useful, and necessary, stage prop for both sides. The left point at them and tell everyone they will save them by showering them with money. The right point at them and tell everyone it is all down to bad decisions and they will get them working.
Neither side gives a toss about the poor and never will. They need them to stay quietly suffering in the corner.
This current Government has gone to war against private landlords which has been very detrimental to renters. I hope an incoming Government will restore tax incentives for New Zealanders to invest in rental properties.
Until we address: the current welfare payment mindset; the indiscrimminate incentivised breeding; and, the issue of a lack of personal responsibility that is tied to education, homelessness and poverty will only continue to fester and grow. Adressing these will not only benefit all society, it will have climate impact benefits as well.
But get the two major political parties to change this, or especially the likes of benefits/identity obsessed Greens - not likely!
The media can't go on about homelessness unlike in 2017. Because this would highlight how ineffectual Labour has been about solving this problem.
Arderns's rhetoric was never going to match reality. The stardust was very sparse at the end.
You touched briefly on the lack of education being a major cause, yet have not in the slightest critiqued this government's record in that area.
At least the previous National government had some targets to judge themselves by. The current lot seem to only use the amount they're spending and who cares about truancy and the distortion of the curriculum.
Many persons were very impoverished during the Depression but the children still behaved. The ethnmic mix was different. A problem is that much cheap accomodation has been eliminated by regulation and including expensive forced upgrades which leads to demolition. This and difficulty of getting rid of bad tenants makes landlords very wary selcting. Sleeping in a car is the known quick way to a cosy, inexpensive, secure, now often near new, no outgoings, state house. Meanwhile other mugs slog away saving deposits or paying crippling interest.
I wholehearted agreed with Kruger and Robert. Your omission of education as a factor in poverty is more than annoying.
Our education system is in an appalling state. Please John,read some of the many articles there are on our catastrophic failure in the basics before writing articles on poverty.
Our Ministry of mis- Education is overjoyed to have reports like yours placing all the blame on SES of kids in cars. My mother taught during the Depression in poor schools and as Robert says there was not the wayward behaviour in youth we now have because children were disciplined in school, even if the parents failed to do it.
Significantly my mother taught privately, 1500 children remedial reading in a high decile area, late last century. These children were well housed, well cared for children but they still had an unacceptably high failure rate in reading. The MOE did all they could to vilify and persecute my mother and her students because of their insistence SES status was the cause of reading failure not their lovely Whole language( whole nonsense!) method. There has been very little change since last century in the MOE's stance. Please don't reinforce it .
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