Tuesday, 1 July 2014

Getting To the Heart of Poverty

Poverty is unacceptable. Yet we still have a persistent poverty problem in New Zealand today, and not for a lack of debate, dollars, or desire to turn it around. Poverty is New Zealand’s ongoing national illness, and before trying to fix it, we need to really gauge the nature of the problem.

Today Maxim Institute releases The Heart of Poverty – matching passion with precision for struggling New Zealanders, an issues paper aiming to stimulate and contribute to the current debate about poverty in New Zealand. “Often in policy debates, passionate people end up talking past each other, using similar words but meaning vastly different things,” says Maxim Institute researcher Kieran Madden. “The Heart of Poverty is an attempt to bridge the ideological divide that so often stops us from working decisively in unison to help those in need. We want to spark a practical discussion about how we can better understand, define and measure who is affected by poverty in New Zealand.”

Opening with a short, two-page summary, and concluding with a range of questions for readers, the paper is also a personal invitation for you to join us in the conversation. We welcome any feedback from those in the sector and members of the public.

This release is the first output from Kieran Madden’s long-term research project on poverty, with the ultimate goal of making policy recommendations out of our findings, which we hope will tangibly improve the lives of struggling New Zealanders, often in unthinkable poverty.

Maxim Institute seeks feedback on the paper from people working in all areas of poverty alleviation in New Zealand: NGOs, academics, social workers, MPs, policy analysts and members of the public. Details on how to submit are included in the paper.

ENDS

Maxim_Institute_Poverty_Issues_Paper.pdf
Answer_Submission_Form.docx

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