Poverty statistics paint ‘rosy picture’ of reality for Māori, academic says

Thursday, 23 March 2023

Māoritanga (culture) and affordability are the perfect combination for new tenants in papakāinga (housing) development in Christchurch. (First published May 12, 2021.)

The latest data on child poverty paints a “rosy picture” of the reality for Māori tamariki, an academic says.

Read this story in te reo Māori and English here. / Pānuitia tēnei i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā ki konei.

Statistics New Zealand released data on child poverty rates for the year ended June 2022 on Thursday which show they are unchanged from the previous year.

But while 10.3% of children overall live in households experiencing material hardship, the rate is higher for Māori and Pasifika children at 18.8% and 25.6% respectively.

Matt Roskruge (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tama) is an economics professor and the associate dean Māori at Massey University.

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The latest data shows child poverty rates are unchanged from the previous year, but economist Matt Roskruge says this paints a ‘rosy picture' of reality for Māori.

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University of Auckland associate dean Pacific Collin Tukuitonga says there doesn't appear to any significant change in poverty numbers for Pacific children in three years.

'The stats are to June 2022, so it's missing the last nine months of pretty rapidly rising inflation, and flooding in Tāmaki Makaurau and out east, which has likely disproportionately impacted Māori,” he said.

'Quite possibly these figures are painting more of a rosy picture than what we’re actually experiencing at the moment.'

Inflation reached a 32-year high in July of 7.3% and currently sits at 7.2%.

Roskruge is concerned we are not seeing continued improvements in child poverty.

“(It’s) really worrying at a time where there is record low unemployment, there are lots of vacancies, we’re in desperate need of workers,” he said.

'It should be a good time to be moving people out of the poverty trap and into employment, we just don't seem to be seeing that.'

Roskruge said poverty is a difficult issue and it is important to look at ways of helping Māori build wealth.

“That might be through KiwiSaver, or looking at rent to own schemes with Kāinga Ora,” he said.

“Some of it is just keeping core benefits and other quality of life improvements increasing above the rate of inflation, finding more incentives for people to go into work or to find ways of increasing their wages.'

Collin Tukuitonga is the associate dean Pacific for the University of Auckland’s faculty of medical and health sciences.

'If you look at the longer period since June 2019 it doesn't appear to have changed at all, particularly Pacific Island children. It's pretty static you might say,” he said.

'The statistics report says that things continue to improve, but it's hard to accept that when there's still significant numbers of kids in poverty.'

Tukuitonga said the Covid-19 pandemic and cost of living crisis could have an impact on slowing things down.

'l think perhaps because the prime minister herself Jacinda Ardern had the responsibility, and you know she moved on… so there may be a foot off the pedal from a political viewpoint,” he said.

“The narrative that came with the report seemed to suggest that eight out of the nine targets are on track, but clearly things have slowed down, and certainly not moved in three years.'

Tukuitonga said improving financial support like welfare for families that are struggling will make a difference.

'It's interesting that we've had low unemployment, I would've thought things would've improved a lot faster, but clearly not,” he said.