I spoke with Salvation Army Social Policy & Parliamentary Unit Director Bonnie Robinson yesterday about the unit’s State of the Nation 2026 report, which showed a range of indicators of poverty worsening through 2024 and 2025.

She challenged the Government to adopt specific policies to address rising levels housing un-affordability and homelessness, more food and electricity poverty, and the worst domestic violence figures since 2018.

“I’m not an economist, but I like to say the rising tide lifts all boats, but you need a boat in the first place.”

Robinson said housing remained a significant barrier to wellbeing for many, adding:

“Yes, there’s been some increase in supply. Yes, there’s been a bit more social housing built, but that’s slowed and we still have those large numbers on the social housing register.

“I like to say there’s no silver bullet in social wellbeing, but if there was, I think it would look like a warm, dry, affordable house because we know that if people have a warm, dry, secure, affordable house, then it’s a lot easier for people to deal with everything else that might be happening in their life.

“If you don’t have housing it makes everything hard. It makes finding a job hard. It makes sending the kids to school hard. It makes making ends meet and providing healthy kai hard.

“Although we’ve seen the supply of emergency housing grants basically plummet because the government was rightly concerned about people in motels etc, the difficulty is that has left some people without options, and what we are seeing is a rise in street homelessness.” The Salvation Army’s Bonnie Robinson

‘The power poverty shows up in the food bank line’

Robinson said incomes had barely grown over the last year, and not nearly enough to keep up with basic living costs such as housing, electricity and food.

“You see the power poverty in the food bank line, because people will pay the power bill and then realise they don’t have enough money to buy food for the week.

“We don’t get people presenting so much directly and saying: ‘I can’t pay my power bill.’ We more get people presenting at our centres saying: ‘I haven’t got enough money for food.’

“And when you sit down and talk to people, it’s the cost of their rent, and it’s the cost of power. And they’ve paid those bills because you have to, otherwise, you’re homeless or you sit in the dark.

“But then there’s nothing left for other things. And people are paying 30% or 40% or perhaps more of their income on rent. It really doesn’t leave enough to fully cover all your other bills.” Bonnie Robinson.

It’s great to be going for growth, but how are you going to make sure that actually gets to the people who have the greatest need

Robinson said people on insufficient incomes needed higher, more reliable incomes.

“At the Salvation Army, we are a provider of what’s called financial mentoring, which, used to be called budget advice. And a lot of people who come for budget advice, they’re actually pretty good managers.

“Their income isn’t sufficient and it’s quite hard often to find those places where they could trim back or do something differently. So the research does suggest that those income transfers that are for most families reliable, that people know are coming and they can use that to meet their basic needs, is what many, many people need.

“Some people need further wraparound support because their life is complex and paying them more money alone won’t resolve their issues. But for a lot of people, an income that is liveable, that they can rely on, that’s what they need.

“So we need to look at how are we supporting our low income households and particularly our households with children, and is that sufficient to bring people out of hardship, out of material hardship, above the poverty line, where people can at least reliably know they will meet their basic needs?” Bonnie Robinson

So what would you say to Cabinet?

At what point do we say we’re just not going to accept this as a nation anymore, and we are going to do what it takes to shift the dial on child poverty.

I asked Bonnie what she would say to Cabinet if she was given a chance to present the report to them. Here’s her response (bolding mine):

“If I had the opportunity, I wouldn’t necessarily be telling them exactly what to do, but I’d be saying we need urgent action, particularly around child poverty, because we know that any time spent in poverty and material hardship as a child, even if your life later on takes a better trajectory, it can still lead to trauma, and it can mar your life for the rest of your life.

“At what point do we say we’re just not going to accept this as a nation anymore, and we are going to do what it takes to shift the dial on child poverty.

“Children can’t wait. They can’t wait for the recession to be over, or the economy to suddenly boom. They are affected now and that impact will have a lasting effect.

“So we need to be doing what is it that we can do right now, that will really have an impact on those child poverty stats. Because if we don’t, we will see the cost of that in the future. We’ll see it in our health system. We’ll see it in our criminal justice system.” Bonnie Robinson.

I asked Bonnie if the Government’s total focus on generating economic growth would reverse the deterioration in poverty, given its argument that ‘the rising tide lifts all boats.’

“We see at our Salvation Army centres the people who don’t have a boat. And we know, obviously, it’s good to come out of recession, but how is that benefit going to be shared across everyone?

“It looks from the data like even the little bits of improvement in the economy, those on the lowest incomes get the least share of that. People have had pay rises, but down the low end, it’s been quite small.

“How are we going to improve the share of that going to actually lift the people who are at the low income end out of poverty? And sometimes that actually takes some deliberate decisions about how are we going to do that?

“How are we going to make sure that happens? It doesn’t necessarily just automatically happen. And you we need to be really aware of the fact that people can, through no fault of their own, just get left behind.

“So, yes, it’s great to be going for growth, but how are you going to make sure that actually gets to the people who have the greatest need.” Bonnie Robinson

Children can’t wait. They can’t wait for the recession to be over, or the economy to suddenly boom. They are affected now, and that impact will have a lasting effect.

The Chapter list:

* 00:00 Introduction to the State of the Nation Report

* 02:30 Trends in Social Wellbeing

* 05:35 Child Poverty and Economic Impact

* 07:56 Housing Crisis and Its Effects

* 10:07 Food and Energy Poverty

* 13:30 Policy Recommendations for Improvement

* 17:20 Economic Growth vs. Social Equity

Ka kite ano

Bernard

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