E2NZ.org

A Kiwi’s take on life in New Zealand. It’s about NZ’s poverty trap and the plight of people with disabilities, it links into a recent blog we wrote about migrants being forced to live in vans (see Immigrants forced to live in third world conditions) because they couldn’t afford to rent property when can’t find paying work. It’s not just immigrants that are doing it hard in New Zealand :

“Recently ( a couple of months ago) I read an article on msn nz about the state of poverty in the country. In one case a 52 yr old furntiure removalist who had been laid off work (and was currently trying to find a new job) was in receipt of $250 a week unemployment benefit from winz.

His accomodation costs $200 per week (he rents a single room in a pub/hotel). He is left with $50 a week to buy food, maintain clothing, personal hygeine, etc. Never mind worrying about being able to afford to see a movie or have a beer. Lucky he isn’t addicted to nicotine! How on earth anyone can afford a decent diet on that pittance is beyond me.

In another article we are informed that migrants are buying second hand vans to live in if they lose their job and can no longer afford the outrageous and simply extortionist rents people are being charged.

An earlier poster on this thread mentioned he didn’t mind ‘making a sacrifice’, well, NZers have been making bloody sacrifices since the mid 80s and near a quarter of a century later are no better off. Infact they’re far worse off!

I love my homeland, it’s where I grew up. It’s where so many memories were made. It’s where my children and grandchildren live. But the thought of trying to carve out a life for myself there now, literally scares me.

I have an affordable roof over my head in Australia, and I have enough food (and variety of) to eat everyday. I can afford to run the big gas heater in winter and a bedroom elec one as well, if need be. I wish I could could have the same standard of living in NZ as I now have in OZ, but I know I can’t.

I live on a disability pension (invalid benefit) and I literally couldn’t cope on the NZ equivalent. It’s not that benefits are overly generous here (but I know the hard right brigade will claim just that), rather it’s that NZ benefits (esp for singles) DO NOT PROVIDE AN ADEQUATE LEVEL OF INCOME GIVEN THE ACTUAL COST OF LIVING. Those who are off boozing up large are almost certainly working or commiting crimes, or sponging off all and sundry to fund it.”