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.”
E2NZ.org 
Somewhat related:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11872244
Deaf people ‘elbowed out’ of top spots in their own organisations
28 Jun, 2017 8:25pm time to read clock icon 4 minutes to read
Play VideoMonica Leach and Abbie Twiss are lobbying for more Deaf leadership within the Deaf community. Here they sign sign “Deaf working together”. Photo / Michael Craig
By: Sarah Harris
Reporter, NZ Herald
sarah.harris@nzherald.co.nz
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Deaf people are being left out of top spots in their own organisations and they want change.
Deaf woman and advocate Monica Leach, 38, spoke to the Herald through a sign language interpreter. She said the Deaf community is suffering from the lack of opportunities, training and Deaf organisations no longer have their values and culture at the centre as they are hearing-led.
This was backed up by other Deaf people who emailed the Herald in support of the issue.
Deaf Aotearoa, Kelston Deaf Education Centre and Auckland Deaf Society all have hearing chief executives.
Monica Leach and Abbie Twiss are lobbying for more Deaf leadership within the Deaf community. Here they sign sign
Monica Leach and Abbie Twiss are lobbying for more Deaf leadership within the Deaf community. Here they sign sign “Deaf working together”. Photo / Michael Craig Pinterest share Show more share options
Leach explained Deaf people have a different culture from mainstream society – they’re more blunt, value-face-to-face time and have a vastly different experience of the world. Therefore they needed to be led by people who knew this first-hand.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff-nation/assignments/share-your-news-and-views/10623936/Taking-a-stand-against-heightism
This.. just.literally almost threw me off my chair (especially subsequent comments)!
Things are worce I’m 2014, my partner has to study as he can’t stay in work because of asperges he gets no saport for, I’m legally blind but not totaly blind, iv looked for work since I was 14 and 9 years later I’m still no where. Befor I met my partner I could aford to eat and pay rent off what little I had, but with a unemployed partner it was tricky but we were aligable for extra help, but since my partner has bing forced to study we get no exta help, my beniffit is blow the min because study link is like having a full time working partner, our combine income is 350 it covers rent 290 cheap in our town and safer for my disability we can aford and then we have 60 left for utility, we are forced to have fiber as we can get internet but not phone and we need that. Our smart meater chws up $40 a month just to have it running. Winz is trying to help me find work, but they keep forgetting to mention my condition and when I’m at the interview I get deamd a hazard, yet still they would have me work a deep fryer or pump gas into trucks, I’d do it too if I could do it safely, but I cant.
I’m 24 years old, I don’t have fun, I had to pay for all my own disibility aides and my own studie as it was seen as pointless to train me.
I’m stating to see no hope. It’s Christmas and we only have half a carton of milk, a half rotten lettus as we have no vedgy bin and a role of luncheon I can’t eat as I’m gluten intolerant, and this has to last us till next week.
And then you hear that there spending millions on changing the design of our money and holding secret meetings that will make us all poorer, I can’t aford medicine as it is let alone if TPPA passes and it gets more expensive.
It’s like there trying to kual off the poor and disabled.
There minamil helping get us all sicker.
This is what most of our country voted for
Here’s another weird thing to add to your post:
Back when I was helping disabled students, at one point I received an e-mail to the effect of
“Please don’t help them too much, they need their independence.”
I decided to ignore that for as long as I was rostered, mainly because “Deus Ex”, “Bionic Commando” and human augmentation wasn’t around AND
Those students were having a tough time of it AND wanted to better themselves AND were usually always in attendance AND appreciated my work.
I hope you can contact someone at your university, Rotary Club or Salvo’s to lend a hand.
Most people do not realise they are just one or two good hits away from the bottom.
I would agree,I have Autism/Asperger’s syndrome and living in New Zealand is just hell for me
Living in New Zealand is living Life on the Small. You learn to think small, think temporary. Cheap little crap fixes to bring you through some rough period, and plenty of breath-holding. Wing and a prayer. I have never lived anywhere else where I could only buy petrol in 20 dollar increments, or panicked when I started running out of cooking oil because it was a “large staple item”, anticipated arrival of utility and telecom bills with nothing less than complete dread, and had to work in winter with a space heater running on my fingers to prevent them from going stiff, with a hot water bottle and blanket on my lap, because the homes were so cold and the utilities so expensive. It is a small nation, and we found that we had to squeeze, squish, cram, cramp and whittle down our lives to almost nothing just to stay afloat, our thoughts oppressively populated by operations involving fractions of pennies. Honey, We Shrunk the Immigrants!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10659565
Good Samaritan Claire Adams-Adamiak, who delivers food parcels to the homeless, said: “There are people living with rats who are at risk of starting an outbreak of rabies or TB. They are born in poverty, they live in poverty and they die in poverty.”
http://www.aut.ac.nz/news/aut-news/2009/august/half-of-disabled-aucklanders-living-on-poverty-line
(report) shows poverty is a daily reality for many disabled Aucklanders and their families, and from available figures estimates that about half of disabled Auckland adults have personal incomes of less than $20,000, predominantly sourced from benefits, casual, part-time, and/or low-paying work.