Govt leaving food banks in funding limbo

A food rescue organisation has had to resort to an emergency plea for donations via givealittle because of uncertainty about whether Government funding will continue after the end of June. Photo: Getty Images

Long stories short in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Wednesday, January 22:

1. Kairos Food Rescue, the main supplier of leftovers from Christchurch’s supermarkets for 60 food banks faces having to cut staff within a week because the Government has yet to commit to continuing $15 million of funding for food banks across the country beyond the end of June;

2. PM Christopher Luxon said this morning he’ll promise in his State of the Nation address to business leaders tomorrow in Auckland to restart economic growth, partly by selling stakes in new motorways to foreign sovereign wealth funds;

3. However, a new services sector survey and a job ads survey show the recession is deepening, especially in areas connected to the Government’s fiscal tightening, which Treasury has advised will be the toughest in our economy’s history;

4. Auckland Council is warning it won’t issue its May 1, 2024 council valuations for home owners until much later this year because of concerns the valuations didn’t accurately reflect the market at the time, which may harden a market frozen between sellers wanting more than four-year-old CVs, and buyers wanting lower prices;

5. New Zealand’s fastest-growing region may suspend house-building for five years because of a lack of investment in its water treatment plant, with Queenstown Lakes District Council Deputy Mayor Quentin Smith saying a suspension of housing and commercial development should be considered;

6. An independent commissioner’s ruling on the closure of Rotorua’s motels for emergency housing has criticised the Government’s ‘exit strategy’ as insufficient to house all those homeless before the end of 2025 because of insufficient house-building.

(There is more detail, analysis and links to documents below the paywall fold and in the Dawn Chorus podcast above for paying subscribers. If we get over 100 likes from paying subscribers we’ll open it up for public reading, listening and sharing.)

Food banks in limbo as Govt funding close to ending