MSD rejecting 220 pleas for food grants each day

The Kākā by Bernard Hickey

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MSD rejecting 220 pleas for food grants each day

MSD almost doubles rejections of pleas for food grants since last year; Food banks scrambling for cash before Christmas after Govt cuts funding too; Govt slashes Kāinga Ora build plans for 2025 by 60%

Bernard Hickey

Dec 18, 2024

Transcript

Sparse offerings outside a Te Kauwhata church. Meanwhile, the Government is cutting spending in ways that make thousands of hungry children even hungrier, while also cutting funding for the charities that help them. It’s also doing that while winding back new building of affordable housing that would allow parents to afford food for their kids. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā

Mōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, December 19 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above and the daily Pick ‘n’ Mix below are:

MSD is rejecting almost one in every 16 requests for food grants, more than double the rejection rate last year after policies were toughened up under the new Government in an effort to save $12.7 million a year, RNZ’s Amy Williams reported last night. MSD figures show rejections rose to 60,579 in the nine months to the end of September, up from 36,945 in the same period a year ago under the Labour Government. That means MSD is now rejecting around 220 applications each day. Coincidentally, perhaps, about 220 residents are migrating permanently each day, more than half to Australia.
Nearing Christmas Eve, Salvation Army reports demand for food donations has surged so much it now requires hungry families to wait for an appointment, with its Manukau food bank now having appointments to see 120 people a day, up from 48 a day last year. See more in Quotes du Jour below.
MSD now requires an extra sign-off from a manager to get a grant and an assurance from the applicant that they will see a budgeting service first because, it says, applicants who could have foreseen their food shortage were rejected. See more in Quotes du Jour below.
North Harbour Budgeting Service reports it’s now seeing families with two working parents coming in to ask for help and food after being rejected by MSD, but it can no longer provide supermarket vouchers because it was one of the 44 financial mentoring charities who had their funding cut this year.
Kāinga Ora has cancelled 60% of its new social house-building projects for 2025, meaning 1,019 planned homes will not be built, with only 35% of the 1,565 already-consented homes will be built next year, Nikki Preston reports this morning via OneRoof from documents obtained under the OIA. The cancelled homes include 86 that were consented and ready to go in Onehunga and Ōtara, not far from the Salvation Army’s food bank, and not that far from the International Terminal at Mangere Airport. See more from one of the migrants in Quotes du Jour.
The Government cancelled the building programme and is cutting food bank and financial mentoring spending in order to reduce Government debt because it fears lenders may push up interest rates if it borrows more. Bond yields initially rose four basis points to 4.41% after a surprise $20 billion increase in the Government’s borrowing requirement on Tuesday, but fell back to be unchanged at the end of the day. The Government is cutting spending in ways that make thousands of hungry children even hungrier, while also cutting funding for the charities that help them. It’s also doing that while winding back new building of affordable housing that would allow parents to afford food for their kids.

(Normally at this point we would have a paywall for free subscribers and only paying subscribers could both listen to the Dawn Chorus podcast above and read the analysis and detail below in the Pick ‘n’ Mix. But during our ‘Gravy Day Fortnight’ until this Sunday, we have opened everything up for all to give everyone a full taste of the public interest journalism your subscription supports. And here’s our ‘Gravy Day Fortnight’ deal that ends on Sunday.)

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The Top Six in the Pick ‘n’ Mix

Poverty & Austerity: More declined food grants put more pressure on foodbanks RNZ’s Amy Williams
Housing & Austerity: Kāinga Ora axes 60% of social housing projects planned for 2025 One Roof’s Nikki Preston
Infrastructure & Politics: Simeon Brown lays the groundwork to intervene in councils’ water plans The Post’s Thomas Manch
Living costs & Migration: Kiwi in Australia brought to tears by cheap cost of supermarket shop Stuff’s Poppy Clark
Infrastructure & Electricity: 'We thought it was a mistake': $25k power connection blindsides couple 1News’ Mava Moayyed
Politics & Te Tiriti: Opinion by Melanie Nelson in E-tangata The ‘dangerous’ bill flying under the radar

The Pick ‘n’ Mixes of the best of the rest for Thurs, Dec 19

Official Reports, Statistics, Studies, Academic Papers & Data Sets

The Whole of System (Core Crown) Report on Treaty Settlement Delivery outlines how 26 core Crown agencies assessed their progress in meeting their Treaty settlement commitments. He Korowai Whakamana whole of system report
MPI issued a Request for Information Partnering to plant trees on Crown-owned land. Overview: Partnering to plant trees on Crown-owned land
University of Canterbury researchers found cycleways are better for house prices
Statistics NZ: Quarterly current account deficit $6.2 billion
Bank survey: Westpac McDermott Miller Consumer Confidence in Q4
Bank survey: BNZ Seek Job Ads report for November

Quotes of the day: ‘Austerity & hunger vs 4 basis points’

“The government's turning down people for food, they're sending them to foodbanks. Now they're not funding foodbanks. Foodbanks around the country are either overstretched like ourselves or they're starting to close down." Salvation Army Food security manager Sonya Cameron via RNZ’s Amy Williams.

‘But I need even bigger spending cuts’

Asked how the Government would pay for police, education and the state care abuse pay out, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said it would require further savings.
“One, we've made a very clear message to ministers, the only new initiatives to be funded in the next year’s budget due to our fiscal situation are those which are absolutely essential. Two, we are expecting further savings from across agencies, from across bureaucracy.
“Three, we have set an expectation that, with a few exceptions, government departments will not be receiving additional funding in next year's budget.” Nicola Willis via The Post’s Anna Whyte

‘My kids aren’t hungry any more. Because we moved to Australia.’

New Zealander Poreva Kirikava moved with his family of five to Sydney a week ago. He paid A$380 for his first grocery shop, where he told the Daily Mail Australia the same shopping trip would have cost NZ$1,000. His case emerged after he sent out a TikTok (below) saying how he felt after realising the difference in living costs between Australia and New Zealand. Here’s what he said:

“After we did the food shopping, I'm bawling my eyes out because in New Zealand, there were moments where we thought we weren't going to eat.”
‘Reflecting on one occasion, he remembered one of his kids looking for snacks in the pantry cupboard, only to find nothing.
“'He'd say, "Daddy, there's nothing to eat... There's no snacks". And I would go angry. Today, I realised I wasn't angry because he was hungry or there were no snacks, it was because I felt that I wasn't able to provide.” Poreva Kirikava in the TikTok below.