E kore e taea e te whenu kotahi
ki te raranga i te whāriki
kia mōhio tātou ki ā tātou.
Mā te mahi tahi o ngā whenu,
mā te mahi tahi o ngā kairaranga,
ka oti tēnei whāriki.
I te otinga
me titiro tātou ki ngā mea pai ka puta mai. Ā tōna wā,
me titiro hoki
ki ngā raranga i makere
nā te mea, he kōrero anō kei reira.
The tapestry of understanding cannot be woven by one strand alone.
Only by the working together of strands and the working together of weavers will such a tapestry be completed.
With its completion let us look at the good that comes from it and, in time
we should also look at those stitches which have been dropped, because they also have a message.
Nā – Kūkupa Tirikatene 1934–2018
He mihi
E ngā mana puipuiaki, e ngā reo tongarerewa e ikapahi nei, tēnā koutou katoa
Tukuna kia rere ngā mihi ki te Atua,
ko ia te tīmatanga me te whakamutunga o ngā mea katoa
Te hunga kua poto ki te pō, haere koutou Tātou e mau tonu nei i te hā o te ora,
Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa
Foreword from the Chair
The Government convened the Welfare Expert Advisory Group to review the New Zealand welfare system, excluding New Zealand Superannuation, the Veteran’s Pension and War Pensions, and the Student Support System. The terms of reference and independence granted to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group have enabled the most wide-ranging review of the system in a generation.
In this report, we consider the interface between welfare and the active labour market and employment, mental health, child wellbeing and child poverty, housing and justice strategies. Our recommendations are reasonable and based on evidence, and they require significant investment if the desired outcomes are to be achieved. We recommend enabling the welfare system to serve its most basic functions and to move beyond being a ‘safety net’ to enabling ‘whakamana tāngata’ – restoring dignity to people so they can participate meaningfully with their families and communities.
The essential principles of whakamana tāngata are to provide income support sufficient for an adequate standard of living, to provide employment support to help people find and retain good and appropriate work, and to treat people receiving this support with dignity and respect. In return, people receiving this support are expected to take up the opportunities to participate. We hope that agreement to these principles can be the basis for a lasting parliamentary commitment on social security that will take New Zealand into the future with pride.
This report has been informed by national consultation, commissioned reports, a review of the literature and data relating to welfare use, other reports including previous welfare reviews, and meetings with stakeholders.
We are grateful to all the people who contributed to our report, especially the many people who shared their personal experiences of the welfare system.
Kia piki ake te mana tangata!
Professor Cindy Kiro
Chair
Welfare Expert Advisory Group February 2019
Back row (left to right): Dr Michael Fletcher (special advisor), Phil O’Reilly, Trevor McGlinchey, Charles Waldegrave, Kay Brereton, Professor Innes Asher, Robert Reid
Front row (left to right): Professor Tracey McIntosh, Dr Ganesh Nana, Dr Huhana Hickey, Professor Cindy Kiro (Chair), Latayvia Tualasea Tautai
Acknowledgements
Many people informed and supported the work of the 11 members of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group.
We would like to thank all those people who made the effort to meet with us in person during consultation and hui – we know how difficult this was for many of you, and we are very grateful. We also appreciate the people who completed our survey and made submissions. The contributions were insightful, wide ranging and of significant value to our work.
We are appreciative of the input of the attendees at our roundtable sessions in Wellington and Auckland and are grateful to Judge Andrew Becroft and Professor Jonathan Boston for hosting the Wellington session.
We would like to make a special note of thanks to our two facilitators, Cissy Rock and Tim Howard, who ensured that our consultation sessions were inclusive and engaging.
We thank all those agencies, organisations and individuals who provided us with information, advice or opinions. Special thanks also go to Neavin Broughton, Dr Sacha McMeeking, Associate Professor Damon Salesa, Rachel Noble, Dr Rosemary Marks and Professor Richie Poulton.
Many people helped us engage with local communities during consultation and hui, without whom we could not have reached as many people as we did, and to whom we owe a large debt of gratitude. We thank local iwi, marae, advocacy and community groups, community liaison advisors, regional commissioners, schools, polytechnics, primary health organisations, New Zealand Sign Language interpreters, Naenae Old Boys Cricket Club and the local churches and communities that gave us use of their premises. We also thank Wellington City Mission, Kapiti Youth Service, Lifewise, Wesley Community Action and People’s Project.
Finally, we would like to thank our Special Advisor Dr Michael Fletcher, whose extensive knowledge of the welfare system was essential, and our Secretariat members for their advice and hard work.