Alright. So this is what I’m going to use my voice for today.
Let me tell you a story.
I grew up in Papakura, in a single-parent family.
My Mum, partly because of the unrelenting cruelty of trying to navigate the WINZ system, couldn’t sustain a full-time job.
I got a job at 14.

This is not unusual.
When I was 16 I was going to leave school. A teacher who liked my writing urged me to stay, urged me to go to university. She’s the sole reason I kept working part time to help support my Mum, as well as going to school.
I was privileged in that support.

I am privileged in that I have steady income.
That I don’t have to navigate a system that gives me no choices.
That I don’t have to regularly deal with people who dehumanise me, minimise my value, prevent me in innumerable ways from living life fully.
My Mum is still on WINZ.

She is stuck in a freezing house that isn’t required to have heating until 2024
She can’t move because WINZ doesn’t factor in the astronomical price of living in Auckland.
She doesn’t have additional funds to do anything, & has to plan weeks in advance to get things like clothes.

In 2020, kids are once again leaving school, compromising their schooling to help support parents who are seen by a cruel and antiquated system as just a number.
These kids don’t have the privilege of someone helping them to stay in school. They are caught in a repeating pattern.

It’s not their fault.

But it is our fault.

It’s our fault because in almost 20 years, nothing has changed.
We don’t know how to treat beneficiaries with the respect that they deserve as human beings -with the same respect that business owners continue to receive.
It’s shameful.

WINZ isn’t getting reviewed until “mid-term”.
There’s no firm or detailed commitment to change.
My teenage years would have been vastly different if I’d had a parent who was allowed to thrive within a system that was designed to see her as a person, rather than just a number.

“We’re getting there” isn’t good enough when we know what the fix is.
I am not sure why it appears to be politically risky to ensure that every single one of us is cared for, and valued as a fundamental, basic tenet of our society.
Why don’t our kids deserve that? I don’t get it.

Most of us are very conscious that 2020 is and continues to be what we can mildly describe as a horror movie.

Climate change, this pandemic, the rise of multiple conservative movements that are sexist, racist and homophobic will all absolutely serve to deepen inequity further.

We talk about values a lot, about valuing people.
I’d like to see that we’re concerned about people sitting in cold homes who are at risk from vindictive landlords.
I’d like to be damn sure we’re watching out for those parents - & those kids, who are struggling to make ends meet.

I’d really like to vote for radical change.

2020 has been a deeply unsettling, radical year.

Are we really seeing policy that meets this moment?

I hope so, because this moment requires us to be brave, radical and hopeful.

And it requires us to see each other as people. /