Inequality and food price increases hurting struggling families

Rising food prices will hurt Kiwi families who are already struggling financially, the Green Party said today.

“Food prices are rising and for those on the lowest incomes every increase creates further hardship,” Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei said.

Figures released by Statistics New Zealand today show that food prices have risen 5.3% from a year ago.

“Life is getting tougher and tougher for those who have the least in New Zealand. The Human Rights Commission report released today shows that there is serious racial and social inequality in our society, and it is time the Government did something about it.”

The Human Rights Commission annual race relations report found that: “… social and economic inequalities remain unacceptably high.”

“This report shows that growing social inequality in New Zealand is hurting Māori,” said Mrs Turei.

“Part of the problem is we have a housing crisis that is hurting our most vulnerable people.”

The recent Government taskforce Home and Housed report found that there is a shortage of 70,000 houses in New Zealand, and that 8,500- to 20,000 New Zealand households have extreme housing issues.

“There is a lot the Government can be doing right now to address inequality and poverty in New Zealand. These include raising the minimum wage to at least $15 dollars an hour, extending the in work tax credit to those that need it the most, and investing in community and state housing,” said Mrs Turei.

“We are also concerned that the increase in food prices is partly being driven by the supermarket duopoly in New Zealand.

“To address this there needs to be a commerce commission investigation of the supermarket duopoly to ensure that they are not unfairly driving up prices.”

The Green Party also has a Member’s Bill to set up a supermarket code of conduct and ombudsmen, added Mrs Turei.

“John Key’s Government knows that inequality hurts everyone, but is turning a blind eye to the reality of life for ordinary families struggling to get by.”

Reference:

The Green Party has developed the Mind the Gap package which contains costed solutions for addressing inequality and poverty in New Zealand it is available at http://www.greens.org.nz/mindthegap

Food price index release for March 2011: http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/economic_indicators/prices_indexes/FoodPriceIndex_MRFeb11.aspx

Human Rights Commission on race relations is available at http://www.hrc.co.nz/news-and-issues/race-relations/race-relations-priorities-highlighted-in-report/

Sue Kedgley’s Commerce (Code of Practice for Supermarket Grocery Suppliers) Amendment Bill: http://www.greens.org.nz/sites/default/files/final-_commercecode_of_practice_for_supermarket_grocerysuppliersamdt_bill__0.pdf