Income Equality Aotearoa New Zealand Inc. Closing the Gap

Revealed: which party will do the most to reduce New Zealand’s growing inequality crisis

The Equality Network, a group of New Zealand organisations dedicated to reducing inequality, is today releasing a rating of political parties and their policies on tackling income gaps.

The ratings reveal the Greens out in front, with a rating of three stars out of a possible four, and Labour and the Mana Party not far behind.

The full ratings are:
Greens – three stars
Labour – two and a half stars
Mana – two and a half stars
New Zealand First – one and a half stars
Maori – one and a half stars
National – one star
Conservatives – half a star
United Future – half a star
ACT – no star

“Inequality and poverty is a leading concern at this time and people are looking to our political leaders do something about it.” says Equality Network spokesman Peter Malcolm.

The Equality Network is a non-partisan network of organisations—see www.equalitynetwork.org.nz – working under the mantra that more equal societies are better for all.

“New Zealand has seen significant change and growth over the last 30 years,” Peter Malcolm says.

“We are regarded as one of the least corrupt countries in the world and are valued for our innovation and sense of fair play. However, along with the benefits of growth has been an unprecedented rise in inequality. New Zealand’s income gaps increased faster than anywhere in the rich world between the mid-1980s and the mid-2000s.”

In the lead-up to the General Election on September 20, 2014, the Equality Network is calling for fundamental change in the areas that it believes have the most impact on inequality. It has ranked the parties’ policies in the following six areas:
• Getting more people into well-paid jobs
• Closing the salary gap in the workplace
• Reducing gaps through taxes and benefits
• Better education to break cycles of poverty
• Stronger health and housing to reduce poverty’s impacts
• Strengthening democracy to bring people together

Each of these areas has been broken down into specific policies.

In each area, the parties have been given a rating out of four stars for how much impact their policies will have on inequality, in which: no star = no impact; one star = small impact; two stars = moderate impact; three stars = strong impact; four stars = very strong impact.

In all the ratings, parties have been assessed based on a combination of their ambition (how strongly they are committed to tackling inequality) and their plan (the level of detail they have for policies to close income gaps).

Peter Malcolm

ENDS

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