11 October 2013

Support for cross-party approach to end homelessness by 2020

The New Zealand Coalition to End Homelessness (NZCEH) supports Labour’s call for a cross party approach to ending homelessness by 2020.

World Homelessness Day was marked with a parliamentary breakfast cohosted by Jacinda Adern, Labour MP and Denise Roche, Green Party MP. Both MPs complimented community organisations throughout New Zealand trying to meet the basic human right of homeless people to be housed.

Dr Shiloh Groot, Tangata Whenua Co-Chair of the Coalition stated ‘The exposure and vulnerability of street homeless people is evident in the recent murders in Auckland, we as a country need to care for all our citizens’. Stephanie McIntyre, the Tangata Tiriti Co-Chair spoke of what a travesty it is that we have homelessness in New Zealand at all.

Dr Phillipa Howden-Chapman, the keynote speaker for the parliamentary breakfast, stated, ‘World Homelessness Day challenges us to think about what makes a home, what makes a community and how we can make having a home a right rather than a dream. All we need is the political will.’

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On The Government’s Smokefree Laws Debacle

The most charitable explanation for National’s behaviour over the smokefree legislation is that they have dutifully fulfilled the wishes of the Big Tobacco lobby and then cast around for excuses that might sell this health policy U-turn to the public. The less charitable view is that the government was being deliberately misleading. Are we to think Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is a fool or a liar? It seems rather early on in his term of office to be facing that unpleasant choice... More