An anti-poverty campaigner saying the Government isn't doing enough to support struggling families and many are having to turn to to pawnbroker shops instead as the cost of living crisis bites
Analysis shows New Zealanders have on average spent an extra $4000-$5000 in the past 12 months on basics including food, rent and fuel.
And some Kiwis are having to pawn off valuable items to afford the basic essentials.
Brooke Stanley Pao from Auckland Action Against Poverty (AAAA) told AM on Friday it's normal practice for people to turn to pawnbroker shops in a time of need but believes the Government isn't doing enough to help struggling families.
"What worries me is why people are forced into these circumstances in the first place, like we have such abundance here in this country," she told AM co-host Melissa Chan-Green.
"We make out like we're some egalitarian nation, and there's a really famous James Baldwin quote around 'I can't believe what you say because I see what you do'.
"So in our communities, what we're seeing is they're not being supported, they're not being supported to heal. There's no kind of love and solidarity from the Government and government departments that are meant to look after them."
Stanley Pao said our values in New Zealand need to change.
"Our values are centred around money, money over everything, and so I think, the bigger question is how do we look at prioritising people and Papatūānuku over money?
"At the moment that's not happening and it needs to happen in order for so many other things, not just pawnshops, this is just a symptom, we have way bigger problems."
Stanley Pao fears Kiwis turning to pawn shops could be taken advantage of because of the high cost of living.
"With the cost of living crisis, it means that people are kind of forced into circumstances and conditions in which they have very little choices," she said.
"So in order to survive, make ends meet, look after themselves and their families, they're taking things to places like cash converters, getting loans from loan sharks and are going into debt with MSD.
"So these people who already don't have enough in order to survive are pretty much always taken advantage of by different government departments, by different institutions, by businesses."
Watch the full interview with Brooke Stanley above.
