A person nurtured in the community contributes strongly to society.

The end of meteorological winter is still carrying a bite with the ongoing impact of COVID, influenza and other ills – and also the turmoil of late season storms. Here at NZCCSS, we are regularly amazed at our member organisations who, in the face of these challenges and more, continue to invest everything they have to serve the people of their communities. We just want to take this opportunity to recognise this mahi and say kia kaha, kia manawanui, be strong, be steadfast. What you do matters.

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.
Hebrews 10: 24   

Kia noho haumaru
The Team at NZCCSS

In this month’s Policy Watch:

Summary of recent submissions
Explainer: Should Aotearoa consider a Universal Basic Income?
Poverty main contributor to ill health and mortality in pre-schoolers
Still time to take part in Disability Issues survey
Immigration settings aim to ease care workforce pressure
More help to address health workforce crisis?
Rest home closure likely tip of iceberg
Commission calls for rent freeze
Call for more members for social work professional conduct committees
Find your funding match
Pathway to see more counsellors in publicly-funded roles
Pass The Bill – preventing alcohol harm

Summary of recent NZCCSS submissions

Here’s a summary of our policy team’s mahi over the last month, with links to the submissions.

Review of Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 – NZCCSS provided feedback on a range of aspects for the review of the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989. Of primary importance to us is that any changes must be both child-centred and informed by genuine, on-going, engagement with tamariki and rangatahi.
Read more here >

Smokefree Environments Amendment Bill
NZCCSS unreservedly supports this amendment. Creating the first Smokefree generation for those born after January 1 2009 is aligned with our members mandate to protect the health and wellbeing of current and future tamariki.
Read more here >

Child Support Notice Period Change
Broadly, NZCCSS supports removing the 10-working days’ notice requirement for information sharing between IRD and MSD for child support pass ons – as a means to avoid debt generation. We recommend other benefits / supplements / subsidies be treated similarly. We seek assurance that no families will be worse off through the introduction of this measure and that if any debt is inadvertently created, it will be written off.
Read more here >

Grocery Sector Code of Conduct
NZCCSS welcomes a Code of Conduct for the grocery retailer sector. Our preference of proposed alternatives is Option 3, which provides greater flexibility for suppliers in terms of logistics, and for tikanga and Māori economic development. Also, we want to see reasonable revenue thresholds applied to retailers and we seek assurance that any transfer of compliance costs to consumers will be limited.  Read more here >

Adoption Law Reform
NZCCSS supports the reform of Aotearoa’s adoption laws. We want to see resourcing made available to ensure that the process of adoption is child-centred and safe. We want to see the mana of birth parents upheld, along with the rights of children to their identity, information and privacy.
Read more here >

Poverty main contributor to ill health and mortality in pre-schoolers

On Monday 22 August, NZCCSS joined with Whānau Āwhina Plunket, Save the Children and Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) to release a report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

This sixth periodic review report paints a grim picture of New Zealand’s under-5s, finding that the leading causes of ill health and mortality are largely preventable and attributable to poverty. The report also shows:

• the rates of preventable dental caries, skin conditions and respiratory illness are all worse for children under five compared to older children
• children under five are significantly more likely to die by homicide than older children
• over the past five years reporting of sexual assault and related cases for under-fives have remained appallingly constant.

Despite recent policies helping to bring more children out of poverty, more needs to be done to reduce all impacts of poverty, including health.

Well done to all for this important mahi but especially to NZCCSS Policy Analyst Melanie Wilson.

Read the launch statement here >
Read the report here >

Still time to take part in Disability Issues survey

The Office for Disability annual stakeholder survey is open until 31 August so there’s still time to share your views. The 17-question survey aims to gather feedback from stakeholders in order to build understanding and improve services.

You can participate anonymously and there are a range of accessibility features to ensure as many people as possible can take part. If further assistance with completing the survey is needed, please contact: [email protected]

Go to the survey here >

Immigration settings aim to ease care workforce pressure

A recently announced change to immigration settings is designed to ease the pressure on a number of sectors in Aotearoa New Zealand, including the care workforce. The government-introduced measures include providing median wage exemptions to crucial sectors through sector agreements.

For the care sector, its sector agreement enables access to migrant workers for care and support workers at Level 3 of the pay legislation ($26.16). Once the workers reach the Level 4 pay rate, they begin a two-year work to residence pathway.

Occupations covered by the provisions include: Kaiāwhina (Hauora) (Māori Health Assistant), Disabilities Services Officer, Residential Care Officer, Aged and Disabled Carers, Nursing Support Worker, Personal Care Assistant, Therapy Aide, Child or Youth Residential Care Assistant, Diversional Therapist.

The setting change will be reviewed  in 2024.

Read the Government’s announcement here >
Read the sector agreement fact sheet here >

More help to address health workforce crisis?

According to health minister Hon Andrew Little, we can expect to see more done to address health workforce issues now that Te Whatu Ora is up and running. The fillip was offered in a statement made on 1 August announcing a suite of measures aimed at increasing the number of health workers in Aotearoa
The measures include:

• Providing up to $10,000 to support international nurses fund NZ registration costs
• Providing $5000 for re-registration costs for every non-practicing New Zealand nurse wanting to return to work
• Covering international doctors’ salaries during their six-week clinical induction courses and three-month training internships
• Running a national and international healthcare recruitment campaign
• Training more doctors, nurses and radiographers
• Providing dedicated immigration support to make it easier for health workers to move to New Zealand

According to the minister these initiatives are just the start of a national health workforce plan under development.

See the Minister’s statement here >

Rest home closure likely tip of the iceberg

NZCCSS, its membership and the wider aged residential care sector have been warning of a looming crisis in the sector for the last year  – and more. For years, the under funding of this sector has been undermining the viability of service providers generally, but faith/community-based providers in particular. Last week, the reality that there is actually a crisis hit home in the Wellington region with the announcement that an 87-bed facility would close at Christmas.  The Home of Compassion in Upper Hutt has decided that after 100 years of providing residential care, it can no longer afford to do so. This is what we were warning of – and without change, more such closures are likely to follow. NZCCSS and its members continue to work with the sector to advocate with the government to provide adequate funding.

Read about the Home of Compassion decision and the impacts here >

Commission calls for rent increase freeze

Te Kahui Tika Tangata | The Human Rights Commission is calling for a freeze on rent increases, the likes of the freeze implemented by government during the country’s first COVID lockdown. The call comes as the Commission progresses its Housing Inquiry.

Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt,says the Commission is especially concerned that “some students, low-income or single-wage families are having to make trade-offs between the right to adequate food and the right to a decent home.”

The Commission also observes that the current rental system in this country is not designed for the growth seen in the number of renters or the emergence of a permanent rental class. Data from its inquiry released so far confirms that renters are less likely to find their housing affordable than homeowners and have significantly worse housing quality.

Read more here >

Call for more members for social work professional conduct committees

The Social Worker Registration Board (SWRB) is looking to expand the number of people available for its Professional Conduct Committees (PCCs). The PCCs are external to the SWRB and are tasked with investigating complaints, convictions and reports concerning registered social workers. Currently, there are not enough people available to ensure a prompt response when new cases are referred to a PCC.

The SWRB is inviting expressions of interest from both lay people – those not practising social work and registered social workers.

Interested? Find out more here >

Find your funding match

If you’re a registered charity you can now join Match | Te Puna Taurite. Recently launched by Philanthropy New Zealand | Tо̄pūtanga Tuku Aroha o Aotearoa, Match | Te Puna Taurite helps create connections between philanthropists and grantmakers with registered charities in Aotearoa New Zealand.

For fundseekers the site provides an easy way to get in front of multiple funders through creating a profile and uploading funding requests.

Open to all charities, Match particularly looks to support those working with Māori, Pasifika, Rainbow, disability and ethnic communities; and those with fewer fundraising resources.

Find out more about the service here >

Pathway to see more counsellors in publicly-funded roles

A new opt-in accreditation pathway will provide for members of New Zealand Association of Counsellors to be employed as clinical staff in mental health and addiction roles. The accreditation pathway aims to help address the workforce shortages across the health and mental health system.

Previously, the self-regulation of the profession has been a hurdle to publicly funded clinical appointments, even for highly-qualified counsellors.

Now, for counsellors who become accredited, the pathway opens up arrange of roles, including as health improvement practitioners (HIPs), health coaches or publicly-funded community counsellors. Accredited counsellors could also work at GP clinics, in kaupapa Māori, Pacific, and youth settings, as well as in schools. Joining a therapeutic multidisciplinary mental health team in a specialist hospital environment is also possible, which potentially frees up other specialists to focus on the most acute cases.

Read more here >

Pass The Bill – preventing alcohol harm

The Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill provides for communities in Aotearoa to have a greater say around the sale of alcohol. In particular, the Bill removes the special appeals process that large alcohol retailers use to obstruct Councils implementing controls on alcohol sales.

Alcohol Healthwatch, a national charity dedicated to reducing and preventing alcohol-related harm, and Hāpai te Hauora, Aotearoa’s largest Māori Public Health Organisation, are collaborating on a campaign to see the Bill pass.

The Pass the Bill campaign is showcasing public support for the Bill. In just two weeks after launching, over 2300 people signed up in support, as well as many leading health and social service organisations.

The Bill seeks to do two things:

• Give communities more say over where, when and how alcohol is sold in their neighbourhoods
• End alcohol sponsorship of broadcast sport. This will give much higher standards for protecting children

How you can support Pass the Bill:

• Find out more on Pass the Bill here >
• Sign the ActionStation petition as an individual here >  ActionStation petition
• Share the campaign website with your networks telling them why you signed up.

See the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Harm Minimisation Amendment Bill here >

Ngā mihi nui

From all of us in the team at NZCCSS