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Michael Laws on Child Poverty
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The “Poor” can afford LOTS of alcohol

by Whaleoil on January 4, 2013

Kids in South Auckland can afford to buy twice as much alcohol as “less deprived” areas but it is not their fault – or the fault of their parents. The children HAVE to do it. According to a public health worker on alcohol issues for Otara Health, Poutoa Papali’i:

 

“Young people in New Zealand already didn’t need a reason to drink but South Auckland family dysfunction, neglect, not being in school or having a job, poor health, binge drinking parents, sub-standard housing were issues that drove drinking.”

“Poverty is what we’re really talking about,” he said.

It is also the fault of the sellers, apparently:

“Otara is notorious for the amount of liquor shops we have.”

“There’s a lot of people who don’t have any social conscience at all – it’s all about the profit.”

Why has the word responsibility gone out of the language for parents and families in parts of NZ?

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  • Pissedoffyouth

    Apparently the large amount of power poles on the road is the reason why so many drunk drivers die. I say ban power poles.

  • Corner_shop_not

    Lazy mongrels getting pissed on the taxpayers money, then claiming that’s because of fken poverty! Well fken stop wasting my tax money on fken booze and you may have enough left to feed the family AND pound the pavement looking for work instead!!

    …….and stop blaming my cousins at the Kwik-emart for trying to make a buck out of you dumbarses.

    that is all.

  • Brian of Mt Wellington

    How can they say they are in poverty when they can drink that much alcohol. This is whats wrong with this. Sure some of it will be nicked either from shops or home but I bet a majority of the alcohol gets paid for, then they bleat they have no money to pay for the necessities of life and say they live in poverty, Bollocks.

  • nasska

    Pay the benefits via a plastic “benecard” which can’t be used to buy grog, smokes or Lotto & watch the problems disappear.

    • peterwn

      Some will buy legit stuff on the ‘benecard’ then sell it at a discount at the supermarket door and use the proceeds to purchase booze etc. This is what some sanctions busting countries do – purchase exempt items such as medical supplies then on-sell them to another country. More than likely some poor teenage checkout operator will refuse such purchases and then get hammered in the media by left wing groups – as one was several years ago when she refused to sell sweets on a welfare voucher. Supermarket owners and their supervisors will probably take a Sergeant Schultz attitude to such purchases.

      • nasska

        Some will but most won’t. Any ‘touts’ trading groceries for grog/smokes will be offering shitty deals simply because of the economics of passing on the traded goods. Worthy of note is that ‘emergency’ benefits are loaded onto such cards & can only be used at designated shops.

        Most supermarkets require checkout supervisor approval for alcohol & tobacco already because of age regulations so the method of paying for any intended purchase would probably get the once over from them.

        If they are the same hard baked, hatchet faced old harridans that occupy these positions in our local supermarkets I don’t think much of the bene’s chances.

        • http://www.facebook.com/rexwiderstrom Rex Widerstrom

          nasska’s right. No evidence of this happening in areas covered by the NT intervention. Aboboriginal women say they now feel safe walking the streets at night, violent crime is down, and – though harder to measure – kids look healthier.

          What I don’t get is why the government hasn’t approached the major supermarket wholesalers and got them to bid to be the sole supplier to card holders. The guaranteed volume would surely be enough to interest them. Savings could be passed on as discounts at the till on each card, allowing beneficiaries to afford healthier options.

    • Ford

      they do that with food grants already but for this non drinking dole bludger here its all good..i waste my dole on steak and roast dinners

      • Honcho

        Get a job

    • Economist

      Don’t pay any benefits and the problem go away.

  • Blair Mulholland

    If people really think having to drive an extra two minutes to a grog shop is going to reduce binge drinking, then people must be morons.

    The number of off licenses has NOTHING to do with consumption. NOTHING. And South Auckland has no higher number than anywhere else.

    You could have one on every street corner and it would make no difference. You could have only one every 5k and it still would make no difference. The only difference it does make is the fatter wallets of the cartels that own the grog shops.

    • Ronnie Chow

      “The number of off licenses has NOTHING to do with consumption”

      What would consumption be if there were no off-licences ?

      • Pissedoffyouth

        People would go to the pub.

      • A G

        Do the words “USA” and “prohibition” ring any bells?

        • Ronnie Chow

          Clever you ! But surely we would still have pubs without off licences . And licensed restaurants .
          I would suggest to Blair that a liquor shop on every street corner would be socially devasting .

          • Bunswalla

            But it would make it easier for Hallwright to get his grog, since he can’t drive :-P

          • Ronnie Chow

            So he DID have a hangover that morning . I felt at the time that there may have been toxic aldehydes causing a seemingly rational person to explode with passionate wrath . Has he traded in that Saab yet?

          • Blair Mulholland

            I’d suggest to you that people would still buy the same amount of alcohol as before, they just wouldn’t have to drunk drive to go get it. It may well save lives. I’d further suggest that there would never be a liquor shop on every street corner because some of them would not make enough money to sustain their business.

    • Tristanb

      Well, there is a relationship. In areas where people drink a lot there is a lot of room for liquor retailers.

      But it’s not the retailers causing people to drink. Just how it’s not the KFC outlets that cause people to eat KFC everyday.

  • rouppe

    The “benecard”, which is already used for some grants and benefits, actually doesn’t have any smarts in it to prevent buying of non-approved products. It is simply a stored-value card.

    It is incumbent on the retailer (primarily supermarkets at this stage) to not allow purchase of tobacco, alcohol etc when paying with a WINZ supplied card.

    • Tristanb

      Yep, and if a retailer sells them alcohol or cigarettes then that retailer should face a hefty fine. (I don’t know if this is the case, but it’s how it should be.)

    • Ford

      nothing stopping ppl using the card to pay for someone elses food and swapping it for cash

  • In Vino Veritas

    The astonishing thing (well maybe not that astonishing) is that Poutoa Papali’i actually believes that it is other peoples fault that these people in South Auckland waste their money on booze. I guess it just goes to show that the propaganda promoted by the Labour and Green parties is working. Socialism is about entrenching this sort of behaviour and claiming that no political party except them can help. Hey presto, a base of lifetime voters that will wallow in misery until the day they die.

  • thor42

    Useless pricks.

    If they can afford to buy booze, then they can afford to buy something that’s better for them – milk, fruit juice or whatever. At least you can pour milk on cornflakes or Weetbix (both are dirt-cheap) and get a basic meal.

  • Apolonia

    Increase tax on alcohol and decrease income tax for workers.

  • In Vino Veritas

    It gets worse. I just read the whole article and this Papali’i person doesn’t have any empirical evidence that kids in poor areas drink more because they are poor. He is just regurgitating left wing nonsense that is made up. “I believe it is a reflection of how they are feeling, a lot of kids feel hopeless, their lot in life…. life seems to have dealt them a raw deal”. So, its what this person “thinks” that makes it so. Never mind that they have it within themselves to break the cycle they are in by changing their choices.
    What a twat Papali’i is.

    • Macca

      In total agreement with you as usual IVV. I think the even bigger twat though was the one eyed socialist that wrote the article in the first place! One again the Horrid just don’t get it though do they!? Why would a ‘rich prick’ bother to buy this socialist tripe? The really funny thing is that they would have brain storming meetings trying to figure why their readership is continually on the decline.

  • http://www.facebook.com/brian.p.drury Brian Peter Drury

    the real problem is the type of people approved to buy liqour shops
    most have no morals ethics decency or other human qualities in any way whatsoever

    and are approved because of their abilities to generate GST to finance tax cuts for nationals friends

    • Mr_Blobby

      What a tosser.

      A willing buyer and a willing seller are required to make a
      transaction happen. Where there is a will the fools will find a way.

      Now from a welfare point of view I am far from being a
      willing giver, to these lost causes, but some how the willing takers get it any
      way. What would you call that? Daylight bloody robbery and not only sanctioned by
      the state but aggressively enforced.

  • steve and monique

    Boo hoo,poor us,no work,no school,,poor housing,and deadbeat parents.So we get pissed to forget,and make us feel happy,and it is not our fault FFS have heard some shit in my time,but this one floats right up to the top in the bullshit pond.

    • Ronnie Chow

      S and M , feel for the kids. Please . Like it or not , they are our future . Attack the parents . The kids do not have the tools or the means or the ability to determine their own fate .

      • steve and monique

        Shit sticks,so deadbeat parents equal deadbeat kids.And yes I feel for kids who have parents who work for a min wage,and have to struggle to provide good food,housing,schooling etc,and they miss out on holidays etc.But at least their parents work(and want to),and even though it can be tough,they dont blame everyone else.Oh and by the way we are a single income family,with a 3 year old,(and one on the way).I work long,and hard to provide for my family,and when the wife gets the chance she will return to work.But at no time have we gone hungry,and my son will have good values.Time we got tough on the deadbeats,before they breed a new generation of the same(oh shit to late).If they are our future,then we as a country have resigned ourselves to letting these ferals carry on their merry way.Feel sad for our country,not their kids

        • Ronnie Chow

          I can see your point . NZ is not alone in having an ingrained inability to deal the devastation caused by lack of decent parenting . Virtually every adult fuck-up on the streets came into adulthood improperly nurtured and raised .

          This government could begin a program of forced removal of children , with forced contraception of shithead parents . But the hand-wringing liberals would cry eugenics and other such nonsense , resulting in the furthering of the current paralysis . There is , however , no other solution to attack the problem head on . All other attempts have failed and are still failing .

          Personally , I was abandoned by 2 fathers, and started drinking and smoking unchecked at age 8 . It has been a long hard road for which I blame no-one .

          One thing that I cannot do , however , is blame the children .

      • Economist

        Bludger kids are not my future. And they shouldn’t be yours either, if you have an ounce of self-respect.

        The fact that the current PM is a state-house kid is a huge problem for NZ!

  • Goldie

    So apparently there is apparently a link between “deprivation level” and alcohol. But the study also shows a clear link between Pacifika and, especially, Maori, and binge drinking (while Asians drink little) – so culture/ethnicity is a major cause.
    So instead of banning sellers of alcohol, why not just ban Maori and Pacific people from buying alcohol?

    • Lion_ess

      It’s not a race issue, it’s a welfare dependance issue. Anyone paying their own way,without state welfare, can and should be able to purchase alcohol.

      • grumpy

        Read the Herald article. Deprivation was not an issue in the rate of ” NZ European drinking”

  • grumpy

    This is the key bit…….

    “New Zealand Europeans drank 47.7ml. No significant association was found between deprivation and frequency of drinking.”

    So, it’s only an issue of deprivation if you are Maori or Pacific Islander. That means it’s a race issue!!!

  • Dave

    A business colleague owned a bottle shop in a very low socio economic area in Sydney for years, he said it was a gold mine, huge sales on Bennie day, then tapered off, but he sold single bottles of beer and single smokes for 2 days prior to the next bennie day, huge margins there, twice the price of packaged items.

  • Dave

    Drove past a state house with a range rover in the driveway. Because they live rent free they can afford lots of alcohol

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