Pakukore: Poverty, by Design Conference

Exploring the systemic causes of poverty, and options for change.

This conference addressed poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand. It analysed the economic, governmental, legal and institutional systems that have created poverty, and which continue to lock too many whānau in its grip. It asks whether a developed nation should continue to tolerate poverty and inequality. Invitations to speakers who work at the front lines in the fight against poverty to tell us of the lasting and severe harm it inflicts on people’s lives.

The programme was ordered around the systems that have played, and continue to play, key roles in underpinning and maintaining the crisis of poverty: economic management, the housing, health, welfare and education systems, the courts and corrections, and short-term political thinking. The conference will also look at where hope lies, and how we can choose to re-design Aotearoa to eradicate poverty and heal those who suffer its harms.

The conference was held at Rutherford House, Pipitea Campus, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, on 21–23 November 2024, hosted by the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies.

Speakers included: Professor Tracey McIntosh, Judge Ida Malosi, Professor Lisa Marriot, Associate Professor Anna Matheson, Rebecca Macfie, Max Rashbrooke, Professor Māmari Stephens, Murray Edridge, Kay Saville-Smith, Philippa Howden-Chapman, James Te Puni, Huhana Hickey, Maria English, Sue Bradford, Jennie Smeaton, Pat Hanley, Jin Russell, Craig Renney, Bill Rosenberg, Miriana Stephens, Nikki Turner, Sarah-Jane Paine, Tagaloa Junior Ulu, Hana O'Regan, Jess Berentson-Shaw, Amanda Coulston, Brooke Pao-Stanley, along with MPs Ricardo Menendez-March (Greens), Ginny Andersen (Labour), and Kassie Hartendorp from ActionStation.

Links to the recordings of the sessions are listed below. Please note that the end of some sessions run into the following session.