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The Growing Divide: State of the Nation 2012
This is the Salvation Army’s fifth State of the Nation report, The Growing Divide. Extensive research into our children, crime and punishment, work and incomes, social hazards and housing, provides insight into the growing marginalisation of more and more New Zealanders.
‘We have two clear choices here: one is to continue the path we have been on more or less continuously for the past three decades, concentrating wealth and influence, and driving the marginalised further into the shadows, with yet more restrictive welfare entitlements and a yet more punitive criminal justice system. The other is to act more inclusively and to work consciously and deliberately at ways of ensuring that the most marginalised New Zealanders, and in particular, many poor families and unemployed young people, feel as though they are valued and valuable members of our society.’— from the Foreword, by Major Campbell Roberts, director of the Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit.