Are the days back? Oliver Twist asked the unimaginable in the workhouse in Charles Dickens' tale of the same name. Kiwi kids are saying similar now: "Please Sir, can I have some lunch... and also some bus fare, so I can get to school and home again?"
Like for Oliver, there now isn't any food for kids at school - and sometimes even a way to even get to school at all.... more to come
I have a dream that these four little children - and their sisters and brothers - will one day live in a nation where they are not judged for whether they are Māori, Pakeha, Pacifica - or any other of the 100+ nationalities who now live in Auckland - but
"If not for the Government's grace, I would not be here," says Belladonna Flowers' owner Donna Repia. The "breather" the Covid subsidy gave her meant her business could continue to bloom when Covid faded, she says. Or as Bill Harrison put it: "
It really is - if it is used for the right things....
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