To Be Fair: Confessions of a District Court Judge by Riddell Rosemary

Author:Riddell, Rosemary
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Upstart Press

16 The poverty trap

NEW ZEALAND’S OFFICIAL rate of child poverty places 23 per cent of children below the poverty line.30 That means children living in substandard housing, not having enough food and experiencing a whole raft of health issues. The rates for Māori and Pasifika are higher than the national average.

The poverty trap means for those caught by it, there is little chance of escape to a better life. House prices in New Zealand push the dream of ownership out of reach for many. Incomes for basic jobs remain at the same level and many jobs have, over the past 30 years, simply disappeared.

Care workers in retirement homes and nurses in hospitals are by no means at the top of the income stream. But as we have seen recently with Covid-19, it was those people who proved to be the essential workers, vital to keeping life in New Zealand going, even while the rest of us were in lockdown. It turned on its head the notion of what was vital.

Turns out the rubbish collector was, and the stockbroker wasn’t.

The poverty trap has implications for those who go through the court system.

Take Jimmy, for example. He’s never had much of a record except for some youthful misdemeanours involving alcohol. Now he has a partner and three kids. He manages to get a job on the new motorway construction, bringing in a regular income. Life’s good.

The motorway gets completed and he can’t find any other labouring work. Times get tough.

In desperation one day, he steals some items from the supermarket and, while that would normally be treated as a minor offence warranting diversion, he compounds the problem by lashing out at the supermarket security guard, who’s hospitalised as a result. Now he’s up on an aggravated assault charge and subject to bail conditions.

To make matters worse, the house the family were staying in courtesy of an uncle is no longer theirs. The uncle wants to put his children in there, and quickly.

Our Jimmy doesn’t know about tenancy rights and the uncle certainly isn’t going to let on about his legal obligations to his tenants. So, the family is on the move, initially to a friend’s garage. While they are there, the police visit. Seems Jimmy forgot that his bail conditions require him to live at an approved address and not to move without police consent. He’s breached that and he’s angry. Shortly after that, he’s under arrest and in the cells.

His partner wants to come and see him when he’s next in court, but they have no car and the bus service is patchy at best.

One of the kids has asthma and the partner must toss up whether to see Jimmy or take the child to the doctor. She opts for the latter.

The following day when Jimmy appears in court after his night in the cells there’s no partner and children to greet him from the public gallery. Jimmy’s hurt and he’s more than a bit miffed that a shoplifting offence has ballooned out of control.

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