Election 2026: Salvation Army's Six Pressing Issues

Dr Bonnie Robinson, head of the Salvation Army's Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit, outlines six issues she wants politicians to address this election: housing, cost of living, addictions, food, poverty, welfare and tax, and prisoner reintegration. She explains these priorities are drawn directly from what frontline services are seeing, including 90,000 food parcels given out in the past year and 169,000 children living in material hardship.

Dr Robinson warns that working families, not just beneficiaries, are being tipped into crisis by rising costs, and calls for higher incomes, fairer minimum wages, secure work hours and more social housing. She also argues New Zealand's tax system is regressive, citing an Inland Revenue finding that the wealthiest pay an effective 9% tax rate versus 20%-plus for middle earners, and advocates for a fairer, broader tax base - potentially including capital gains, land or wealth taxes - to fund child poverty reduction and other social investment. ([www.salvationarmy.org.nz](https://www.salvationarmy.org.nz))

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