Chester Borrows: Let's hear full story on homeless

ALL AT SEA: A homeless person living under a seaside viewing platform in Napier. PHOTO/FILE

IN MY book, kids come first ...

No matter how frustrating a parent's situation may be - situations of their own volition, stupidity, criminality or just bad luck - if there are kids involved, it pushes all my buttons. I will fall over myself to help and always have.

I'm big enough to admit that I probably made decisions last week that I wouldn't make a second time. We have all made mistakes and I own mine, but I don't want them thrown in my face every time I am in need of being cut a little slack.

So the starting point is that if there are kids involved, they didn't have any choice because some adult made a decision for them.

Now, about those families who are living in every garage in South Auckland that Labour leader Andrew Little has told us about but can't find; those ones we can see same time, same channel every night - are there a few questions we'd like to ask them? Hell yes.

To the woman who was asked where her family was living before they were living in the car, and who said: "At home with my parents but then I got kicked out" - I want the media to find out why.

To the mother of 10 children living in a carport, I would like the reporter to explain that if she is on her own and her children are all school-age, then she is entitled to $1500 per week from Work and Income, which may not be much with 10 children, but ask what happened to that money this week. With an accommodation supplement on top of that, her income would be much closer to $2000 per week.

Another question she could be asked, bearing in mind she has probably been renting previously, is why did she move? Has she got a good rent record? Did she always pay rent on time? Was the accommodation ever damaged? Did she have to move because of the harsh and unfair treatment of the landlord or what?

None of the answers affect the bottom line which is that it is all about the kids. But I want to know.

I don't think I am a mean person, but I have got a bulldust detector set on high beam and I know when there is a lot more to the story. If a person is happy enough to be on television and be held up as a victim of bad times, then let us hear the full story.

Remember when a beneficiary went on television and told of her tragic plight and Paula Bennett told the Work and Income side of the story? The uproar was deafening - the betrayal of trust by the minister was labelled a huge abuse of power. But the truth came out.

Others being in bad circumstances does not make us become cold and uncaring towards them; it doesn't mean we all want to see people living in cardboard boxes under bridges or begging on the street. It doesn't mean we say it's their own fault.

In fact, the opposite is generally true. We open the doors to our homes, we open our wallets and give of our time, energy and resources to help. We drop off groceries and raid our own firewood supplies to help with heating, especially when kids are involved.

Knowing the full facts doesn't absolve us from a responsibility to help, but I am stuffed if I am going to be denied the knowledge of those full facts because a news agency can't be bothered asking the questions.

Alternatively, maybe they have decided that we don't need to know because it doesn't fit with the angle they are taking on a particular story.

When my bulldust radar is screaming, the only way to turn it down is to know the truth. Let the fourth estate step up on this occasion.

-Chester Borrows is the MP for Whanganui.