Demanding Attention; Actioning Hope
This year, The Salvation Army is excited to recognise the 21st anniversary of its Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit (SPPU). The Unit’s goal is ‘to work towards the eradication of poverty by encouraging policies and practices that strengthen the social framework of New Zealand’. To celebrate this milestone in the policy work of the Army, past and present members of the team have taken time to reflect on why SPPU is as vital now as it was in 2004.
Over the years, the Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit (SPPU) has advocated and spoken out on a wide range of social concerns on behalf of The Salvation Army. SPPU’s advocacy has focused on five key areas of concern: children and youth, work and incomes, housing, crime and punishment, and social hazards. Māori wellbeing in New Zealand is also something that the SPPU measures in relation to all five of these areas.
The work of the SPPU sits directly alongside the frontline mission of corps and Community Ministries and could be described as calling for ‘a fence at the top of the cliff’ and advocating for policy changes that can minimise the social dangers that people in the community face. Lt-Colonel Ian Hutson, mission officer for SPPU, explains that ‘Poor social policy can lead to the kind of poverty and homelessness that many of our Salvation Army services seek to respond to. Advocating for good social policy is a key part of preventing that.’
Ian describes the territorial benefit of the SPPU as:
‘…SPPU carries this [work] for The Salvation Army but also seeks to support and inspire many people who work within the Army to be social justice advocates in the communities where they live. SPPU, being embedded in the organisation, has the unique and precious opportunity to understand what is happening at the coalface and to advocate for real change.’ Many of the reports and other publications released by SPPU make a clear connection to the significance of The Salvation Army’s Christian faith and its history, and this informs and guides their work.
For the least of these
SPPU’s goal of the eradication of poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand reflects all parts of the territory’s Mission Statement—caring for people, transforming lives, and reforming society by God’s power—by imagining and moving towards a better future that reflects the kingdom of God. They understand that poverty, and the lack of opportunities that come with it, have flow-on effects for many—if not all—of the social concerns that their work is connected to.
When considering this connection and the theological foundation of SPPU, many of the team referenced Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:35–40: ‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me … Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ SPPU extends this by asking, ‘Why are they hungry? Why don’t they have clothes? Why are they in prison?’—and then bringing those findings to policymakers in the hope of enacting change.
Belief into action
Many of the ongoing social areas of concern for SPPU are similar to issues Salvation Army co-founders William and Catherine Booth dealt with during their time, including alcohol and drug addictions, housing insecurity and unemployment. William Booth was
sure that people’s physical needs must be attended to in order for them to have any space to consider
faith in Jesus, as described in Cyril Bradwell’s book Fight the Good Fight: ‘…the appalling temporal circumstances of a vast number of people made their salvation most unlikely, unless regard was also paid
to their material needs’.
This belief had practical outworkings both in England and later in Aotearoa New Zealand, as The Salvation Army arrived to serve in this country. In England, The Salvation Army responded to a major issue of the era, when female workers making matches for fires developed phosphorus poisoning, or ‘phossy jaw’, at the match factories. To counter this, the Army developed the ‘Light in Darkest England’ matches as an alternative to the matches being sold. The Salvation Army’s concern for factory workers and their unsafe working conditions contributed to the government’s eventual outlawing of the production of phosphorus matches in 1910 due to health concerns. Without that change in legislation, The Salvation Army in England might still be seeing the poor generational health outcomes of phosphorus-filled factories in the people they support in 2025.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, the SPPU was formed to combat these social concerns, working behind the scenes to effect change in law and policy, in the hope that issues like poverty, unemployment and a lack of housing could be resolved for the whole nation.
The work begins
SPPU commenced in 2004 and was led by Major Campbell Roberts. The current SPPU Director, Rev Dr Bonnie Robinson, was also involved in the early development of SPPU and wrote their first report, A New Zealand that Demands Attention. On reflection, she says that there was some difficulty in discerning what to focus their energy on: ‘When the Unit began, we had a clear overarching goal of wanting to eradicate poverty in Aotearoa. How we would do that—the contribution that SPPU would make—was much less clear. With so many intersecting issues contributing to poverty in this country, we wondered where to begin, what to focus on to be effective and have a chance at achieving real change.’
This first report served as an agenda-setting document for SPPU and the social issues they hoped to address and influence. At the time, these included some themes that remain priorities in 2025: housing, unemployment, criminal justice and addictions. There were also some more specific concerns—care of the elderly, parenting and people struggling with mental health. Since that inaugural report, SPPU has produced numerous reports on a wide range of issues, including 18 State of the Nation reports, six State of our Communities reports and almost 200 submissions to government. The consistency of certain reports, like State of the Nation, has set SPPU up as a trusted source of data tracking on these issues, and these reports are often picked up by other NGOs and community groups to inform their own campaigns.
Acting together for good
In seeking a better future for Aotearoa New Zealand, SPPU has written reports and submitted on many issues relating to the wellbeing of children and youth, including in favour of the Minors (Court Consent to Relationships) Legislation Bill in 2017. SPPU’s submission on this Bill, which sought to require approval from a Family Court judge for a young person under 18 to be married (instead of consent from their parent or guardian), included statistics from Shakti Community Council Inc. on forced marriages in Aotearoa New Zealand, and queried what further support should be put in place for vulnerable young people brought into forced marriages. Their submission stated: ‘The Salvation Army believes that one forced marriage is one too many. It is another form of violence and exploitation, particularly for women and young people in vulnerable contexts who may be otherwise isolated from wider society.’ The Bill was passed in 2018, because of considered submissions like SPPU’s.
One of the more recent policy wins for the SPPU has been around the regulation of the sale of alcohol in vulnerable communities. They became more involved with this in 2020, after Captain Jocelyn Smith successfully objected to the opening of a bottle shop in her community in Christchurch. Sharing in the learnings from that experience, SPPU collaborated with Communities Against Alcohol Harm to develop an Alcohol Advocacy Toolkit to guide communities through the process of objecting to bottle stores opening near them. Social Policy Analyst Ana Ika has spearheaded this work for SPPU and explains that the toolkit is, ‘grounded in harm minimisation, not just aiming to get licences declined, but to secure conditions that reduce harm when licences were granted. We began actively objecting to licence applications, together with our frontline staff, learning as we went. Our staff supported or led objections across the country—in Auckland, Hamilton, Tokoroa, Palmerston North, Porirua, Christchurch, Timaru, Oamaru and more.’
Ana has also written several reports and submissions to government around alcohol regulation, including Uncapping the Voices of Communities: Looking closer at local alcohol policy and district licensing committees in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2022, which contributed to the passing of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill.
What now?
There is a benefit to reaching a milestone like 21 years of work for SPPU, for reflection on work achieved and work to be done. Bonnie notes, ‘As SPPU celebrates the past 21 years, we also look ahead. Our big, hairy, audacious goal is to eradicate poverty in New Zealand. Our hope and prayer are that in another 21 years we won’t be needed—or not as much—because Aotearoa will come together to develop and implement the policies, systems and structures that create a society where poverty has indeed been eradicated.’
Dr Martin Luther King Jr reminded us, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice’, which SPPU Principal Policy Analyst Paul Barber sees as the work of SPPU: ‘The positive changes achieved serve as beacons of hope, demonstrating that with persistent advocacy and a commitment to equity, we can bend the arc.’
In all SPPU’s reporting—graphs, statistics and trends—they really seem to work in the business of actioning audacious hope: hope that New Zealand has the tools to eradicate poverty, and that as a nation we can do the hard but worthwhile work of ‘fostering a society that embodies compassion, justice and love for one another’. Which is the business of The Salvation Army as well.
To read a collection of writings that reflect on the work of SPPU in the past 21 years, visit salvationarmy.org.nz/SPPU21
