It really is sobering stuff from Statistics New Zealand today with pretty big price increases in basic items. Everything is up, meat, vegetables, milk. As the Stats NZ Prices Manager said

“Although food prices are now 2.2 percent higher than a year ago, they are 12.0 percent higher than two years ago,” Mr Pike said.

This is putting a lot of pressure on people on low to middle incomes. I have seen some people in real distress in my own electorate, and social services agencies have been reporting big increases in clients. I was in Whanganui last week, and the City Mission there is struggling to cope with people looking for support, including food parcels.

Surely in the face of this the government has to re-think an increase in GST?