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In Wellington this week, the Pakukore: Poverty, by Design conference will tackle the systemic issues holding New Zealand back from eradicating poverty
The breakthrough moment came as Stephen Turnock lay on a stranger's roof in the pouring rain for four hours, evading police.
"I remember it as if it was yesterday," he tells The Detail. "I was up to no good and we were being actively looked for. As I lay on that roof in the rain I had the moment - 'this isn't for you, this isn't what you want in life, you have to make a change'. It was very confronting in that moment, and it was a switch that went off in my head."
Turnock grew up Māori in an adoptive Pākehā family, who - while loving - struggled financially. It was tough.
While still young and battling racism and self-doubt, he found solace in a "bad crowd" and ended up living rough and in trouble with police - "I was probably on track for a life in and out of prison."
Until that moment on the roof.
With the help of a supportive family and an inclusive sports team, he turned his life around, becoming educated, entering the workforce as a social worker, and raising a family.
He is now the director of the Downtown Community Ministry, and will this week chair a panel at the Poverty, By Design conference, which aims to address the systemic causes of poverty in New Zealand and the options for change.
Poverty in New Zealand, he says, is real, brutal and endemic.
While touted internationally as a first-world paradise, the statistics instead expose a shameful not-so-little secret here.
Nearly 144,000 Kiwi children - that's one in eight - are now living in material hardship. For Māori, it's one in five, and one in four - nearly 29 percent - of Pasifika children.
The conference, to be held over three days in Wellington, is billed as the first in New Zealand to analyse the economic, governmental, legal, and institutional systems that have created and locked in poverty and ask whether a developed nation should continue to tolerate it.
Sessions will cover everything from the cost of poverty, welfare, and inequality to housing and homelessness and the politics of poverty.
Lines of hope will also be discussed.
Speakers from research backgrounds and the front lines, including Prof Nikki Turner, Prof Sarah-Jane Paine, Dr Avataeao Junior Ulu, Dr Hana O'Regan, Amanda Coulston, and MPs Carmel Sepuloni and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, will provide "evidence, present joined-up thinking and examine where hope lies for eradicating poverty and assisting those who suffer its harms".
Turnock says poverty can have a devastating impact on a person, mentally, emotionally, and physically.
"The conference will also look at... how we can choose to re-design Aotearoa to eradicate poverty and heal those who suffer its harms.
"This is a fantastic opportunity to shine a spotlight on the voices that are often unheard - so that's people experiencing poverty - but also the people supporting them at the grassroots, but bringing that voice alongside those people who are experts in research, policy, government... and sharing those experiences and sharing the evidence.
"So this is a fantastic opportunity to kind of bring that all together and share our learning and look for some solutions."
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