A huge demand for emergency food parcels means the Auckland City Mission is struggling to prepare for the impending arrival of Christmas.
The social service provider has seen a 40 per cent increase in demand for food parcels this year, with a total of 23,020 flying out the door by June.
Missioner Chris Farrelly told the Herald the "cupboards are bare" and without an emergency food drive he is worried about how the charity will continue to provide for those in need.
"Literally we cannot do it at the moment. We are struggling just to get through what we need to do day by day, there is not much we can actually put aside for the pre-Christmas period," he said.
Labour ran on a kinder, gentler New Zealand, on ending extreme poverty. Implicitly, on putting foodbanks out of business. No-one expected them to fix the damage caused by decades of NeoLiberlaism overnight. But I at least expected them to stop things getting worse. But on this, as on so many other things, they're just a giant disappointment.