“A just society cannot be achieved when individuals pursue what is best for them alone, but only when the community works together for the common good.
The common good is not being served when one in five people in New Zealand live in poverty.
Offering charity to the poor, while failing to address the causes of poverty, does nothing to promote community or justice ...”

— from An Open Letter about Poverty in New Zealand,
August 1996, by the NZ Council of Christian Social Services,
and signed by 148 well-known church members from the Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian Churches
and the Salvation Army.