The Future is Equal

Our Campaigns

How We Have Created Change Together

Image of a woman carrying water into a lush green area with text 'Our past campaigns'

Biofuels Mandate

Biofuels use the same land and the same crops we use for food and turn them into fuel for cars. Put simply, biofuel obligations lead to less food and can push farming communities off their land.

We asked our supporters to join us in getting the government to recognise the harm that a biofuel mandate would cause. We shared these messages with the Government – and together we won! The Government dropped the mandate, meaning they can focus on solutions to reducing emissions.

The Case for 1.5 Degrees

In 2022, the Government and Climate Change Commission were sued for errors in Aotearoa’s recommended climate action. Lawyers for Climate Action argued that New Zealand’s climate targets are not sufficient to keep global heating to 1.5 degrees.

While the case was being made in court, we asked our supporters to make their own case to the government for faster and fairer climate action to protect what we love.

Cutting Climate Pollution

The unfortunate reality is that agriculture is responsible for 50% of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. The only way for New Zealand to play its part in keeping within the crucial temperature limit of 1.5°C is if the government does more to reduce emissions in the agriculture sector and support more farmers to transition to sustainable food production.

Our supporters joined us in calling on the government to step up New Zealand’s climate target by incentivising more sustainable farms.

A People's Vaccine

Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, no one is safe until everyone is safe. Oxfam joined the People’s Vaccine alliance, pushing for pharmaceutical monopolies to share their vaccine formulas and know-how, and for governments to support the proposal to suspend vaccine patents at the World Trade Organisation.

Together with our supporters, we put pressure on Pfizer to share their know-how so everyone can could get out of the pandemic together.

Big Hearts, Connected World

Image of a woman standing in front of solar panels with text Big Hearts for facing climate change on the front lines

When the Coronavirus pandemic began in 2020, we joined together with 13 other NGOs to call on the government to provide vital support to overburdened and under-resourced nations, by boosting New Zealand’s overseas aid and climate action.

Over 18 months, and after over 3000 petition signatures, 500 personal letters and postcards, and over 30 meetings with MPs, we saw the results of this collective effort in October 2021 when the Government announced $1.3 billion for climate action overseas between 2022 and 2025. This is a four-fold increase on the previous commitment! We are continuing to push for an increase in overseas aid in other areas such as on healthcare, social support and humanitarian relief.

Fair Tax Now

Image of tax books being given

In 2018, the Fair Tax Now campaign focused on increasing tax transparency in Aotearoa as a way to stop multinational tax avoidance. Oxfam asked the government to make corporations publish country-by-country reports on their key financial information. This effort to open the books saw an 8000-strong petition and forced Parliament and Inland Revenue to engage in how New Zealand could increase transparency and stop tax avoidance.

We continue to support advocacy on tax transperency and other tax rules that benefit people in poverty through supporting the work of Tax Justice Aotearoa.

Policy Changes

View our latest submissions to the New Zealand government about the impact of proposed legislation and policy on people around the world.

A People’s Vaccine, not a Profit Vaccine

Hand holding a vial with text A people's vaccine, not a profit vaccine

Join the fight to end vaccine monopolies

Our best chance of ending this pandemic is to ensure that everyone, everywhere has access to Covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. But pharmaceutical monopolies could leave countries in the global south waiting until 2023 for widespread vaccination. With new variants emerging, this threatens everyone. No one is safe until everyone is safe.

Oxfam is part of the People’s Vaccine alliance, pushing for pharmaceutical monopolies to share their vaccine recipes and know-how, and for governments to support the proposal to suspend vaccine patents at the World Trade Organisation.

Learn more about the fight for a People’s Vaccine and take action to show your support. Let’s put pressure on Pfizer to share their know-how so everyone can get out of this pandemic together.

The latest news

No one safe until we are all safe: NZ aid agencies call for global action on pandemic

No one safe until we are all safe: NZ aid agencies call for global action on pandemic

Fourteen leading New Zealand aid agencies have today called on the New Zealand government to step in with immediate humanitarian …
One-off emergency tax on billionaires’ pandemic windfalls could fund COVID-19 jabs for entire world

One-off emergency tax on billionaires’ pandemic windfalls could fund COVID-19 jabs for entire world

A one-off 99 percent levy on billionaires’ wealth gains during the pandemic could pay for everyone on Earth to be …
Open letter – seeking urgent humanitarian assistance for world’s most vulnerable people

Open letter – seeking urgent humanitarian assistance for world’s most vulnerable people

An open letter to the New Zealand Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of …
More than a million COVID deaths in 4 months since G7 leaders failed to break vaccine monopolies

More than a million COVID deaths in 4 months since G7 leaders failed to break vaccine monopolies

At the current vaccination rates, low income countries would be waiting 57 years for everyone to be fully vaccinated. More …
Covid vaccines

Nearly 30,000 people have died every day from Covid since WTO talks on vaccine IP began

17.5 million people have died from COVID-19 in the 20 months since WTO talks about relaxing COVID-19 intellectual property (IP) …
A health worker holds a Covid test swab

New index shows governments worldwide stoked an inequality explosion during COVID-19 pandemic

Half of the poorest countries saw health spendings drop despite the pandemic, while 95 percent of all countries froze or …

Cut climate pollution fairer and faster

White smoke pours out of a chimney against a blue sky with text Help Aotearoa cut climate pollution fairer and faster

Playing our part in climate action

Oxfam is mobilising to ensure Aotearoa plays its part in protecting the people and places we love that are under threat from climate breakdown. We are also acting to make sure the government does all it can to properly support people in poorer and climate vulnerable countries.

Recently, we celebrated a big win – our 18-month campaign asking the government to boost funding for those on the frontlines of climate change led to a four-fold increase in New Zealand’s climate finance, representing $1.3 billion over the next four years!

With your help we are a strong global voice for a 1.5° C planet. Together with the wider climate movement we’ve helped tell the story of what New Zealand’s fair share of action should look like and put more pressure on our government to reduce this country’s climate pollution, particularly in the companies and sectors that have the largest climate footprint, like agriculture.

There’s more that we’ll be doing in this space throughout 2022, with an ongoing push to make the government’s Emissions Reduction Plan cut climate pollution fairer and faster. We want the government to help the farming sector play its part by setting up transition hubs and bringing agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme so every business pays the full price for its climate pollution.

The latest news

Climate Breakdown

Pacific-Island-Leaders-Forum-Climate-Crisis

New Zealand Facing Credibility Test on Climate Crisis and Pacific ‘Reset’: Oxfam

New Zealand is facing a critical test of its credibility on tackling the climate crisis and its ability to remain …
How-To-Talk-About-Climate-Change

How to Talk About Climate Change: A Toolkit for Encouraging Collective Action

This toolkit discusses effective communication strategies that inspire hope, build connections, develop understandings and encourage collective action. For those working …
Grain

Land used for European biofuels could feed 120 million people daily

CO2 benefits of biofuels pale in significance to simply giving land back to nature, while using just 2.5% of the …
Tsunami

Little for developing countries to cheer about in climate finance report

In response to the US$100bn climate finance progress report, by Canada and Germany on behalf of the donor countries published …
Ocean encroaching on land

Loss and damage fund at COP27 a monumental win, if properly funded

Responding to the final communiqué of the COP27 climate talks in Sharm El-Sheikh, Gabriela Bucher, Oxfam International’s Executive Director, said: …
A woman looks toward the camera, beside cooking equipment

Extreme hunger has more than doubled in 10 of the world’s worst climate hotspots over past six years

Less than 18 days of fossil fuel companies’ profits would cover the entire UN humanitarian appeal for 2022 Ten of …

Fight Inequality

The gap between the rich and the poor is growing, and tearing our societies apart.

IT’s Time to even it up

It is in our power to shape a world where everyone lives a meaningful and fulfilling life. We can make an economy that prioritises people’s happiness. Our economy is like a railway network – it is built to take people to particular places.

Right now, we have an economy that prioritises profit over people, and places wealth in the hands of a small few. We can change this. Together, we can build the economic and social tracks that get everyone to where they need to go, and leave no-one behind.

For all people to arrive at a meaningful and abundant life. These tracks are the laws and policies that shape the journeys people take through their lives – both in New Zealand and across the world. When these tracks are not there, or broken, people struggle to get food on the table for their families, can’t see a nurse when they are sick, or can’t get a job simply because of who they are.

We refuse to accept this situation. We devote our energy to making sure tracks are in place to get everyone to a place where they can flourish. You can join us.

Is inequality a problem?

Yes. People and organisations that study inequality, like Oxfam, see that globally a small number of individuals are accumulating wealth that they will simply never benefit from. At the same time, world hunger is rising for the first time in years.

Inequality is a lop-sided society where some people have far more than they need, while others struggle to get through the day.

This isn’t right. None of us likes to be left behind or watch somebody else forgotten on the sidelines.

At the most fundamental level, inequality is about human rights. As long as some people are being left behind, it means that their human rights are being denied.

Inequality hurts us and our societies. We know that inequality erodes trust, fuels crime, makes us unhappy, and undermines economic growth. Inequality also acts as a brake on our work to end poverty.

Can we create a world where no-one is left behind?

The good news is, together we can fix this. We know what the policy tracks are that can prevent and reduce inequality. All we need to do now is get people in governments and corporations to make the decisions to lay down these tracks, to make sure every individual can enjoy a fulfilling life, no matter where they live.

There are three types of tracks that need to be in place: progressive social spending on health, education and social protection; progressive tax systems; and labour rights that protect all workers, including women.

Oxfam assesses governments across the world on the state of these policy tracks. You can see this here. This shows us where the tracks are smooth and where there are broken ones that need fixing. Then we get to work to tell people in power to fix them and how.

What Oxfam is doing to even things up

International Development Cooperation

As New Zealanders, we believe in justice and compassion. We want everyone to have the opportunity to thrive. That’s why we support our government giving some of our taxes to help countries that are poor to provide for their people.

And up until 2015 these efforts across the world made great strides, getting millions of people out of extreme poverty. But recently this has stalled, and still over half of humanity suffer poverty’s indignity every day.

Despite our differences, we share a responsibility to make sure everyone has a decent standard of living and the same chances in life. This is what our overseas development assistance – or aid – is for.

But our aid is only as good as the policies that shape it. Oxfam works to make sure our overseas aid is spent to help people who endure poverty and are being left behind, including through focusing on getting the right policy tracks in place for social spending, labour rights, and taxation.

Our collective resources – taxes

We all want safe communities where our kids can play, clean rivers and oceans, decent roads and public transport, thriving communities, and the health, skills and knowledge to enjoy meaningful work. We need nurses in health clinics, teachers in schools, police on our streets, rubbish collected, and the right policies to protect us at work. These are the things that we collectively contribute to through our taxes. Governments around the world use tax to invest in the big-ticket items that none of us can get on our own.

In countries that are poor, corporate taxation is a very important source of government income. Because the tracks that our economy runs along wind all over the world, big global companies use the breaks and bumps in the international tax rules to shirk their responsibilities and avoid paying their fair share in tax to poor governments. In fact, multinational corporations are now paying less tax than before the 2008 financial crisis, and they continue to shift up to 40 percent of their foreign profits to shadowy tax havens so they can avoid contributing where they should. This isn’t right.

To mend the tracks we work with our people in government, people in corporations, and our colleagues across the world, to get tax rules that make sure wealthy individuals and corporations make their fair contribution to help people be safe, healthy, well-educated and in meaningful work, no matter where they live.

The latest news

inequality

Two women walk together

Wealth of five richest men doubles since 2020 as five billion people made poorer in “decade of division,” says Oxfam

Fortunes of five richest men have shot up by 114 percent since 2020. Oxfam predicts the world could have its first-ever trillionaire in just a decade while it would take more than two centuries to end poverty.  A billionaire is running or the principal shareholder of 7 out of 10 …
Scenic tree

New Oxfam report shows broken promises on climate finance

A new report out this week titled ‘Climate Finance Shadow Report’ from Oxfam shows New Zealand still has much more to do to support poorer countries adapt and respond to the climate crisis.   Oxfam Aotearoa’s Climate Justice Lead Nick Henry said:  “Oxfam’s report reveals that as governments around the world begin negotiations …
Globe illustration

Rich countries’ continued failure to honour their US$100 billon climate finance promise threatens negotiations and undermines climate action

Rich countries’ continued failure to honor their $100 billon climate finance promise threatens negotiations and undermines climate action As global greenhouse emissions continue to rise, and climate change wreaks more havoc upon the people and places least responsible for the problem, rich polluting countries are now three years overdue on …
A family walks together following the earthquake

Dismal conditions in shelters as hundreds of thousands of people in Syria and Türkiye lack water and basic sanitation

Hundreds of thousands of people, among those who lost their homes in the massive earthquakes that hit Türkiye and Syria ten days ago, are now crammed into temporary shelters with insufficient clean water or toilets. In some shelters in Aleppo, Syria, as many as 150 people are having to share …
Earthquake

EARTHQUAKE: Oxfam and partners aim to reach nearly 2 million affected people in Turkiye and Syria

Oxfam, together with our partners in Turkiye (Turkey) and Syria, is working to reach nearly 2 million people – 10 percent of the population affected by the quake – with aid and support so that they can rebuild their lives. Meryem Aslan, Oxfam Spokeswoman in Turkiye said: “People are living …
Rubble in the aftermath of earthquake in Turkey

EARTHQUAKE: Oxfam, partners mount response in Turkey and Syria

Oxfam humanitarian teams – along with partner organisations in Turkey and Syria – are assessing the fastest, most appropriate way to help affected people in the aftermath of Monday’s devastating earthquake – the biggest in Turkey since 1938. Turkish authorities have launched an official search-and-rescue mission, asking specifically for mountaineers …