Raising money for Oxfam

It turns out that the five Labour MPs living on $2.25 a day are not making You Tube videos for WINZ offices on better budgeting but are in fact trying to raise money for charities like Oxfam that try to alleviate poverty in countries where significant numbers do live on under $2.25 a day.

Overall fewer people each year are living in poverty, due to the economic growth of China and India as they have opened up their economies. There are lessons there for other countries.

But I certainly support assistance to those less fortunate, and support a number of charities and also micro-financing organisations such as Kiva, which I’ve made a couple of dozen loans through.

Now you would think five of the most senior Labour MPs would raise a lot of money for people in poverty. So let’s look at their efforts.

The Deputy Leader, Finance Spokesperson, Welfare Spokesperson, Aid Spokesperson and Housing Spokesperson had raised around $1,400 between them, with some as low as just $90. They obviously have not hit their colleagues up enough!

This is less than the just over $1,500 raised by a Dunedin based Young Nat, Varsha Singh.

The challenge finishes at the end of today. Who will have raised more money – half the Labour frontbench, or the Young Nat?