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Photo: 123rf Charities say they are struggling to find volunteers as people prioritise paid employment in the current financial crisis. A report by Volunteering New Zealand, which surveyed 420 organisations and 1500 volunteers, also noted a move towards casual volunteering of just a few hours a week. The State of Volunteering in Aotearoa New Zealand 2024 report also found a quarter of volunteers performed up to five hours a month, while only seven percent did 20 hours or more. Volunteering New Zealand chief executive Michelle Kitney said organisations were reporting a lack of volunteers as a concern, but an even bigger issue was not having enough time or resources to support their volunteers. "That's in the context of wider funding security issues and concerns in relation to future fundi...

Protesters raise their fists to show solidarity at a Black Lives Matter march in Auckland. Photo: RNZ / Mabel Muller It's the catchcry of a certain tranche of X - formerly Twitter - users: Go woke go broke. It has been levelled at everyone from Budweiser in the United States, which suffered a decline in sales after a social media partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, to Strictly Come Dancing in Britain for its ratings falling when it included same-sex couples and a contestant with dwarfism. In New Zealand, Mike Hosking asked Patrick Gower - after the confirmation that Newshub would close - what he would say to people who said "go woke, go broke". The term comes from African-American Vernacular English. Over the past five years it's been used as an insult from the right...