#40 Dr Kathie Irwin: The machine that built this

In this episode, we meet Dr Kathie Irwin — scholar, senior public servant, and Kaihautū of the Coalition to End Women's Homelessness in Aotearoa.Kathie is a third-generation Māori feminist educator, and she brings to this conversation decades of hard-won analysis about why wāhine Māori arrive at 65 without economic security — not by chance, but by design. Three generations of legislation, regulation, and policy, layered on top of one another, pointing women toward the lowest-paid sectors of the labour market and keeping them there.In this episode, Kathie traces that machinery with precision — from the 1847 Education Ordinance to today's retirement income policy — and asks what it would take to undo it. She talks about the power of capitalising the family benefit as a housing deposit, the vision of urban papakāinga as a genuine alternative to individualised housing solutions, and why New Zealand doesn't need to import new ideas. The answers, she argues, are already here.We'd like to thank Dr Kathie Irwin for taking the time to speak with us for this episode.And don't forget to subscribe to the CHA Hub Podcast — wherever you get your podcasts from.The CHA Hub Podcast is sponsored by our Founding Partner, Westpac New Zealand.