Britain's Attitude magazine has a somewhat familiar take on neoliberal austerity politics in that country, and how LGBTI individuals are being affected. Some of the parallels are somewhat depressing. For this collectively written article on "Queers and the Cuts", several UK community welfare groups and their individual activists got together to provide a mosaic on the effects of reduced central government social and health service spending. One familiar subject that New Zealand readers may find significantly parallel to our own experience is mental health service cutbacks, given that LGBT individuals are often at particular risk of LGBTI youth (and senior) suicide and self-harm. LGBTI-inclusive compulsory sex and relationships education is suggested as a solution. On the other hand, New Zealand's distance and economic marginality means that it does not share the travails of frontline European states in dealing with Syrian Civil War refugees and asylum seekers. As climate change worsens, this will inevitably change. In the United Kingdom, the House Office repeatedly uses intrusive, uninformed standover tactics often to deport bona fide LGBT refugees and asylum seekers back to their hostile, homophobic and transphobic countries of origin. LGBTI New Zealanders need to speak up and insure that international human rights and civil liberties are universally upheld, and specifically condemn instances of particular persecution. And unfortunately, despite the fact that the UK Equalities Act 2010 directly includes transgender people, they face the same problems with restricted access to gender identity clinics, counselling services, hormone treatment and reassignment services that their New Zealand sisters and brothers do. And yes, like New Zealand, the United Kingdom has its own housing crisis too. Art school lecturer Johnny Briggs talks about rampant developer demolition of liveable housing, forcing his students to participate in clinical trials due to runaway rental prices for poorly maintained, almost uninhabitable housing, often leading to serious student debt. Joe Dickson is a young doctor and is involved in fighting an exploitative, poorly strategised contract forced on them. Local medical service cuts to primary prevention often mean greater stress on underfunded public hospitals, leading to exit of doctors from the UK National Health Service. Disabled people are particularly angry, given tat their Personal Independence Payment benefit is about to be savagely cut by thirty percent, proposed by ignorant human resource consultancy businesses who have no insight into the specific needs of people with disabilities. Transport accessibility is a particular nightmare, even in London, if you're in a wheelchair. Even UK HIV prevention hasn't escaped short-sighted cuts, and the recent axeing of the rollout of PrEP/Truvada has incensed the Terrence Higgins Trust, Gay Men Fighting AIDS, the National AIDS Trust and related organisations. There is no UK national sexual health strategy and HIV/AIDS hospital bed occupancy, medication costs, equipment wear and tear and staff wages look set to mushroom as a consequence. As someone who works in the New Zealand voluntary sector myself, I can particularly relate to the experiences of the Mosaic LGBTI Youth Centre, which experienced a funding shortfall that led to paid staff redundancy and support service closure or severe retrenchment, despite the specific needs of LGBT youth in often homophobic and transphobic home and school environments. The consequences will be new HIV diagnoses and increased medical expenditure on suicide prevention, counselling services, medication, medical personnel and equipment wear and tear, as well as similar problems in the field of substance abuse and mental health treatment. To demonstrate this, there's the example of Hunter Carlton (23), HIV+- which he attributes to the aforementioned absence of compulsory inclusive health and sexuality education in school which rendered him ignorant about safe sex until it was too late. Finally, Sue Caldwell is a teacher, facing stress, an increased workload and neglect of their profession's expertise. Competitive neoliberalism has shredded an earlier ethos of community solidarity and an emphasis on 'core' and academic subjects means that inclusive sexuality and relationship education and pastoral care is exiled from this new, restrictive curriculum. Why does all of this sound so woefully familiar? New Zealand's experience may not be identical to the above situations and experiences, but it is close enough. In both New Zealand and the United Kingdom, neoliberal government cutbacks are strangling social and community services, leading to increasing retrenchment, personal tragedy and social carnage. New Zealand's own Key administration has had eight years to generate sustainable and strong economic growth and meaningful employment options for our citizens. As the current New Zealand housing crisis indicates, it has failed. Austerity politics is about the deliberate contraction of social services, underfunding of community service organisations, anti-democratic reduction of citizen participation and growth of economic inequality. It is antithetical to the development of an inclusive, healthy society and one suspects that like their British counterparts, representatives of New Zealand LGBTI community service and welfare organisations could tell analogous stories. Recommended: Chris Godfrey, Carl Strode, Bisi Alimi, Charlie Craggs, Johnny Briggs, Joe Dickson, Kevin Wilson, Marc Thompson, Laudascz Konieckska, Hunter Carlton and Sue Caldwell, "Queers and the Cuts"Attitude271 (June 2016): 87-95 Craig Young - 1st August 2016