Democratic ideals of freedom extend to each person the right to develop to their fullest potential. However, this ideal is challenged by the wide reaching hegemonic effect of the normalisation of an economically driven society often dressed in a rhetoric exhorting the need for ‘productivity gains’,‘improved efficiency’, and ‘economic growth’to serve ‘The Market’. In this paper, we argue, that we have not moved far from the neo-liberal commitments of the late 20 th Century that left a legacy of social disruption and oversaw the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. We wish to bring attention to the manner in which contemporary policy makers are creating, embedding and exacerbating poverty for some of the most vulnerable people in New Zealand, lambs sacrificed for the benefit of ‘The Market’.