Northland is going through a building boom, but funding for far more houses - particularly affordable and social housing - are needed from today's Budget. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Housing stands out as the single most pressing issue in the wish-list of Northland community leaders who hope more and affordable houses get more funding in today's Budget
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has signalled more allocation for Māori housing but not much else ahead of his Budget announcement, scheduled for this afternoon.
Northland Housing Forum convenor Tim Howard wants to see a serious commitment towards building more State houses beyond what has already being signalled and an increase in benefit levels.
"Minor tweaking of benefits don't provide total transformation that's required. Incomes need to rise because that's related to people's ability to manage rents and to secure housing," he said.
NorthChamber chief executive Stephen Smith is keen on a pot of money set aside to help struggling businesses, in addition to the wage subsidy, as a way of future-proofing them in case the Covid returns.
Similarly, he said money towards assisting businesses and the public to deal with stress as a result of the pandemic would be helpful.
"An ongoing commitment to big infrastructure projects to move ahead and I'd like to see a much larger budget to help network operators fund cases that have merit to help people who have limited access to the fundamentals of life such as broadband."
An increase in baseline benefits and the construction of more social houses top the wishlist for One Double Five Whare Awhina Community House and the Tai Tokerau Emergency Housing Charitable Trust.
"Clearly there's a huge shortage of social housing in Whangārei because whanau are coming home, people are moving up for jobs, the population is growing, and the four-lane highway will remove a lot of houses," One Double Five chief executive Liz Cassidy-Nelson said.
Trust manager Ange Tepania said a growing number of Northlanders were struggling to secure a rental property, let alone an affordable one.
Far North mayor John Carter said Government needed to clarify the future of local government going forward and pointed out issues such as the Three Waters review and replacement of the Resource Management Act with three new acts.
Carter said another important issue was investment in key infrastructure such as roads, which he described as "challenging" in his district.
Whangārei Mayor Sheryl Mai hopes to see funding for a new hospital for her district and a dry dock to support the Northport expansion and Navy relocation.
Kaipara mayor Jason Smith is advocating for more funding towards roading and the new Whangārei Hospital.
Te Tai Tokerau Principals' Association president Pat Newman said "effective help" for Northland families to access better housing and accommodation should be prioritised.
"Unless kids are in warm, comfortable, and safe dwellings schools are not going to have an effect," Newman said.
Children from families living in caravans, emergency accommodation, and motels were an everyday encounter in education for Newman.
"We have families who are desperate because their houses are being sold out from under them to various people in Auckland," he said.
"We need effective help for these families so they're not living in a way where $10 is a major problem for them."
An added boost for education would be additional support for schools grappling with behavioural concerns and special education.
Alternative Education Co-ordinator for Northland, Jamie Crabb, hopes this year's Budget will provide increased funding to allow alternative education (AE) to grow.
AE currently provides an opportunity for people aged 13 to 16, unable to thrive in high school, to receive education in an environment that addresses why mainstream education did not work for them or their whānau.
"Youth disengaged from education is a huge worry - their future is Aotearoa's future," Crabb said. "If mainstream schools are to remain unchanged, for now, we need to be catering to all of our rangitahi.
AE recognises that school is not for everyone and Crabb would like to see additional funding help them to reach younger students, extend the current number of student placements, and better resource the programme.
Early childhood teachers want to see centralised payment in the same way schools are funded.
Shelley Shennan, Northland representative for Te Ope Kōhungahunga ō Te Riu Roa - the NZEI Te Riu Roa National Leadership Group for early childcare education, said there is too much incentive for private employers and ECE companies to maximise profit rather than pass it on to teachers – even when the extra government funding is earmarked for teacher pay.
"Currently, ECE teachers earn as much as $17,000 per year less than their kindergarten peers with the same qualifications and equivalent work," she said.
"It's making recruitment and retention of teachers incredibly hard around the country and I am hearing throughout the ECE community stories of teachers feeling undervalued and burnt out."
Patsy Henderson-Watt, director of the Miriam Centre counselling centre in Whangārei, says helping Northlanders into their own home is crucial.
"It has got to be affordable so people can feed their kids and pay their rents – it's just so awful what has happened to this country, that fact that people can pay rent and live."
Supporting families into safe and healthy homes would have a huge impact on the amount of family violence Northland experiences, Henderson-Watt said.
Another benefit would be a Budget that encouraged more free apprenticeships and subsidised dentistry.
Northland's health sector is keen to see how the Government plans to implement its health reforms, alongside addressing issues of pay parity and digital connectivity.
"The minister focused on the reforms and it's clear that those aspirations we have in the health sector require an informed budget. That will probably not be in this budget round at the scale the reform may have promised," said Northland District Health Board chairman Harry Burkhardt.
The reforms announced last month by Health Minister Andrew Little promised a drastic overhaul of the health sector, aimed at devolving power, reducing inequity in the health system and consolidating current services and providers.
"From an iwi and hapū perspective, our nervousness is around ensuring that the funding is tagged to go to whānau through a Treaty settlement relationship framework," said Burkhardt, who is also chairman of the Ngāti Kuri Trust Board.
With 30,000 nurses set to strike in the coming months, pay parity was another major issue in the sector that required attention in the budget.
"From a DHB lens, we have articulated that if we want to move the health sector together, we need to be dealing with the pay parity issues. I know that the Minister has got that in his line of sight but I'm pretty sure he hasn't got it in this budget, I could be wrong," Burkhardt said.
Mahitahi Hauora acting chief executive Jensen Webber said he'd like to see a budget that could fully back up plans that have the potential to transform health and wellbeing for whanau and the community.
Whakawhiti Ora Pai Dr Errol Murray wants to see more support in regards to pay equity for nurses and workers in the NGO sector.
In the Far North, Murray said connectivity was a main issue in terms of attracting quality staff to fill vacancies and also to providing sufficient telehealth services to the community.
Chief executive of Tiaho Trust Jonny Wilkinson said there was a major shortage of affordable accessible housing for the disabled community and was hopeful the budget would contain something to help address the issue.
He also called for improved access for disabled people to health services.
NZ Howard League CEO Mike Williams hoped the Budget made it possible to receive long-term funding for its successful driving programme.
The programme has provided more than 2000 offenders and ex-prisoners a second chance as it helped them off the pathway to prison and into work, Williams said.
"We have a high prison population with a sky-high rate of reoffending but after a year, half our the participants already had jobs which had a huge and positive impact on those statistics."
Each driving programme costs about the same as keeping one person in prison for one year.
The biggest priority for police in this year's Budget is to bring forward the already promised funds to boost the number of recruits to 1800, says Police Association president Chris Cahill.
"We want them to bring forward the ability to recruit staff because the demands since 1800 new police were promised have continued to grow."
In the four years since the Government's first pledge police have experienced a 44 per cent increase in family harm events, 25 per cent rise in violent offenders and in mental health call-outs.
"We'd rather have the recruits sooner rather than wait six years where demand continues to grow rapidly."
A key part of today's announcement is expected to be targeted at improving unemployment rates, specifically among Māori.
"I would like to see more support for the initiatives put in place post-Covid, such as the Targeted Training and Apprenticeship Fund. My understanding is that this fund expires at the end of next year. It would be awesome if the Government made a commitment to continue to roll that out," said managing director of Tai Tokerau Trades Training Maea Pivac (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whātua).
A main benefit of such programmes is that they help schools to connect with different industries. Tai Tokerau Trades Training's Education to Employment brokerage service is one such programme that Pivac would like to see an extension to.
Northland's unemployment rate sits at 5 per cent, slightly above the national average of 4.7 per cent. At its peak in March of 2013, unemployment was at 9.3 per cent in Northland.
Pivac says there needs to be better holistic support for job seekers, with an emphasis on mental health support.
"We're seeing with the students we're working with, the biggest barriers are mental health and hauora issues," Pivac said.
"It would be good to see some long-term funding to support people, particularly with practical solutions to issues they face and mental health strategies," said managing director of People Potential Andrea Ross.
Initial construction work on the next section is set to begin by the end of next year.