About $140,000 families will receive an extra $14 a fortnight through the Working for Families scheme. Photo / 123rf
Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ Budget has been met with concern by some Whanganui leaders, who say “hardworking whānau“ have been forgotten.
Whanganui Budget Advisory Services manager Sandy Fage said nothing in Thursday’s announcement would relieve families tackling cost-of-living pressures.
“We are seeing so many people doing KiwiSaver hardship applications,” she said.
“That indicates people are in crisis. They are dipping into it because they’ve got no other options.
“Food, rent and power are sucking people dry.”
Instead of receiving benefits, unemployed 18- and 19-year-olds will soon have to rely on their parents, with a parental assistance test introduced from July 2027.
Fage said she understood that teenagers getting Government support may mean a lack of desire to find a job, but there would now be even more pressure on parents.
“It almost feels like a flippant ‘Let’s do that and see what happens’,” she said.
“The Government won’t have to deal with the family fallout of this.”
Parents receiving the Best Start payment will now be income-tested over all three years, instead of just the second and third.
That will partly fund changes to the Working for Families scheme, which will result in about 142,000 families getting an extra $14 a fortnight on average.
Whanganui MP Carl Bates (National) said it was “a very good Budget in the times we find ourselves in”.
“The change in Working for Families tax credits is supporting those who need extra dollars on a weekly basis,” he said.
“There are things that are clearly focused on ensuring the management of the economy and, ultimately, the cost of living, but the way that’s being achieved is not by a big rollout or dole-out of money.”
Whanganui’s resource teacher of literacy (RTLit) Nicky Collins said she was not surprised the Government cut funding for her programme, but there were still no answers on what came next.
“The Government has suggested there will be opportunities for us to utilise the skills we have, but there is no indication of what that might look like at this stage,” she said.
“It is very short-sighted to unceremoniously dump the most qualified teachers available to help the country implement evidence-based literacy practice.”
The RTLit programme will finish at the end of this school year.
Bates said the funding had been reinvested into the wider education learning support budget.
“Those [RTLit] teachers are hugely talented and we value their skills.
“We want to see them continue to be involved in the education sector.”
When asked if RTLit teachers would be redeployed, Bates said it was an employment process matter needing an answer from the Ministry of Education.
“The key is, across the education sector, there is a significant increase in teacher resourcing and learning support resourcing over the next several years,” he said.
“In Whanganui, there will be learning support co-ordinators in every school, even our small rural schools like Ngamatapouri.”
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and Te Tai Hauāuru MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said she had been fielding concerned calls since the Budget was announced.
Like Fage, she said there was nothing in it for “hardworking whānau and New Zealanders trying to make ends meet”.
“An extra $14 for Working for Families just isn’t cutting it, especially when butter costs $12 to $13,” she said.
“It was a tough Budget to watch roll out.”
She said she had been involved in an increasing number of protests about Government decisions, including its changes to pay equity reforms.
“This is a Budget for the super elite.
“There is nothing for people on the ground who have contributed to our communities.”
The Government has reallocated $12.8 billion previously set aside for the pay equity scheme, with the previous Government’s changes to the Equal Pay Act rescinded under urgency earlier this month.
Bates said the scheme had “got out of whack” from its original intent.
“Essentially, it had become a mechanism for collective bargaining, and the Government contingency was significantly larger than what Treasury projected when the scheme was brought in in 2020.”
During her Budget announcement, Willis said pay equity costs in 2020 were initially expected to reach $3.7b.
Business Whanganui chief executive Helen Garner said there was “a bit of a black cloud” over pay equity, and Government changes may have happened too fast.
“People are still scrambling with it, she said.
“We do need to be realistic, but we want to do the best for our people and nobody should be marginalised.”
Overall, the Budget was a mixed bag for business, Garner said.
A new tax incentive – Investment Boost – allows businesses to deduct 20% of the cost of new assets immediately from their taxable income on top of normal depreciation.
However, annual government KiwiSaver contributions will be halved, with default employee and matching employer contributions rising from 3% to 4% by April 2028.
“The Investment Boost is going to be positive for what we might term producing industries like manufacturing,” Garner said.
“It’s an opportunity they didn’t have a few days ago.”
She said it was too early to tell the effects of the KiwiSaver changes.
“But there will be implications for business around their costs, their people and potentially on wages.
“We are just reacting at the moment and trying to think it through.”
Fage said there would be people who were pleased with the Budget, and it was “easy to sit back and criticise”.
“We do have to acknowledge that, as a country, we don’t want to be building our debt,” she said.
“For a long, long time, we’ve mismanaged social housing, superannuation, and probably health in a lot of cases.
“I know Covid-19 had a big impact, but this is what you get when you suddenly go ‘Oops’.”
Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.
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