1. New Zealand currently has a housing
crisis, with people being forced to live in cars and garages in Auckland due to
a bubble and insufficient state housing. So is the government doing anything
about it in today's budget? There's the $41 million of emergency housing
spending over four years, and an inflation adjustment to income related rents
subsidies (because rents are skyrocketing while incomes are stagnating). In
other words, business as usual, rather than a credible response to the crisis.
Meanwhile, they're shoveling money at the spies, with an extra $178 million
over four years. GCSB gets an extra ~$15 million a year and SIS between $18 and
$35 million extra a year to hire more staff to deal with the "threat"
of "foreign fighters" and invade our privacy even further. But
really, what's more of a threat to New Zealand? Homelessness? Or imaginary
"terrorists".
This speaks volumes about National's priorities. No money for the real needs of
real kiwis, but buckets of it for spies.
2. “The Government had an opportunity
to fund public hospitals and health care properly after years of funding
shortfalls – and decided not to,” says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists.
He was commenting on the Government’s Budget
outlined today. A preliminary analysis shows an overall operational funding
shortfall of $304 million, including a funding shortfall for district health
boards of approximately $131 million.
“There have been significant funding
shortfalls for at least each of the last five years,” says Mr Powell.
“This latest shortfall means that
public hospitals’ continuing struggle to resource health services adequately in
the coming year will get even worse. More New Zealanders will find it
difficult, if not impossible, to get the health care they need.”
“It’s very disappointing that the
Government has, once again, failed to invest adequately in our public health
system. While it will undoubtedly talk up the numbers as a win for health
funding, the amount set aside in this Budget is anything but.
“Senior doctors and dentists, along
with nurses and other health professionals, now face another year of holding
the public health system together while the Government looks the other way.”
- See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/05/26/funding-shortfalls-for-health-set-to-continue-under-government-budget/#sthash.0NfAR3ha.dpuf
3. “Today’s Budget is pitiful in the
face of the biggest housing crisis since the 1930s Depression.
“With thousands of people homeless in
Auckland alone, Bill English’s Budget is an insult to their desperate and
immediate need,” says AAAP spokesperson Sue Bradford.
“The Government says it will increase
land supply in Auckland, but under the current regime all this is likely to do
is create more opportunities for private developers and investors.
“English confirms a $41m budget for
emergency housing that offers no new beds over the coming year, despite demand
which grows by the day.
“He adds a tiny amount – $200m over
four years – to the grants available to meet social housing need. Much of this
will be soaked up by rising costs and subsidies without creating significant
new housing.
“Yesterday Paula Bennett served up a
revised version of an earlier announcement, offering up to $5000 to 150
families to move out of Auckland into districts where locals already face
employment and housing issues.
“In the unlikely possibility that this
is a success, it will still be a tiny drop in an ocean of need.
“Anne Tolley also partially backed
down yesterday on MSD’s demand that beneficiaries should be made to repay all
debt incurred when Work & Income places them in overpriced, shoddy
accommodation, but with no clarity on how this will work in practice.
“National continues to flounder
hopelessly in response to the homelessness crisis.
“AAAP calls on the Government to
immediately drop its commitment to state housing privatisation and commence a
major state house build and acquisition programme, employing and training some
of the 280,000 jobless people who are also largely ignored by this Budget.
“The consequences of National failing
to deal with the emerging catastrophe in Auckland and elsewhere will be felt
for years to come in downstream welfare, education, health, housing and justice
costs.”
“This is hardly the responsible fiscal
management so dear to Bill English’s heart, nor the kind of compassionate
conservatism once espoused by some in the National Party, including the Finance
Minister himself.”
4. New Zealand First leader Winston
Peters said there was only one way to describe today's measures - "the get
stuffed Budget".
That was the message to first home
buyers, people living on the streets, young families worried about the future,
students concerned about debt and future jobs, and regional New Zealand
including farmers worried about the bank manager's call, Mr Peters said.
"Now the PM may sleep like a
baby. But hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders can't."
The New Zealand First leader held up a
chart showing home ownership by income decile. Heckled by National MP David
Bennett that he was holding the paper upside down, Mr Peters didn't miss a
beat.
"You are exactly right. What
ought to be up is down...and Mr Bennett, when we gain power, we are going to
put it the right way up."
Mr Peters attacked the Government
policy, announced by Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett yesterday, of paying
homeless people to leave Auckland.
Why should people who have lived in
Auckland for generations "make way for an immigrant", Mr Peters
asked. NZ First was the only party with the courage to attack the country's
"mass immigration" policy, he said.
"There is an elephant that is so
big in the room that nobody else can get in...it is putting enormous costs on
New Zealand and impacting every government service...the rest of New Zealand is
missing out."
5. A boost to some areas of tertiary spending has not helped
relieve stress on pressure points for students and institutions,
commentators warn.
Projected conditions meant the number
of students enrolling in tertiary courses would stay steady.
However, Joyce said ratios within different courses were expected to
change, with a small decrease in university and polytechnic students
forecast, and a rise in industry training such as apprenticeships.
The expected decrease in higher
learning would be matched to a decrease of $3m for student
allowances and $1m for student loans, since last year.
NZ Tertiary Education Union president
Sandra Grey disagreed university and polytechnic enrollments would
fall, and said loans and allowances should have been increased.
"Students are living in real
hardship. This is a concern for staff and a concern for our students and for
tertiary institutions.
"The Budget shows a lot of moving
around money, and there's been a lot of little cuts here and there; we're getting
less and are expected to do more with it.
"It really is a Budget that does
nothing overall for anyone who's in tertiary education."
Massey University Students'
Association president Nikita Skipper had also hoped for more social assistance
for students.
"We've said the Government needs
to look at the parental income cap [to qualify for] student allowances.
"Increasingly, we're seeing more
people reach that cap, and not get any real support."
Gradual increases in the salaries of
students' parents meant less students qualified for support. Paired with
increasing costs and hardship, it created more need.
"We need to stretch the dollar
around more people."
"University funding had not
increased in six of seven years, because of the global financial crisis … it's
the everyday business of supplying libraries and buildings [that institutions
are struggling with]… most of this seems attached to doing new things."
Any additional stresses on students'
ability to access loans and allowances would be expected to have an effect on
numbers enrolling, finishing courses, and course choices.
"For things like clinical
psychology, they study for five years, so they run out of money near the end,
and it means it actually changes their ideas about whether they want to become clinical
psychologists."
First-year veterinary science student
Stephanie Hpa said financial pressures on students were causing real difficulty
for some. Committing to a long, expensive course of study meant "not
thinking about the cost", she said.
"The price of living is going up
and up and up."
Funding to keep a high quality level
in teaching, tuition and equipment was a concern, and "pretty important to
us", her flatmate, final-year science student Miranda Berry
said.
6. Government plans to bribe voters
next year, true or false?
Mr English rejected opposition claims
the government was storing up cash to lavish on tax cuts during their election
campaign next year.
"I don't think they should be
quite so cynical.
Labour leader Andrew Little said
income thresholds should be looked at, with a view to pushing them up.
Mr Little said there would be much
greater demands on any spare money for health, education and superannuation
fund contributions than for tax cuts, but thresholds could be reconsidered.
"There is a case to say, yeah, of
course you should review those thresholds. But when you've got a ‘boast’ from
the prime minister, now - $3 billion of tax cuts - well, that's the stuff a lot
of people would find disturbing given the social deficits that we've got.
"In the end, just constantly
talking about those tax cuts, it actually takes away from the argument about
what it is we're doing to lift incomes," he said.
Mr Little said looking at thresholds
periodically should be a routine thing anyway. He said budget projections show real
wages will actually fall in 2017 and 2018, and the government would be better
to focus on pushing up people's incomes.
Green Party co-leader James Shaw said
this was not the time to cut government revenues, as the country faced real
challenges such as homelessness and climate change.
"This whole thing feels a lot
like an election bribe," he said. "Absolutely I think it's all about
timing. What they're saying is there could be a tax cut in an election year, or
even more cynically, the following year. In other words, re-elect us and we'll
give you a tax cut - which is a straight out voter bribe," Mr Shaw said.
So you decide if this budget was
nothing more than a sham, it doesn’t help the needy, it damages students even
further, it continues to cut health spending, but it gives millions to the
GCSB, the SIS and a massive boost to the military to fight American wars and
support Israeli aggression… I can just imagine John Key kissing the feet of
Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton while sending more sheep to Saudi Arabia…
