A second set of government programmes will be stopped or delayed to free up $1 billion to spend on offsetting soaring living costs and rebuilding after Cyclone Gabrielle.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has already hacked policies such as the RNZ-TVNZ merger and the biofuels mandate, while delaying hate speech laws and a social insurance scheme.
The move appeared popular, with the Labour Party climbing in subsequent political polls, and Hipkins has now turned his attention to a grab-bag of other policies.
“I want New Zealanders to know the Government is doing its bit and is cutting its cloth to suit the times we are in,” he said in a press release on Monday afternoon.
He said scrapping programmes will give the wider government more bandwidth to deal with cost of living issues and the cyclone recovery.
“The two lots of reprioritisation will save about $1 billion, which will be reallocated to support New Zealanders with the cost of living”.
For example, the government will save $568 million by stopping its clean car upgrade scheme, where households can scrap their old cars in return for a grant for a cleaner vehicle or to pay for public transport.
Public transport investments in the country's five biggest cities will also be wound back, as will its unpopular speed reduction programme. Alcohol reform legislation will be pushed back an entire year, and a new law to lower the national voting age to 16 will be scrapped altogether.
Other canceled initiatives include: the social leasing car scheme, the container return scheme, and public consultation on who is a contractor and who is an employee.
Hipkins said Auckland’s light rail project will go ahead in stages, with the first expected to be confirmed by the middle of this year. Staging the rollout may allow it to be better aligned with other transport investments, such as a second Waitematā Harbour Crossing.
Boost for benefits
Some saved money will be spent on an extra boost to benefits to match the rate of inflation.
Increases to main benefits – which include superannuation, jobseeker, student allowances, and family payments — have previously been indexed to the average wage increase.
However, Hipkins said cabinet ministers had agreed to lift benefits in line with inflation to help low incomes households cope with the higher cost of living.
Data released by Statistics NZ on Monday showed food inflation had increased 12% since February 2022, the largest annual increase since 1989.
“The package of bread and butter support we are announcing today will help people who are really feeling the bite from the rise in the cost of living,” he said.
Inflation measured by the consumer price index rose 7.2% in the year to December 2022 while the net average wage lifted by 6.2%.
Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni said the “extra one-off boost” to main benefits showed the government was focused on helping New Zealanders deal with the cost of living.
Approximately 1.4 million New Zealanders receive some sort of benefit from the government, roughly two thirds (880,000) are pensioners being paid superannuation.
There are 354,000 working-age beneficiaries, 52,000 students receiving an allowance, and 74,000 people receiving supplementary assistance.
118 Comments
Where do you get that idea? Ohhhh, are you mistakenly dividing the total travel time by distance? Do you think the train runs non stop and people run alongside to climb onboard?
Example: It's 98km from Masterton to Wellington. The train takes 2 hours purely due to the 12 stops along the way. This means it's 49km/h. Sure, higher than the 30 - 40 km/h this "tram rail" system boasts. But good parts of the Wairarapa train toddle along at easily 80 - 100kmh between stops in predominately countryside, away from pedestrians.
They are proposing underground light rail these days which is pretty much like a metro. It won’t be slow but it’s also very expensive. A lot of people would prefer above ground as they can do many more lines for the same cost. Or maybe they should just give up and do slightly better buses like the north shore. At the moment they are basically doing nothing.
surface rail, as well as being much cheaper, benefits from faster journey times, it's a no brainer really.
All of the projects comparisons that show metro being faster ignore the time getting from the station, to ground level, and then to your destination. Surface rail doesn't require a couple minutes navigating the station down to the platforms, and as the stations cost very little, you can have a few more of them, so you don't have to walk so far to your actual destination.
I'd prefer my kids stayed at home while studying, and if need be we'll move (can't study med here). My partner and I can help them with study and provide a safe, distraction-free environment. If they need some spending money they can work for me or do jobs around the house. Offering them taxpayers' dollars to entice them to go out on their own to struggle just doesn't make sense to me.
As for students from families that are limited or unable to support themselves then I think yes they should have access to financial aid. Throwing money at rich kids will put more money in the hands of liquor stores, landlords and drug dealers. Educational outcomes may suffer as a result
Hipkins is aware of what policies are unpopular and what they have to do to win the upcoming election, having been the head boy he has the smarts.
I'm picking they will win the election partly due to National not really getting any traction and Labour being prepared to swallow some dead rats.
Agreed. Furthermore, all Chippy needs to do is promise to scrap the unpopular policies knowing full well you can just bring them back after the election. No biggie, spoils to the winner and all that. Easy money from here on out.
National's biggest and perhaps only opportunity now is to make the election a de-facto referendum on co-governance. Hipkins stumbled big-time in his recent interview with Jack Tame when he said that co-governance isn't undemocratic - even the dyed-in-the-wool Labour voters over at Reddit NZ are up in arms about what he said. This is the sort of ammunition National could use to their advantage and run some proper attack dog politics but TBH I think that they simply don't have the gumption to pull it off.
Last time a lot of voters seemingly voted for Labour to stymie the Greens from being in a formal coalition. That was an unusual tactic to say the least and it is hardly likely that sentiment has softened because it is now quite obvious Labour will have to have the Greens in cabinet next time if to remain in government. Those votes in that case, have to return to the right.
There is an orchestrated labour-bash going on, isn't there?
The joke is that the Limits to Growth are a plague on all their houses - we need to be having a very different conversation.
Our likely epitaph"?
Weren't sapient enough....
Sad to see the level of ........ here....
Wait, it isn't a cut to save money, it's to limit the already spiraling costs of stuff that don't matter.
Let's not fool ourselves. It's like buying a 100k car that you don't need then saying, "Wait, I am going to cut costs, I won't get that car wrapped for 10k more."
Wake up NZ!
Your principle being...? A LVT is simply socialist theft of private property. TOPs policy is to steal equity from homeowners who worked all their lives to provide a home for themselves & their kids & then pay it as a UBI to people who can't be bothered getting out of bed.
Understandable, except that to me a greater priority is, in a negative sense, to prevent the formation of a New Zealand government consisting of a fragmenting, disunited Labour party, the Greens and TMC. To me that would be the advent of the most unruly, dysfunctional and harmful government imaginable.
As someone who is into cycling, the correct number of bikes to own is always N+1 - where N is the current number of bikes you own.
I think the same formula is meant to apply to Labour fixing those nine long years of National neglect, where N is the number of years since National was last in power.
So Labour have gone from the transformative to doing absolutely nothing. They can't change speed limits because of inflation? If one of my kids is killed by someone doing 60km/hr on a residential street that should be 30km/hr I should be happy that Labour saved a few hundred dollars on a new sign?
Protip that would require magical cures from the fairies to enable people to walk, sometimes for the first time. Just another person abusing the disabled as lazy when protip many literally PHYSICALLY CANNOT WALK. But lets see you try with rotted muscles from genetics, deformed limbs from poisoning and injuries prior to birth, nerves that have lost all connection and bones like chalk. I am guessing you would make it 2m on the ground over 2 hr before the extreme crushing pain knocks out the heart that is suffering from failure and autoimmune related comorbidities and you need the ER. I would bring popcorn to watch you suffer due to your attitude.
I wouldn't be letting the kids on the street even in a 30 zone, we have plenty of parks/playgrounds, schools, and other facilities. There's always going to be the odd idiot on the road so I wouldn't want the kids to get too comfortable on the roads and become inattentive.
The odds of surviving are significantly higher at 30. Stoping distances are significantly shorter too.. I remember my childhood having independence on my bike, pity we are too selfish to give this generation what we had because it will take a few seconds longer to drive somewhere .
They haven't increased the speed limits since you were a kid, have they?
Nonetheless, you survived. I ride around with the kids and teach them to be cautious, I never got hit as a kid. Cars were nowhere near as safe as they are these days. Ride like everyone is trying to kill you
Back then I rarely saw a car, and there were none parked on the streets so there was plenty of room. Ride a bike nowadays and you are zig zagging around parked cars with a constant stream of traffic up your arse.
Also safety standards have rightly improved since then. We have made painters have scaffolding and our cars have airbags but no attempt to make roads safer for bikes and pedestrians.
Absolute bollocks. If you ban on-steeet parking then developers with provide on-site parking. If they don't then they will not sell. When local government doesn't mandate and then over-provide parking themselves by taxing ratepayers to pay for the huge amount of public parking then other options become more attractive like car share.
In Auckland City Centre, one of not the highest land values in New Zealand the highest single land use is parking.
What is it with parking that suddenly everyone is a communist?
Er we have parks, footpaths and playgrounds. That is where European children play the most. Claiming they play on the road is disingenuous as European countries have the highest speed limits on earth and no responsible parent lets children play on the road, especially without supervision. Just like no responsible parent lets small children swim in the ocean without supervision.
transformative - now you are taking the piss... They have squandered the posibility of being transformative having the biggest electoral mandate in ages.. Cullen Lange etc those days where transformative but this lot decided we needed what a new tax system? better healthcare? RMA reform NO all our problems could be solved with ......... co governance. Its a complete disaster, due to lack of strong leadership, thus the factions developed, Jacinda was a weak and woke populist leader, her own party factions run rings around her..... NOTHING about this lot is even close to the traditions of he LEFT... Chris Trotter and others have abandoned them.... USELESS
Well put.
It’s the type of Labour government that puts many people off ever voting for them again.
I was born in 1972 and have vague memories of Muldoon (who remembers McPhail Gadsby) Looking at things objectively, I would say Ardern is alongside Muldoon as the worst PM in my lifetime. I don’t know if Shipley was that great either.
I can’t stand John Key but objectively I think he was a better PM than Ardern, in terms of execution relative to policy. And although condescending at times, less so than Ardern.
Also objectively the worst cabinet that I can remember, again Shipley’s / Bolger’s not flash
it’s paid for by the tax on low income and disabled families. There fixed that for you. It is one of the many discriminating and hateful policies that physically harm more people and target the most vulnerable groups for the most harm to their wellbeing (physical, financial and mental).
An electric vehicle subsidy is not 'hateful'. What nonsense. And it's paid by all taxpayers, and given that a small group of taxpayers are fronting 50% of the income tax take in this country, I'm not sure there's any basis for you to claim it's being paid exclusively by taxes on 'low income and disabled families' - who likely don't pay any tax at all after transfers (that's not to say they shouldn't be getting more support, because they should be).
Just as an aside, we have electric people movers in the mid-market segment now, which will gradually filter down as they hit the used market and even faster as they are gazumped by newer tech. So a market for affordable electric people-movers that gets low income families away from propping up petrol stations is something we should hopefully see in the next few years. Everyone should have an opportunity for not paying for petrol and hopefully that's coming sooner than you think.
Labour are taking a big lunge to the centre right. I think they will lose the youth vote. They probably hope the youth will vote green but I think it will be like the Auckland Council election where people are so annoyed about the lack of progress that they either don’t vote or vote for some tax cuts instead.
Labour are desperate and cynical, trying to make us think its cool that they have cancelled about 1bil of wasteage while we have a cost of living crisis, so its ok to plan to waste on average 1k of 1mil tax payers money, then to have an oh shit we are not going to get elected moment and somehow we are too dumb to see and remember........ this is not policy announcement its the cancellation of woke bullshit that Jacinda tried over summer but the left clung to so hard she got no traction..... Transformative - no desperate yes.
Most of the saving is the clean car upgrade scheme. Hard to know how we can get to emissions targets by not investing in either public transport or electric cars.
Maybe these policies are woke, but obviously without them Labour will lose the woke voters and it may not go to the greens. A lot of woke people have good incomes (myself included), if they don’t get anything out of voting left then they may as well vote right and get a tax cut.
They didn't borrow 100+ billion did they? They increased Government debt from $60b to something like $130b. Sure, it's huge and inflationary. Slightly bigger than the increase from $10b to $60b from 2008 to 2012 for what reason? Some American banks went belly up so we had to borrow $50b?
- The social leasing car scheme. A statement from the prime minister’s office said, “The scheme was to provide leasing arrangements to low income families for clean cars but was proving difficult to implement.”
Like how do you lease an expensive clean electric car to people who are low income? new cars are bloody expensive, how was this ever going to work, this shows that Labour has no one who in a senior position says, wait a minute, who is going to pay for that!!!!!! I doubt any low income person could afford the insurance..... given the cost of living..... In fact I love this policy as it just demonstrates the poor leadership in labour, Yes Hipkons you could have challenged this woke BS but you did not.......
You can’t just give stuff to the poor that the hard working middle class can’t afford. Right there, this is why Labour loose the next election. You dont need to do a focus group to discover that, Chris Trotter could have told you that if you had only asked.... what do poor people want, Healthcare, education , feeling safe in their communities, and a chance to more forward. did they want co-governance.... no.
Most could not even get in or use the vehicle for intended purpose anyway due to the inaccessibility of most EVs. So those who would need the scheme the most, who would most meet the criteria would not even be able to enter any of the vehicles on the market to date. Making it one of the least useful schemes meanwhile those same families have to go begging for another $10000 from charities and the public for accessible vehicles just so they can get transport to doctors, work and schools. Seems like a lose lose from every side. Bin it and make better access to transport a priority before saying everyone needs to be able to afford limo cost levels of new vehicles.
Underwhelming. Chipping on the bark of a twisted mutant tree the unnamed nurtured into existence.
Not a peep on rolling back social engineering, cogovernance and tribal elite takeover of key resources.
Maybe this is all hush hush until October but then what does this sheep really know about the inner workings of the Labour .....
Clever move. Voters who don't like many of these cuts will vote Green, so no overall loss to the left bloc.
National would have to ditch ACT to have any chance of wooing the greens, so no net gain.
They really need a blue green party to contest for green voters, and split that vote. Even if it didn't get 5%, it could do the damage to the left vote., As it seems it will come down to a few % between the bloc's.
I would like to see a blue green party based on the fact they could have some awesome policies not just so they could split the left vote. National are not appealing in their current incarnation of climate change denial, avowed protectors of the already powerful and wealthy.
Yeah, a part right wing party who wants to lower taxes and lighten the regulation on businesses, that is also part green who wants to raise taxes to spend it on environmental rejuvenation and introduce legislation that stops companies degrading the environment. I wonder why no party has taken that obvious niche policy position?
The success of the ‘ Teal ‘ candidates in the last Aus election shows that there is a niche - in wealthy electorates voters (esp women) want ‘safe’ candidates, Nice Nats, who will talk the talk on climate change and gender etc without threatening their income. The choice of candidates is crucial though - they have to be presentable, professionally successful middle-class women.
“When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?”
Big ups to Chris Hipkins. Initially the 'bread and butter' mantra seemed just another bit of spin, but he is really going for a step-change and it's needed as the facts have changed the world over. This is what scarcity looks like and it needs to be dealt with head on.
The key facts that changed were that Ardern went into net negative approval as a result of 2 years of implementing racist antidemocratic policies she had no electoral mandate for. She had proven to be the weakest NZ leader in many years/decades (probably since Palmer), losing control of her Govt. caucus (as evidenced by the attempt to entrench 3/5Waters).
The social & economic noise will pass, many will never forgive Labour their unconscionable betrayal of democracy.
I think you are wrong about "the social & economic noise will pass".
Every day we wake up to never-before-seen revelations - such as the rapid falls in house prices and the stagnant RE market as reported here today. It's like a snowball heading downhill, all the while gaining momentum.
Maybe the good old days of ever expanding growth and waste aren't over forever - but they sure are for the moment - and it's not as if the car has been put in neutral either.
Indeed both the social and economic "noise" (I'd have chosen the word "reality" instead) will continue for quite some time, I suspect.
I see de-growth as an opportunity, not a threat. We all need a good dose of humility.
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