What’s in it for you?
Families
Kiwi families will get the most out of this year’s pre-election efforts.
WHAT ARE THE CHANGES?
Two of the income-tax thresholds will rise. The $14,000 threshold rises to $22,000; the $48,000 threshold rises to $52,000.
The Working For Families’ Family Tax Credit is up for some recipients and down for others.
The accommodation supplement increases and more areas will qualify for higher payments.
WHAT WILL YOU GET?
The Government says 1.3 million working-age families will get an average of $26 extra per week.
If you earn $22,000 or more a year, you will get $10.70 extra a week. Anyone earning more than $52,000 will receive $20.38 more a week.
The higher Family Tax Credit, available to children aged 16 to 18, will be expanded to cover all children – an increase of $9.25 a week for the first child and between $17.75 to $26.81 a week for each subsequent child.
The accommodation supplement will rise by $25 to $75 a week for a two-person household and between $40 and $80 a week for larger households. Student allowance recipients in housing stress will get up to $20 more a week in accommodation benefit.
A couple on super will get $13.12 more a week next year.
WHEN WILL I GET IT?
From April 1, 2018.
WHO MISSES OUT?
Individuals with no other state help lose the Independent Earner Tax Credit, worth up to $10 a week, but will get a boost from the tax changes.
The abatement rate changes for the Family Tax Credit will claw some of the gains back – at 25 cents in the dollar if you earn over $35,000 (up from 22.5c at $36,350).
About 200 households will lose a few dollars a week from the accommodation supplement changes.
WHAT WILL IT COST?
Tax changes: $486m in 2017/18, $1.87 billion in 2018/19 Working For Families: $97m in 2017/18, $373m in 2018/19 Accommodation supplement: $88m in 2017/18, $361m in 2018/19 TOTAL: $603m in 2017/18, $2.075b in 2018/19. – Vernon Small
Education
The Government has listened to pleas from schools to lift a freeze on funding for day-to-day costs.
In last year’s Budget, former education minister Hekia Parata announced a shift away from the traditional 2 per cent increase in schools’ operational funding in favour of a targeted approach.
The new policy identified 150,000 at-risk kids. But the model drew a lot of criticism given the Government didn’t attach any accountability measures to the funding and didn’t tell principals which students the money – about $1.79 per student – was specifically for.
Newly appointed Education Minister Nikki Kaye has responded by delivering a $60.5 million boost to operational funding.
Also, schools with high numbers of at-risk students will receive an additional 2.67 per cent increase in targeted funding, taking their total increase to almost 4 per cent.
The targeted funding model is seen as a precursor to what will eventually be a new way of funding schools across the board as the Government goes through the final stages of scrapping school deciles.
The Budget has delivered $1.1 billion of new operating funding over the next four years and an additional $392.4m of capital funding.
Part of that investment is $386m over four years for early childhood education. The funding boost will provide a further 31,000 early learning places and $35.5m in targeted funding to support children most at risk of under-achievement.
The Government has also put a focus on students with special learning needs and providing more teacher aide hours. An extra 625 students per year will receive teacher aide support.
A new programme for parents and teachers of young children with autism is also being funded as part of the Budget 2017 social investment package. It includes $4.2m to extend the Incredible Years programme to parents and teachers of autistic children aged 2 to 5.
An investment of $456.5m will be made in school property, with most of it going to Auckland. – Jo Moir
Health
A strained health sector is set to receive a record $3.9 billion shot in the arm, with $1.8b going to district health boards (DHBs) alone.
A $224 million boost for mental health was spread across a number of initiatives, including $100m in a contingency fund to target new proposals under the Government’s social investment approach.
Health Minister Jonathan Coleman said the additional funding would deliver a range of new initiatives to meet rising cost-pressures as well as population growth.
The total health package also contains $1.4b to increase the wages of aged-care workers.
The increase to DHB funding built on previous years – the $1.8b across four years is up from $1b last year.
The total mental health spend is spread across portfolios. Of the $224m in funding, $4.1m will go to trialling new employment and mental health services in the Ministry of Social Development. A further $11.6m will go to the Corrections Department, to help support prisoners at risk of self-harm. Vote
Crime
As many as 14,000 repeat burglary victims will get government support to install extra security at their properties.
The Government is also trumpeting a prevention strategy targeting young burglars – the Government says under-25s are overwhelmingly the culprits who must be helped early to prevent a lifetime of crime.
Burglaries have one of the lowest resolution rates of all offences that police investigate. Between January 1 and June 30, 2016, there were 36,133 burglaries reported – just over 8.9 per cent were solved.
The Budget throws an extra $32.9 million at the problem over four years. The funding comes from the Government’s $321m social investment package.
The main focus of the initiative is on reducing the motivation to commit burglary and increasing the availability of re-integration services to better transition offenders from prison back into the community.
The initiative will also provide support to reduce the risk of a burglary victim being repeatedly targeted, by installing additional security such as window locks, security lights or bolt locks.
The Budget also unveiled the Government’s plans to focus on young offenders who commit burglaries.
Its spending is aimed at trying to reduce the motivation for youths to re-offend – using $13.9m over four years to provide professional youth mentoring and therapy.
The Police Association has welcomed the Government’s spending on law and order.
Police union president Chris Cahill said a $338m increase in police funding would ease the pressured Northern, Waikato, and Eastern districts. Maori Development would receive $8m to extend the Rangatahi Suicide Prevention Fund.
Within the total DHB funding, the Government has also earmarked $100m to support local mental health and addiction services. ‘‘Individual DHBs are able to invest more if they feel it is required,’’ documents said.
Coleman said mental health issues lead to poorer outcomes for people, and it was important to keep up with ‘‘innovative solutions’’ to the issues.
But CTU economist Bill Rosenberg said the health budget fell short again. ‘‘Overall, the health budget is $300m short of what’s required to pay for increasing costs, the higher population, ageing population plus the new costs the Government has placed on it through new services.’’
Rosenberg was ‘‘really worried’’ about the state of mental health. ‘‘Our calculations are that it will go up by – if we’re generous – around 3.5 per cent. And yet, client numbers are climbing over 5 per cent a year. On top of that, there is inflation, so they should be getting more like 7 per cent.’’ – Stacey Kirk
There weren’t a whole heap of surprises in the Budget, much of it had already been announced and the tax package had become a bit of a ‘‘worstkept secret’’.