Budget 2023: How well does Northland fare as the Govt opens its purse?

Finance Minister Grant Robertson says this year’s Budget, titled ‘Support for today, Building for tomorrow’, has four themes – the continuation of key services, addressing cost of living pressures, recovery and resilience, and fiscal sustainability.

Given Northland’s very high proportion of people in the most deprived section of our population and the challenges to our housing, education and economic prosperity, the Advocate decided to find out how helpful Tai Tokerau thinks Budget 2023 is.

Education

Northland Secondary School Principals Association/Te Manihi Tumuaki chair and Tikipunga High School principal Alec Solomon says an “equity lens” needs to be applied when allocating funding.

Grade: B

Solomon said no matter what year group a student is in, the importance of providing them with a good learning space is paramount.

”They need to have a learning space that says we value you as learners and currently it could be strongly argued that’s not the case.”

He expects to see the boost to infrastructure placed “disproportionately” in regions of high need, such as Tai Tokerau and said our over-representation in certain statistics would suggest that need.

Solomon did, however, note that a “key infrastructure is quality teachers”. Even the “most amazing learning space will be empty” without them.

While his overall grade was a B, Solomon said there was “undoubtedly” room to move to an A or A+ “depending on implementation”.

”The Government is clearly looking to invest in education, which is a wonderful stance. We just want to make sure we’re resourcing the greatest need and getting the greatest return on the investment.”

Māori issues

Broken down by:

Te Kahu o Taonui (Northland Iwi Chairs Forum) chair Harry Burkhardt, representing the region’s 12 iwi, says at first glance the Government appears to be moving resources in the right direction in terms of issues pertaining to Māori.

Grade: Too early to say

“Climate change and infrastructure are quite critical up here, so those are good things in the Budget. Funding for housing and disability appears to be okay. However, until we look at the details, all I can say is we’re heading in the right direction.”

Burkhardt said the focus on housing in particular should continue.

As with the past budgets, Burkhardt said the biggest issue has been the execution of resources post-Budget announcement.

He will be at a breakfast tomorrow morning in Wellington with the Māori ministers to discuss the Budget.

Ngāpuhi iwi leader Wane Wharerau welcomed funding initiatives for Māori.

”Scrapping the $5 charge [for pharmacy prescriptions] is good for our people because they are the ones trapped in poverty and that will mean they can pick up their scripts as well as the bread.

”It is great the extra funding has gone into Te Matatini and Matariki, which recognises Māori as tangata whenua. Grant Robertson has made some tough calls and I hope he stays on as an MP.”

Mahitahi Hauora chief executive Jensen Webber said announcements around Māori health should be supported.

”The work undertaken by Te Aka Whai Ora and Te Whatu Ora offers exciting opportunities to approach healthcare for Māori in a different way that uses Te Ao Māori frameworks and engages whānau more holistically.

“Long-term conditions are a significant contributor towards poor health and early mortality in Tai Tokerau, particularly among Māori. Improving services to prevent and treat long-term conditions is a focus for Mahitahi Hauora, and we welcome the commitment to more prevention work.”

Associate Minister of Health Peeni Henare said this year’s Hauora funding of $132 million would continue to fund Māori health providers including cheaper access to primary care, innovation funds for data, more rongoā services, and provide workforce development.

Law and order

Morgan Pollock, law and order campaigner, Paihia, says the funding to maintain frontline police numbers is welcome but not without difficulty.

Grade: C

Morgan Pollock’s campaign for a police presence in Paihia included a public meeting in 2021 which drew hundreds of people and national media coverage.

She welcomed the extra funding to maintain frontline police numbers but said the difficulty would be finding enough people willing to take on the job.

She was sceptical, however, about the early intervention programme for young offenders, which had a cited reoffending rate of “only” 28 per cent.

”The reason kids keep offending is because there’s no punishment for them. Parents need to be held to account and we need to bring back girls’ homes and boys’ homes for recidivist offenders.

“Giving them a cuddle and throwing money at the problem hasn’t worked in the past and it won’t work now.”

Pollock also doubted the effectiveness of a gun registry, saying law-abiding citizens would register their firearms but gangs certainly wouldn’t.

Social welfare

155 Whare Awhina chief executive Liz Cassidy-Nelson says the absence of targeted assistance for social housing, especially youth housing, and homelessness in Tai Tokerau was disappointing.

Grade: C

”It’s been described as a no-frills budget and if you look at the social housing register, the housing need up here is four times more than that,” Cassidy-Nelson said.

“In times of crisis, we respond, and this is a time of crisis. I am disappointed but not surprised at what there is for Tai Tokerau in this Budget.”

To tackle the housing shortage, the Government has announced the delivery of 3000 more public housing homes, supporting more people at risk of homelessness, and building more houses for Māori and those impacted by recent severe weather events.

The Public Housing Plan will be updated in the coming weeks to show where the additional housing will be focused. It will be delivered by Kāinga Ora and Community Housing Providers including Māori and iwi partners.

Funding will be provided for 80 more rangatahi-focused youth transitional housing places and 400 relocatable cabins will be delivered to Te Tairāwhiti, Wairoa, Napier-Hastings and Te Taitokerau to assist those whānau displaced from their homes from extreme weather events.

Cassidy-Nelson said the gap between the rich and the poor working class would only get bigger without specific budgetary allocations to cater for the social needs in Northland.

”Three thousand more public homes is not even enough for one region and in Tai Tokerau, we need far more than 3000.

“My concern is, especially now, Northland is an after-thought. Homelessness is a huge issue up here as well,” she said.

Ngāti Hine leader Pita Tipene applauded the Government for putting money to address pressing issues like the rising cost of living and childcare and public transport subsidies.

However, he said more could have been done on social housing and homelessness in Northland.

”In general, people are feeling that the general fabric of our society is starting to fray so the overall package in the Budget has some very good initiatives and some not very good ones.”

Tipene said initiatives around Māori health and education, an increase in funding for Te Matatini and Matariki, were commendable.

Tim Howard, speaking in his capacity as the spokesman for the Whangārei Child Poverty Action Group and convenor of the Northland Housing Forum, said a continued lack of government funding for social housing in the region was disappointing.

”A large-scale housing build programme is needed because housing is absolutely critical. The 3000 public housing builds, the 322 houses for Māori by Māori, and 80 extra places for the rangatahi go nowhere near addressing the issue.”

Also, minor tweaking of social welfare doesn’t address the need for baseline life in income for beneficiaries, Howard said.

Whangārei District Council housing committee chair Carol Peters said youth homelessness, housing for young people and more homes for pensioners were pressing issues in the district.

Climate change & transport

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Climate change specialist and Northlander Matt de Boer says there were some good things in the Budget to combat climate change but overall it did not pass muster on the crucial issue.

Grade: C-

De Boer was interested to see many of the climate initiates are adaptive and are being funded from the Climate Emergency Response Fund (CERF) which gets funding from the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

But, he said, in the last international carbon auction – due to Government policies – nobody bought NZ credits, meaning less money for the fund and not enough money going into the fund.

“So the question is, where will the funding come from to pay for these initiatives?

“The Government’s approach to price setting in the ETS has seriously reduced the funding available for these climate initiatives going forward. It appears that the international markets don’t trust our Government enough buy to its carbon credits.”

De Boer said the electric vehicle and public transport initiatives in the Budget were good but with the Government continuing to subsidise fuel prices to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, it was effectively giving to the climate with one hand and taking with the other.

He would like to see a concrete, long-term commitment to focus on climate change as the biggest issue facing the country and the planet.

“There is a lot of funding for repairing existing stop banks, but we also need to be looking at, is it right to keep building in those places that need stop banks, given that forecast is for sea levels to rise further?

“They should be creating more long-term plans and ideas about those areas or we’ll just keep getting more Esk Valleys [the Hawke’s Bay area that was hit by severe floods from Cyclone Gabrielle in February].”

Massey University urban transport planning expert Professor Imran Muhammad said that while the Government was introducing free public transport for under-13s and half-price for under-25s, there would be little to no effect if services were unavailable in rural communities.

“It’s one thing to have affordability but another to have availability. Making public transport affordable is just one part of a complex equation. I call it transport poverty for the elderly, young people, children and those in low socio-economic areas.

“More aggressive investment is needed in public transport in provincial towns like Northland for people to connect to schools and small settlements because issues in those areas are much different to those in major cities.”