After visiting Hillside workshop in South Dunedin and getting an up-close look at the facility being rebuilt, Grant met and spoke with business leaders at an event organised by Business South.
While many of the questions during Grant’s visit surrounded the impacts the Budget will have on the business community, it is worth quickly highlighting some of the bits you might have missed if you didn’t read the official documents.
At the heart of it is a cost of living package designed to ease the pressure on households.
The Budget provides practical cost of living support across some of the core expenses facing Dunedin families — childcare, healthcare, transport and power bills.
It will help to make things a bit easier for families, students and seniors by reducing or removing some of the costs they currently face.
We’re helping with health costs by removing prescription charges for medicines.
Removing the $5 co-payment will mean about three million Kiwis will no longer have to worry about the costs of collecting their medication.
We’re significantly reducing the cost of early childhood education for parents by extending 20 hours free early childhood education to two-year-olds, adding to the existing offering for 3 to 5-year-olds.
With Budget 2023, we’re also extending our Healthy School Lunches programme, which delivers more than a million free lunches to students each week, including to more than 1000 here in Dunedin.
For families with two children, it’s estimated the scheme saves on average $60 a week.
To help with transport costs, we’re providing free fares on buses, trains and ferries for children aged 5 to 12 years and half-price discounts for all passengers aged 13 to 24 years from July this year.
Free fares for children under 13 could see savings of $30 a week for whānau with twochildren.
We’re also helping to reduce power bills by hundreds of dollars a year through the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme.
This retrofit programme is estimated to have reduced electricity use by 16% on average over the winter months and sits alongside our winter energy payment.
Cost of living pressures are being felt across our community as New Zealand faces challenges such as global inflation and rebuilding following the recent extreme weather events.
That’s why Budget 2023 strikes a careful balance between supporting people today and building towards a better tomorrow for New Zealand.
