Budget 2023 highlights: What's in it for YOU?
The key highlights:
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Extension of 20 hours Early Childhood Education to include 2-year-olds - $1.2b
Abolition of $5 prescription co-payment - $619m
Cheaper public transport for children - $327m
$71b in infrastructure spending
Inflation forecast to stay higher, for longer
Net core Crown debt hits $181b
The cost of living package targets families with young children.
For parents
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Two-year-olds included in 20 hours of free early childhood education from March 2024, at a cost of $1.2 billion over four years. This saves eligible parents about $133 a week. Subsidies for childcare centres rise by 5.3 per cent, costing $260 million over four years.
Public transport
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$327 million for free public transport for primary school-aged children, half price public transport for under 25′s from 1 July - benefiting about 774,000 people. Pay rises for bus drivers.
Health
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Removing $5 co-payment for prescriptions, cost: $618 million over four years.
More money to help reduce waiting lists ($118 million) and $100 million to boost primary care. $63 million for 500 extra nurses. $75 million more for Pharmac.
The tax change
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Tax rate for trustees to increase to 39 per cent from April 2024 - the same as the top income tax rate. Aimed at stopping people using trusts for their income to avoid the higher tax rate. Expected to raise $350 million a year.
Post-cyclone infrastructure
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National Resilience Plan set up with initial funding of $6 billion - first priority is repair and rebuild of telecommunications, energy and roading after Auckland flooding and Cyclone Gabrielle.
Housing
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$403 million to expand scheme for heating and insulation installations to 100,000 more homes. 3000 new public housing places.
The economy
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Inflation is forecast to drop to 3 per cent by next September.
Treasury no longer forecasting a recession, due to cyclone recovery. Unemployment is forecast to peak at 5.3 per cent in late 2024.
GDP is forecast at 3.2 per cent this year, dropping to 1 per cent next year.
The books
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Return to surplus forecast in 2025/26. Net debt is forecast to peak at 22 per cent in 2024.
The surprises
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$34 million increase in funding for Te Matatini (over two years) - up from $3 million a year now. The festival will get more funding than the NZ Symphony Orchestra for the first time.
New 20 per cent rebate for game development studios - allowing them to claim up to $3 million a year in rebates.
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Some Choice News!
DOC is rolling out a new tool to help figure out what to tackle first when it comes to protecting our threatened species and the things putting them at risk.
Why does this matter? As Nikki Macdonald from The Post points out, we’re a country with around 4,400 threatened species. With limited time and funding, conservation has always meant making tough calls about what gets attention first.
For the first time, DOC has put real numbers around what it would take to do everything needed to properly safeguard our unique natural environment. The new BioInvest tool shows the scale of the challenge: 310,177 actions across 28,007 sites.
Now that we can see the full picture, it brings the big question into focus: how much do we, as Kiwis, truly value protecting nature — and what are we prepared to invest to make it happen?
We hope this brings a smile!
Denim, but make it one-of-a-kind 💙
Not every pair of jeans makes it to the rack... but that doesn’t mean their story ends there. Our talented volunteer Annie has been transforming damaged denim into handcrafted bags, hats and aprons in our Onehunga SPCA Op Shop ✂️🧵
This latest batch even features her own hand-sewn designs, and customers have been loving them, they sell almost as soon as they hit the shelf!
It’s creativity, sustainability and community all stitched together, helping animals in need 🐾
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