NZ News
Who will be eligible to get an extra $50 a week as part of the fuel crisis package?
The government announced almost 150,000 families will receive an extra $50 a week to help ease the pain caused by soaring petrol prices, but who can expect to see that money show up in their account next month?
Speaking at a media conference on Tuesday, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said the relief would come through a boost to the in-work tax credit – part of the Working for Families scheme.
People would start seeing the full benefit in their bank accounts from 7 April, if they were paid weekly, or 14 April, if they were paid fortnightly.
Who will get $50 a week?
Only low-to-middle-income workers who have children would be eligible for the payments, Willis said.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis making the announcement on Tuesday. Photo: Samuel Rillstone/RNZ
It excluded beneficiaries, superannuitants and those without children.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Willis said for beneficiaries, there would be usual increases on April 1 which “working families” did not automatically get.
“And I’d also note, working families face the obligation to get to and from work each day. Beneficiaries do not face that obligation,” Willis said.
“The policy is carefully targeted to families in the squeezed middle – parents who are working hard for a living, are not eligible for main benefits, and yet have modest household incomes with which to support their children,” Willis said.
“We know these families will be hit particularly hard by the global fuel-price shock. We are delivering them timely relief.”
In the current tax year, the cut-off for receiving the tax credit was around $89,000 of annual household income for a family with one child, $112,000 for a family with two children and $135,000 for a family with three children.
Willis said the government could not relieve price pressures for all businesses and families who were feeling price pressures. She said “large, untargeted government spending programmes” could make the situation worse by driving up inflation and debt.
She said while families that missed out would also have welcomed support, the government was “limited by the big increase in debt that occurred in the aftermath of Covid”.
“If it’s not you getting the support today, just know it might be your friend, it might be your family member, it might be the person serving you at the cafe today. Working families who cannot easily avoid higher fuel costs.”
How long will it continue?
The temporary increase would last for as long as one year, or until the price of 91 octane petrol dropped below $3 a litre for four weeks in a row, Willis said.
How do you get it?
Families who were already receiving the in-work tax credit (IWTC) payments, would not need to do anything to receive the money, the government said, with Inland Revenue automatically delivering the increase.
For people who didn’t receive the IWTC payments who thought they might be available, they needed to contact Inland Revenue.
Source: RNZ
Latest News
Opportunities to mitigate multi-million-dollar RNZ budget blowout likely missed – experts
Multiple opportunities to identify and mitigate a multi-million-dollar budget blowout at RNZ appear have been missed, according to the former executive director at Audit New Zealand.
The public broadcaster on Monday revealed a near $12 million shock financial loss after a litany of financial blunders, which will now lead to sweeping job cuts.
The $11.8m loss is more than 25 times the $470,000 RNZ had expected to lose over the year to June.
CEO Paul Thompson took responsibility for the result, and said internal reports gave an inaccurate picture of the finances, meaning the scale of the loss only became clear in October.
RNZ’s former chief financial officer Hilary Parker resigned unexpectedly in early October.
The board said it would commission an independent review into what went wrong.
Independent contractor Stephen Walker, who left the Audit Office earlier this year, said the size of the loss was surprising, as was the length of time it took to identify it – months after the financial year ended.
Supplied / OAG
“Probably more of a concern is that they had seemingly been unaware that they were running up a significant deficit until they were in the preparation stage of their annual report in October.”
Walker said public entities typically produced monthly financial reports.
An interim audit also took place before the end of the financial year, he said, but if the organisation hadn’t identified significant losses at that stage, the auditor could also be in the dark.
“It seems that there’s a real weakness in forecasting and budgeting that’s occurred here and that the monthly accounts, when they’re produced, either haven’t identified these significant variances against budget or the magnitude of them really hasn’t come to light until right towards the end of the financial year,” Walker said.
“And really at that point, there’s no opportunity for the chief executive, the leadership team to take, and the board to take, any corrective action because the year has effectively been completed.”
Walker said the “significant miss” was difficult to account for given it was more than 10 percent of RNZ’s total funding.
He said based on RNZ’s annual report, financial complexity didn’t appear to be a factor.
“This $11.8m loss isn’t made up of one particular item … it seems to have been contributed to by a number of separate expense lines running over budget. So I don’t think it’s necessarily to do with complexity.”
Among the errors, RNZ wrongly counted $2m from land sales as income in its budget. Staff costs also came in $3.2m over budget, including $1.4m in redundancy payments.
Professor at Auckland University’s business school Norman Wong said based on media reports the issues identified were “significant and troubling”.
Supplied / University of Auckland
“But recognising the sale of land as income in their budget is a basic error that one would have expected to have been caught and corrected well before it got to this point.”
With funding reductions at RNZ over the past two years, Walker expected greater scrutiny of financial results.
“Virtually every public entity has had their annual budget reduced. And so you would expect … the leadership team on a monthly basis and board – I’m not sure how frequently the board will consider the information – but you would expect them to be interrogating the results on a regular basis throughout the year,” he said.
Walker said initiating an independent review was the correct course of action and that he’d want to understand what information the leadership team and the board were regularly receiving.
He said he’d “love to say” surprising financial results were rare, but conceded they occured on a semi-frequent basis during his time leading the Audit Office.
“The benefit of independent scrutiny by the Audit Office – and the auditors providing that support to the Auditor General – [is] that the reporting is fairly presented at the end of the year, whether it’s good, bad or ugly.”
rnz
Police say person who fired gun at officers still at large
New Zealand sides named for RLWC finals
Parliamentary Service working on extra chairs and offices for increased number of MPs
-
Latest News2 months ago‘Chilling’: Business groups speak out against National’s supermarket break-up plan
-
NZ News2 months agoTom Phillips report: The missed opportunities to find the children
-
Politics2 months agoNational vows to try to split Pak’nSave and New World
-
Latest News2 months agoCars bearing Chinese police markings stir unease in Auckland
-
Fiji News2 months agoPlans to have new Constitution by Dec 24th 2026
-
NZ News2 months agoCop who stole $68,000 can now be named as champion Muay Thai fighter Haimona Tamati-Te Paki
-
Politics2 months agoMBIE confirms botched biometric projects costs blown out to $50.7 million
-
Latest News2 months agoFive Karangahape Road venues lose their liquor licences after police intervention