Mathew and Tuhe Tauia with their children (from left) Teilian, 10, Tebora, 4, and Marcel, 7. They want the Government to build more houses. Photo / Nick Reed
Mathew and Tuhe Tauia with their children (from left) Teilian, 10, Tebora, 4, and Marcel, 7. They want the Government to build more houses. Photo / Nick Reed
Finance Minister Bill English's Budget will be released tomorrow afternoon. The Herald spoke to several Kiwis from all walks of life about what they want to see in it. We will go back to them after the Budget is announced to see how it will affect them.
State house tenants: Mathew and Tuhe Tauia
State house tenants Mathew and Tuhe Tauia hope the Budget will include cash to build more houses so they can buy their own home one day.
The couple and their four children aged 20 to 4 have lived in the same state house in West Auckland for 18 years. Their three older children have all attended Royal Rd Primary School, where Mr Tauia is on the board of trustees, and youngest daughter Tebora, 4, attends a preschool on the same site.
But the couple's joint income of about $80,000 a year - both are support workers for disabled people -- has pushed their rent up to a market rate of $325 a week, and they are acutely aware of the new Government policy that they should move out of their house to make way for a needier family.
"It's scary, if we do get kicked out we'll struggle in the private sector," Mr Tauia said. "We understand there is a problem [a shortage of state houses], but when they do kick us out they are just making another problem out there."
Mrs Tauia said: "It's our dream to own a house, but with the prices in Auckland we can't afford it here."
Asked what the Government could do to help, Mr Tauia said: "Build more houses, and get people from overseas out into the other regions."
The couple also hope the Budget will give more funding to low-decile schools and preschools. Even though Tebora qualifies for 20 hours' "free" early childhood education, the family pay $100 for an extra 10 hours a week.
The victims of crime: Phil and Sharyn Taunt
Phil and Sharyn Taunt. Photo / Supplied
Robbed of priceless family heirlooms and left feeling violated, a daylight burglary of an Auckland home has shown one family why funding for police is important.
Phil and Sharyn Taunt's Westmere home had its back door smashed with a hammer at Easter. Thieves ignored a monitored alarm to take nearly $10,000 worth of jewellery, technology and irreplaceable family videos and antiques.
Among items taken were videos of their children's birthdays and Christmases, a rosewood covered Bible bought in Israel in the 1960s and passed down through Mr Taunt's family, and jewellery from the couple's life milestones. Videos of their children with now deceased relatives were also taken.
"Those things are worth no value to anyone but us, but are priceless memories we will never get back."
They would like to see more public funding for police to tackle low-end offending like burglaries.
"If there is an increase of burglaries there is always an increase of other crimes. My personal opinion is if we don't give more money to something that is on the increase ... you're allowing other crimes to increase," said Mr Taunt.
Mrs Taunt said police were excellent and treated them with compassion. However, they were not yet aware of anyone being apprehended for the crime.
- Morgan Tait
The small business owner: Diane Hurford, Devonport
Photo / Supplied
A budget that drives down the exchange rate and boosts NZ Trade and Enterprise's resources for helping her export would be a welcome relief for Diane Hurford, owner of a waterproof bed linen firm.
The mother of two began designing and selling Brolly Sheets products in 2006.
It is a family business that has grown to a staff of four and its products are made in an ethical factory in China.
"Australia is our greatest market and it would help if the Budget drove down the exchange rate," she said.
"I would also like more support for NZTE to help grow our export markets - we spend a lot of money getting advice on regulations and tax and research in the markets."
Ms Hurford said the cost was "phenomenal" for a small business to exhibit its products at shows in order to reach consumers, health professionals and retailers in the UK and other markets.
NZTE seemed interested only in helping Top 100 companies, she said, instead of a small business with potential for annual turnover of $10 million.
- Wayne Thompson
The Chinese New Zealander: Kai Luey, Remuera
Kai Luey. Photo / Nick Reed
Retired electrical engineer Kai Luey is unperturbed at being vastly outnumbered by new migrants from his ancestral land, but wants the Government to be smarter about the type of investment it attracts from overseas.
Mr Luey, who has lived all his 73 years in New Zealand and is chairman of the Auckland Chinese Community Centre, says the Government should be careful not to turn off the investment tap in response to the housing crisis.
But he says it should make a determined effort to coax more foreign capital into productive sectors.
"We need investment, because New Zealand doesn't have a good record at saving," he said.
"But we should encourage investments that can help our economy and employment and it's up to the politicians to develop policies which allow for this to happen."
He also believes the Government should consider raising the tax-free threshold for poorer people who, even if they are lucky enough to own a home, are being lumbered with higher rates.
Fiji-born Alton Shameem has done well for himself as an accountant and financial adviser since moving to New Zealand 26 years ago, but is concerned about young migrant families struggling to buy a first home in competition from wealthier foreign investors.
"Heaps of people in lower and middle income, including our Fijian community, find it extremely difficult to purchase their first home because of competition from wealthy foreign buyers who can borrow at 1 to 2 per cent," he said.
He said the Government should build homes on a rent-to-own basis, rather than "passing the buck" to the Reserve Bank over the housing crisis.
Mr Shameem owns his apartment but, like many New Zealanders, is worried about his two teenage daughters' ability to buy into the housing market.
He wants the Government to make it easier for Fijian tradespeople to come here and says it must encourage businesses to set up ventures in Northland to revive its "ghost towns".
Des Stobbs isn't asking anything for himself from the Budget, but says the Government must do more for children from impoverished backgrounds.
Mr Stobbs, 81, believes poor parenting is a more pressing problem than financial poverty, but all children should be given a fair chance of a good education regardless of the families they are born to.
He sees an urgent need for free school meals to give the next generation a head-start.
"We've got to get some sort of education to people so they can earn a living and without that we're in trouble - that's why we have all these problems."
Mr Stobbs, who became a manager of firms and a business analyst after migrating to New Zealand from Britain, says he doesn't care if school meals costs $100 million.
"It's the cheapest investment you can make in my opinion."
As for himself and his wife Vera, 79, he says they are fortunate in keeping healthy, and is wary of pensioners demanding more and more for themselves.
- Mathew Dearnaley
The students: Alex Yuen, Kate Kleinsman, Lauren Andrews, Isobel Gledhill, Laurie Ruddersmith, Justus Katzur
An easier life for university students would involve not just more funding for schools, but better amenities like housing, transport and healthcare to lighten the burden on their skinny wallets.
A group of Auckland University students flatting together in Mt Eden and studying commerce, engineering, arts and law, said they felt there was a lack of support for students from the Government, stemming from policies that failed to recognise student need and discouraged student representation on boards.
The students - Alex Yuen, Kate Kleinsman, Lauren Andrews, Isobel Gledhill, Laurie Ruddersmith and Justus Katzur - noted while their student loan increases each year were comparatively small, fees for student services had gone up the maximum amount each year.
"[We] find it particularly frustrating that we see our vice-chancellor's salary increasing by thousands and thousands of dollars when we are faced with substantial fee increases," the group said.
Cheaper public transport or better cycle facilities, more affordable houses in the central city and subsidised healthcare were priorities, as were extended periods for student allowances.
"In particular, extend it to post-grad students, they often still need financial support and postgraduate study should be encouraged as it is important for university rankings," they said.
The flatmates felt a policy change around university councils had discouraged student representation, leading to an erosion of student culture and constant roadblocks for the students' association which they said works hard to provide free services and events.
- Kirsty Johnston
The environmentalist: Phil McCabe, Raglan
Phil McCabe and his wife Bernadette McCabe. Photo / Supplied
The Government has pointed to our marine environment as a focus area - so Phil McCabe wants to see plenty of money for it in tomorrow's Budget.
The keen environmentalist, who runs an eco-retreat in Raglan, sees New Zealand as an island nation full of coastal people who love the ocean.
"We have the fourth-largest marine estate in the world, it's our greatest asset and it's crazy that so little has gone into understanding what exists out there, making right some of our historical wrongs and simply maintaining the value of our asset.
"With more than 30 per cent of New Zealand's land area protected and less than 1 per cent of our oceans protected there is an obvious imbalance."
The Government has plans to increase protection for oceans by reforming the Marine Reserves Act, extending the ability to create marine reserves out into the EEZ, and allowing the creation of seabed protection areas, species sanctuaries, and recreational fishing parks. Mr McCabe believes this work could be better supported through more funding of science, and also to support better commercial fishing practices that would reduce risk to endangered species like Maui dolphins.
He also wants to see funding for more riparian planting in fresh waterways - an area that received nearly $10 million in Vote Environment last year - which would help to improve water quality going into our harbours and out to sea.
- Jamie Morton
The frequent healthcare users: Mereana Apiata, Manurewa
Kelvin Pakeho and Mereana Apiata, and their children Fontaine (7) and Detroit (4). Photo / Supplied
Mereana Apiata wants the Government to trim the $5 prescription charge and make doctor visits free for all children, to reduce what she considers barriers to good health care.
Miss Apiata said she and her partner Kelvin Pakeho and their daughter Fontaine, 7, and son Detroit, 4, live comfortably on Mr Pakeho's income in a warm, three-bedroom rental house in Manurewa. But they are high users of the health system. Fontaine has asthma which has put her in Middlemore Hospital twice and has led to more than 10 visits to an accident and medical clinic and regular trips to the GP.
Her chronic breathing disorder is now well-managed thanks to a good asthma management plan devised by the Greenstone Family Clinic.
The Government plans, from July 1, to extend its scheme of free GP visits for children under 6 at participating clinics, and free prescriptions, to children under 13. Greenstone's GP visits are free for enrolled patients 17 or younger - and it charges $10 for students 18 and older and $17 for adults.
Miss Apiata is glad of Greenstone's policy on children, but A&M visits cost and she has sometimes paid $10 or $20 when picking up multiple asthma puffers and other medicines.
Scrapping GP fees for all children and reducing the pharmaceutical charge would help them.
What Vera Brown wants most from the Budget is a steady job.
Mrs Brown, of Weymouth in South Auckland, packs strawberries seven days a week from October to January each year, and worked on call for a pie company for several years until her contract finished. But since the strawberry season ended, she has been on a benefit.
"I would like to do a fulltime job," she said. "I just want to pay all my bills."
A solo mother, she has four children still at home - an 11-year-old at Finlayson Park School, two aged 14 and 15 at Manurewa High School, and a son aged 24 who works part-time as a nightclub DJ.
"He's looking for a job. It's hard for him to get a job," said Mrs Brown, 47.
"He helps me out for the kids' lunches and the kids' bus fares, but he has a son too so I can't depend on him too much."
She gets just over $500 a week in benefits, but that drops to between $200 and $300 after taking out the $98 rent on her Housing NZ home plus debt repayments and other payments to Work and Income.
"I get paid every Monday night. My money gets finished on Wednesday," she said. "I just go to the Auckland City Mission in Manukau most weeks to get food parcels for my kids."
Prime Minister John Key said in February that tomorrow's Budget would look to make better use of money spent on vulnerable families.
Mrs Brown said her benefit was halved two months ago because she missed a work-related Work and Income appointment. She had to attend courses on computer skills and budgeting to get the benefit restored. "It's a really good course, it helps me a lot," she said. "There's some things that I didn't understand, now I know how you budget your money and how you get what you get from Work and Income.
"I've applied for jobs at The Warehouse, New World. It's the same old thing: 'I'll call you back, I'll let you know'. I never hear."
The primary school/ECE students: Shirley McDougall with children Poppy, 3, and Emily, 5, Glen Eden
Shirley McDougall has two children poppy 3, and Emily 5. Photo / Jason Dorday
Making the choice to be a stay-at-home mum wasn't easy for Shirley McDougall - so it's one she would like to see better recognised.
The Glen Eden mother-of-two and part-time teaching student would like a Budget that places more value on parents spending the early years with their children instead of rushing back to work.
"You only have one go at having children. But it's very hard to stay home these days. There's definite societal pressure, and that comes from successive government policies that value work over parenting." It was also a financial hit for the family, who are living on one income.
Her ideal Budget would include more funding for Playcentre, which both her daughters have attended, and where parents learn how to educate their kids. Playcentre is funded at a lower rate than other types of preschool, which Mrs McDougall says doesn't make sense because it is cost-effective and a great place for families who want to stay with kids while they learn. "If funding was equitable it would send a strong message to parents that they are competent first teachers."
Mrs McDougall, whose daughters are 3 and 5, would also like to see a school decile system that reflects better what parents can afford, regardless of where they live.
