Editorial: Government financial bailouts to Ruapehu skiing, food banks, universities need a longer lens

The Government has underwriten up to $5 million to the liquidators of Ruapehu Alpine Lifts to ensure the 2023 ski season can go ahead.

EDITORIAL

On the face of it, the Government underwriting up to $5 million to the liquidators of Ruapehu Alpine Lifts to ensure the 2023 ski season can go ahead while dropping $6 million dollars into the bowl of foodbank providers the same week might look a little like skewed priorities.

How can the skiing families be as worthy as those who cannot put a proper meal on the table?

Welcome to the cold reality of government.

Ruapehu Alpine Lifts creditors met last week to consider the fate of the central North Island ski fields after it was put into liquidation by the High Court in Auckland last Wednesday.

As Regional Development Minister Kiri Allan pointed out, Ruapehu is a significant part of the central North Island economy. It accounts for around a 10th of regional GDP, or $100 million per year.

Ensuring the season goes ahead will save hundreds of jobs and support local tourism, the regional economy, and wider community.

RAL, which employed about 196 staff across its Whakapapa and Tūroa sites, said the past three years had been difficult dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with poor weather this ski season.

Simply put, leaving RAL to fail would take meals from the table of many more families, direct employees, as well as those in downstream support sectors.

Meanwhile, the $6 million in funding for community food providers across New Zealand - with priority to those working in high-demand regions such as Auckland, Tairawhiti and Hawke’s Bay - is a much-needed patch as reduced petrol excise duty and other relief measures come to an end this week.

The petrol excise duty rate of 45.02 cents per litre ended on June 30, as did a 36 per cent reduction on road user charges rates. Half-price public transport fares also ended on Friday but remain in place for community services cardholders and for total mobility users.

The extra money for foodbanks is a nod to those feeling the cost of living pinches the keenest, particularly in flood-ravaged areas.

Again on Tuesday, the Government reached into our pockets for an additional $128 million to be invested into the tertiary sector to increase tuition subsidies at degree-level and above by a further 4 per cent in 2024 and 2025.

Universities worldwide are struggling with a significant decline in domestic enrolment, higher costs, and fewer international students.

Cabinet has sought a report by the end of next month on whether measures already taken by universities represented a threat to the capability or provision of programmes nationwide.

These are the institutions that provided advisers to steer our country through the Covid-19 pandemic. Only locally based academics could provide the bespoke advice necessary for New Zealand in a fast-moving event with such significant consequences.

Few then, would question the value of preventing these agencies from collapse. The issue is, however, a matter of how long we can continue to dole out the dollars while the cost-of-living crunch continues to bite.

It is essential long-term solutions are found for the North Island ski fields, for foodbanks, and for universities. That is what we need to hear more about.

Without answers, our Government is fated to continue throwing our money into the wind.