Hon. Priyanca Radhakrishnan post budget media briefing

On Tuesday morning Minister for the Community & Voluntary Sector, Diversity, Inclusion & Ethnic Communities, and Youth Priyanca Radhakrishnan briefed the ethnic media regarding the budget that was presented by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson earlier this week.

Due to illness, Priyanca could not be out and about in public during the very active budget week but opened up the briefing session by saying that she was watching the budget roll out in the parliament, a budget at the comfort of her sofa that she is very proud of.

In a very well-articulated briefing, where she did not miss to outline every crucial aspect of the budget released this week, Priyanca was on point to draw the media's attention to the fact that the budget should not be viewed in isolation but as a part of successive series of budgets by this government, that now focuses on post covid recovery.

Three things that are a priority and focus of the government and that are clearly laid down in general well-being budget 2021 is firstly, all New Zealanders should be safe from Coivd-19, safety of each one of them is prime, secondly securing countries economic recovery in a way that is sustainable as well. And thirdly, continue to focus on addressing some of the long-term challenges like housing crises, climate change etc.

“Our management throughout the terms of govt and through covid has been careful and has meant that we are actually in a stronger position comparative to a number of countries in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), unemployment is lower than was projected and is projected to continue to drop as well, economic growth is strong, debt lower than forecast and all the economic indicators that we look to at how we are doing as a country are looking good for now. We still have to continue to be careful. We are not out of the covid phase yet, we are still in a phase where we need to roll out vaccines and continue to keep New Zealanders safe.” said Priyanca in her budget talk.

This year's budget focus is on how we rebuild and how we recover from the economic impact of covid. New Zealand has been successful in combating the spread of coronavirus, this has put the country in a position where the government can continue to strengthen and grow the economy. Well-being of New Zealaders is the real focus.

“When a disaster hits us, it does not hit us equally, there are some who are worse off as a result than others and so the focus of the budget is been on ensuring that as we recover we take everyone with us” she says and adds, that’s where we see the example of increase in benefits that have been put in place by the labour government, $32 - $55 benefits per adult that will kick in fully by April next year but starts July this year. The lowest income scales are the hardest hit as the result of covid where they even struggle for basic needs like buying shoes for children to go to school or putting food on the table.

Also, this will provide stimulus to the economy, when money goes into some of our lowest earning families, it is spent domestically. While she admits that all of this is not specific for the ethnic communities yet all of this certainly impacts our communities equally.

While the issues like winter energy payments, infrastructure deficits like public health, public transport, education and some of the long term challenges of building housing, where the government needs to build public housing, she feels the government is on track and boosting the supply as well as investing in this budget is key, equally the schools where the investment is still like a drop in the bucket, the problems and issues are a collective over decades, this budget also has money to invest for further school upgrade, pay parity for early childhood education teachers, and other things like health sector, where boosted pharmacy funding is to ensure people get the medication and care that they need timely.

Training incentive allowance, a support that can help people in employment, or support them for studying, where they see themselves gaining a certain degree and the job they aspire to do. This incentive was however not considered by the National government previously.

Going forward the government is looking to cushion the job loss through social employment insurance. Every time when there is a disaster or something big that leads to job losses, we have ad hoc initiatives put in place to support people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. A group of government business New Zealand and council of trade unions are working out how the social employment insurance will look and are included in the budget.

Lastly, the briefing was concluded by bringing out what was laid down for the ethinic communities on the table.For the ethnic community portfolio there is an investment into the new ministry, and the ministry will come into effect on the 1st of July. The government has invested in positions at the office of ethnic communities in Christchurch particularly to provide target hit an additional support that was needed by communities in Christchurch post the mosque attacks. It was a time limited funding, and the government knew that additional support would still be needed and so there was budget investment there.

Investment in new functions that were recommended by the royal commission of inquiry, for example new functions around data analysis, assistance leadership, that will make a significant difference to the well-being of ethnic communities and will enable us to sit at the table and work with other government agencies to get ‘that’ change.

The office of ethnic communities will continue with the functions currently in terms of community engagement, where the resourcing has been doubled in the last term. The multilingual information network and the CFD funding which has now been increased eight-fold. The budget 2021 looks at some of the additional functions of the new ministry.

For the first time the government has decided that New Zealand history will be taught in school from next year as a part of curriculum, history of ethnic communities can be a part and Priyanca feels it should be included as it is an important part of history of our nation and wants the community to engage and get involved in the consultation process that the ministry of education is holding, which concludes at the end of May.

Finally, there is also investment in the budget 2021 to carry out the work that is needed to implement the recommendations of the royal commission of inquiry into Christchurch mosque attacks, and that needs to be rolled out. - Vritti Parasher