Govt has a busy day dishing out funding to causes it deems appropriate but a fog shrouds crime-fighting costs

Buzz from the Beehive

Biggish lumps of money featured in each of four announcements posted on the Beehive website, since Point of Order last checked on what our hard-working and big-spending ministers are doing.

The government will spend

• $10 million on public housing in Raumati (and there’s lots more where that came from);
•  $2,876,500 (from a trough labelled Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund) for a boiler conversion project which used woodchips to make potato chips, while slashing emissions.

• $1.48 million to keep AM radio on air in the Northland region;

•  A “multi-million- dollar package” to tackle retail crime and reoffending. The exact cost to taxpayers is hard to fathom because it includes the provision of $4000 for all small shops and dairies in New Zealand who want a fog cannon installed, with shops to pay the balance. How many retailers will apply? Who knows?

• A new $4 million fund to support local councils in Auckland, Hamilton and Bay of Plenty with crime prevention programmes (which might  be the trough for the fog cannon funding);

• The expansion of eligibility to dip into a $6 million Retail Crime Prevention fund to include aggravated robberies, including those committed during the past 12 months.

Guess whose name pops up in connection with the law-and-order funding package?

None other than the PM, keen to get her name into the crime-fighting headlines alongside Police Minister Chris Hipkins.

Wood tells us he is headed for the Five Country Ministerial – but when he returns will he be asked about what was discussed?

Buzz from the Beehive 

The overseas travel plans of Immigration Minister Michael Wood – to attend the ministerial meeting of a five-country alliance that is rarely discussed or examined in this country – was one of three new posts on the Beehive website this morning.

The others were a copy of the Condolence Letter From New Zealand’s  Prime Minister to our new King and an announcement of state housing returning to Wairarapa and the Tararua region.

Michael Wood is headed for Washington DC this week to represent New Zealand at the annual “Five Country Ministerial” (commonly known as the FCM) .

His press statement describes this set-up as an annual meeting of home affairs, public safety, interior, security, border and immigration Ministers from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The govt knocks down old state houses and builds new ones – but the net result is a waiting list that cries out for demolition

It was a simple question about housing and Point of Order listened closely to Housing Minister Megan Woods’ response.

Alas, we are none the wiser on one part of the question, about advice on how long it will take to get the waiting list down to around 5844. But – if we have done our sums correctly – we can tell readers there has been a hefty increase in the numbers of people on the state housing waiting list over the past five years.

We took a crack at working this out after Parliamentary questions were put by National MP Chris Bishop to the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing), who presumably was not in Parliament at the time.  Megan Woods did the answering.

Bishop asked:

“How many people are on the State housing waitlist now compared to September 2017, and has she received advice on when that number will return to the levels of September 2017?”

Woods presumably has been a keen student of the art of Political Blather, deserving a pass with honours. 

Boost for traders: PACER Plus takes effect at the same time as Govt extends its airfreight scheme

Statements from the office of Phil Twyford, before we have read them, are apt to engender a sense of foreboding:  which government programme has been slowed down this time?

But a weekend statement from Twyford, as Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth, welcomed “the entry into force of the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Plus (PACER Plus)”.

PACER Plus would be instrumental in supporting Pacific economies

“ …  to rebuild from the devastating impacts of COVID-19,” Phil Twyford said. 

“The Agreement provides opportunities for goods and services produced in the region to be sold within the Pacific and globally, thereby using trade as an engine of economic growth and sustainable development,”

Other news from the Beehive tells us:

A billion (or so) will give RNZAF a new Hercules fleet but many more billions are being spent on revised wage subsidy scheme

One press statement  from the Beehive yesterday sounded more like advertising – or a barker’s pitch – than a Government announcement.  Another advised of two diplomatic appointment, one of them – has the woman who landed the post done something wrong? – to protest-troubled and politically volatile Hong Kong.

And yes, as happens almost daily, there was news about the spending of big bucks.  Defence Minister Ron Mark announced the Coalition Government’s confirmation of the purchase of five Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 Super Hercules transport aircraft to replace the existing fleet.

This is part of a $1.521 billion project that also will deliver a full mission flight simulator and other supporting infrastructure.

But bigger bucks are involved in the major announcement of the day.   The Government has lowered the required revenue drop threshold for its wage subsidy scheme from 50% to 40%.  This will allow 40,000 more businesses to become eligible for the new eight-week scheme from 10 June, covering up to 910,000 workers.

Up to 230,000 businesses are forecast to become eligible.

Small businesses are also being given more time to apply for the Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme, with the application date being extended from 12 June to 24 July.

More millions are announced for spending on health and wellbeing and the govt strives to get people back into jobs

Two Budget announcements were made at the weekend, ahead of Finance Minister’s big day on Thursday.  First, there’s an increase of $160 million over four years in the Combined Pharmaceutical Budget; second, there will be spending of just over $200 million on family violence services.

The family violence services announcement notably reminded us of the government’s fondness for race-based funding.

“The Budget includes support for services by Māori for Māori … “

What about support – say – for services for Asians by Asians?

Further spending was announced, too, for mental health support for at-risk communities due to Covid-19, but which Budget does this come from? Total funding, about $3 million, covers the period from April 2020 (in the 2019/20 financial year for Budget purposes) to 30 September 2020 (in the 2020/20 financial year).