Verification App To Prove A Game-changer For Identity Checks
Hospitality NZ Chief Executive, Steve Armitage, says 'We're pleased to see that the Government has invested in this solution that supports businesses managing identity checks.
'Being a government-led tool provides confidence that digital identification will be recognised across other government agencies, and its user-friendly cost-free model encourages widespread adoption across venues and accommodation.
'We also note that NZ Verify//Whakatūturu does not store any personally identifiable information and only allows businesses to check information that the user has consented to share.'
Hospitality New Zealand also manages the Kiwi Access Card, a government recognised form of photographic identification and evidence of age card.
'Through the Kiwi Access Card, we are also exploring digital credentials, and hope to be the first privately-delivered digitised identification card, enabling it to be checked by NZ Verify//Whakatūturu.'
The Department of Internal Affairs will showcase the app at Hospitality New Zealand's annual conference in June, to help hospitality businesses adopt and evolve with digital identity developments.
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NZ Herald
25 minutes ago
- NZ Herald
What will private schools be spending extra Budget money on? David Seymour says he's ‘open' to giving more funding
The multi-million dollar funding boost, announced in Budget 2025, is being driven by Associate Minister of Education David Seymour. He says the amount of money private schools receive has been shrinking, with the last increase to the subsidy coming in 2010. The list of schools receiving the increased subsidy for 2026 will be made available next month by the Ministry of Education. Seymour also says he's 'open' to the idea of the pot growing even more and explains that children at private schools receive around one-tenth of the funding of public-school students. 'Is that fair? Their parents are taxpayers, they're New Zealand citizens, they're entitled to an education. I think in a fair world, that would be higher,' Seymour told the Weekend Herald. St Cuthbert's College principal Charlotte Avery began working at the school in 2024 after moving to New Zealand from England. With a roll of 1650 students, St Cuthbert's College is set to receive an estimated $1.6 million subsidy from the Government. The amount has increased by $160,000 on the previous per-student rate. Principal Charlotte Avery, who took on the leader's role at St Cuthbert's last year after shifting from a prestigious private girls' school in Cambridge, England, says in real terms the subsidy isn't a large payment at a $100 increase per student. 'We are grateful of course for that recognition, but in the end it's a very small part of supplementing our fee income,' Avery says. 'We recognise that we are a school of privilege – privilege is not a dirty word but it is important in terms of recognising responsibility.' Prime Minister Christopher Luxon (left) and Associate Education Minister David Seymour, who says families are often making big sacrifices to pay independent school fees. Photo / Mark Mitchell At co-educational private school Scots College in Wellington, headmaster Graeme Yule says the funding increase is 'well overdue'. He also argues it shouldn't become an ideological debate. 'It's much, much easier to cry elitism and to cry inequality but the facts don't match that, the finances are different,' Yule says. 'There will always be a perception in this that the Government's robbing the poor state schools and giving the money to the rich independent schools ... but we receive around $40 million in government subsidy and we pay GST on fees to the Government of around $150 million.' That tax on fees, Yule says, can be invested back into the state sector to support public school students. Public versus private school funding Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) president Chris Abercrombie, however, sees another reason for the Government making this decision. 'Well, David Seymour's [Epsom] electorate has a lot of private schools in it,' Abercrombie says. In Abercrombie's view, the Government's focus should be firmly on supporting the public education system, and if parents choose to send their child to a private school then the state shouldn't subsidise that decision. 'We don't support private schools getting any subsidy at all, let alone an increased subsidy,' he says. A view of St Cuthbert's College in central Auckland. The private school is one of New Zealand's best-performing for academic results. Photo / NZME Figures provided by the Ministry of Education reveal the subsidy for Years 1-6 at private schools will be rising to $1016 per student – a 20% increase. That amount has increased by $167 per student. Older students from Years 11-13 will receive $1918 per student - an increase of just 6%. Subsidy rates will not be recalculated each year but will be treated like other state school resourcing, with adjustments made for the number of students on private school rolls. But Seymour says his decision hasn't been influenced by private schools in his electorate, one of the country's wealthiest, and the PPTA is 'just flinging mud'. In comparison, figures given to the Herald by Seymour's office reveal the amount for Years 1-6 at state schools is $7648 per student annually, while the funding for secondary schools in the state system is $9853 per student. Funding cuts to public schools At a small Porirua school nestled in native bush on the edge of Cannons Creek, principal Lynda Knight says she has been facing a list of government funding reductions during the last six months. The school's funding has been cut for its Reading Recovery programme, Pasifika Early Literacy Project and the Pacific Education Innovation Fund. Funding has also been cut to Regionally Allocated Professional Learning and Development and te reo Māori training for teachers, so the school can no longer acquire these supports. And there is no longer access to Resource Teachers of Literacy and Māori. They have also lost a whānau liaison support worker role that was funded by Oranga Tamariki. Knight says the school, with just 110 primary-age students, can't hold big parent and community fundraisers as some affluent areas can, and any fundraising initiatives only bring in small amounts of money. 'I think we're increasing that disparity if we're increasing the funding [for private schools]; we must be decreasing the amount of money for public schools like mine,' she says. Abercrombie says disparities between public and private schools are creating a growing divide between the 'haves and have-nots'. Differences in the resources available to schools are exacerbating inequity across the education system, he says. 'State schools are facing that same cost pressure, their power's gone up and the price of toilet paper – they're hurting as well. But they don't have the ability to just increase their fees and tap into other sources of income that private schools do.' What the money will be used for? In Wellington, Yule says the private school subsidy is going to be used to keep fees as low as possible at Scots College and increase accessibility for the school. It will also go towards running costs. Dilworth School in central Auckland is receiving the subsidy but because of its unique position with every student funded fully through a scholarship, the funds will be used elsewhere. Dilworth School in Epsom, Auckland provides full scholarships to its students. Photo / Dean Purcell The money at the boys' boarding school, headmaster Dan Reddiex says, will instead go towards offsetting the cost of food for students, investing in teachers, driving academic results and funding extracurricular activities such as sending their premier choir Fortissimo to the Big Sing Finale in Dunedin. The school's whānau community is not typically in a position to fully fund school trips, he says. 'We provide seven meals a day for our students and inflation has hit hard in this area.' Meanwhile, Avery says the subsidy will support a range of ongoing projects at St Cuthbert's College. These include enhancing its suite of facilities, improving flood resistance in the school's buildings and paying teachers and staff members' salaries. It will also contribute to improving its outdoor campus – Kahunui – in the Bay of Plenty, a place where Year 10 students travel to attend a month-long school camp that embraces off-the-grid learning. At Knight's school in Porirua, Year 6 students used to travel to El Rancho in Waikanae – 45 minutes up the road – for a two-night camp. However, now that community funding is unavailable, the future of camps for their senior students is uncertain. In a community where family holidays are a rarity, Knight says pupils leaving often comment that school camp is their favourite memory from school. Growing waitlists for private schools As Auckland grows, St Cuthbert's College has been experiencing higher demand for places on its school roll and has waiting lists for prospective students. Scots College has also been facing similar pressure, with headmaster Yule noticing parents are being propelled to private schools by their feeling of unease in the current state system. 'The issues with literacy and numeracy, open-plan classes and the dissatisfaction with NCEA and so forth, I think, have driven a number of people towards considering independent schooling.' At Dilworth, Reddiex says demand for places has also increased significantly within the past two years, with scholarship places being highly competitive. Avery says the subsidy is a recognition of the role independent schools play in educating a percentage of the Kiwi population, which takes the financial pressure off the rest of the education system. Similarly, Seymour says private school students suddenly flooding into the state sector would create an enormous cost for the Government. 'This whole debate to me says something about where we are and where we could be as a country. What you've got is a small group – about 4% of children and their parents and grandparents – often making big sacrifices to pay independent school fees because in their view, that's a better future for them,' he says. 'Rather kind of sneering, resentful tone, we should say, 'okay, that's a choice people make', I may or may not make it for myself, but we should be happy for other people. 'Those people are actually saving the taxpayer a lot of money.' In Porirua, Knight believes the $160,000 increase St Cuthbert's College is receiving could make 'a world of difference' at her small school. She says the money would go towards funding two more teachers or more teacher aide support. Eva de Jong is a New Zealand Herald reporter covering general news for the daily newspaper, Weekend Herald and Herald on Sunday. She was previously a multimedia journalist for the Whanganui Chronicle, covering health stories and general news. Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
NZ Herald
4 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Rate-cut reality check - too little, too late: Nick Stewart
Higher starting debt, unfavourable interest rates, adverse growth trends and long-term pressures from aging and climate change are converging into a perfect storm. Despite claims of $44 billion in savings, the Government has reallocated spending rather than shrinking it. It's hard for hope not to fade when our government appears to lack the mettle to take the bull by the horns. The 'price of butter' facade may have fooled some, but not many. Butter is a product that hasn't changed in eons – full cream milk, add salt and churn. No smoke and mirrors or PR spin, just butter. Yet politicians obsess over its retail pricing while avoiding hard decisions on fiscal consolidation that might actually address underlying inflation pressures. The great capital migration Capital flows as freely as people in an interconnected world. Just as 230,000 Kiwis have voted with their feet over two years seeking better opportunities offshore, smart money increasingly looks beyond our borders for superior returns. The recent emigration shows a damning verdict on New Zealand's economic trajectory. These are productive citizens, who see limited prospects in a country determined to tax productivity whilst subsidising speculation. Human capital flight and financial capital mobility share parallels –both respond to incentives and seek the best risk-adjusted returns. Housing market dysfunction remains Our housing market remains in purgatory, with prices stubbornly elevated while transaction volumes are sluggish. Latest data shows 'days to sell' extending and prices slipping nationally for six of the past seven months. Wednesday's modest rate cut is unlikely to break this deadlock. Young Kiwis are emigrating, recognising their homeownership prospects have been systematically destroyed by policies prioritising incumbent wealth over economic dynamism. The social contract promising hard work would lead to homeownership has been broken: 72% of Kiwis without a home believe buying a property is beyond their reach. Yet, many Kiwis remain dangerously over-exposed to residential real estate. Rethinking investment The traditional Kiwi approach of leveraging into property and hoping for the best is dangerous where house prices may stagnate while debt service costs remain higher. Global equity markets continue to climb, with the S&P 500 delivering 5-year annualised returns of 15.71%. Meanwhile, New Zealand's NZX50 has delivered a dismal 1.8% annualised return over the same period. The performance gap is devastating. A $100,000 investment in the S&P 500 over five years would have grown to $208,000, versus approximately $109,000 in the NZX50. This $99,000 difference is a documented reality for investors who remained domestically focused while global opportunities compounded wealth at dramatically higher rates. Complexity extends beyond simple asset allocation. Tax implications vary dramatically between domestic and international investments. Currency hedging decisions can make or break returns. Liquidity needs must account for potential emigration scenarios – a consideration rational investors now embrace. Economic crossroads ahead New Zealand stands at an economic crossroads between fiscal irresponsibility leading to Japanese-style stagnation, or making hard decisions to restore economic dynamism. Next Wednesday's timid rate cut suggests we're choosing the former. For investors, the message is clear: adapt or suffer consequences. Capital, like talent, flows to where it's best treated. The 230,000 Kiwis who've recognised this reality are canaries in the coal mine. Smart investors should ensure their wealth enjoys the same mobility their fellow citizens have embraced. The coming rate cut won't be cause for celebration – it will be a symptom of deeper malaise and policy impotence facing structural decline. - Nick Stewart's iwi affiliations are Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Huirapa, Ngāti Māmoe, Ngāti Waitaha).
NZ Herald
5 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Covid-19 pandemic handling returns to headlines, with Labour under scrutiny
What truly put the wind at the Government's back this week was the unexpected exhumation of half-buried relics from the Covid era – a period Labour may prefer was left entombed in the sediment of public amnesia. The first, was last Thursday's Treasury Long Term Insights Briefing (LTIB). The report was actually into how best to manage economic shocks: should the Government spend up, or leave it to the Reserve Bank? Treasury reckoned managing shocks was mostly best left to the Reserve Bank – a conclusion it published in a draft report some months ago. What was new were details of Treasury's advice to the former Government of its advice during the pandemic. Two short sections in particular noted that Treasury advised the last Government to ease up on the stimulus in 2022, and another section detailed the consequences of this: a large structural deficit and risks of inflation. With Finance Minister Nicola Willis off in London, exchanging knowing grimaces with Chancellor Rachel Reeves over their mutually dreadful fiscal headaches – left-right ideological niceties be damned – it was Bishop's opportunity to don the acting finance minister cap and have lobbed at him volley after volley of low patsy questions on the report, giving him ample opportunity to sermonise on Labour's alleged fiscal sins. Bishop first cleared his blocked throat during the very first question of the week on Tuesday, Labour leader Chris Hipkins, pointedly interjecting that this was clearly 'audition number one' for Luxon's job. Hipkins wasn't wrong about it being 'number one'. Come Wednesday, it was Nancy Lu's turn to take to her feet and ask Bishop what economic reports he'd been reading, to which he replied he was not yet done with Treasury's gripping LTIB. On Thursday, the lucky backbencher was Catherine Wedd, who asked the same question: what reports had the minister (officially Willis, but in practice, Bishop) been reading on the state of the economy. Bishop replied, 'Oh, I haven't been able to stop reading Treasury's long-term insights briefing.' Another MP, Tom Rutherford piped up, 'What did it say?' Bishop replied, testing the limits of MPs' obligation to be truthful in the House, 'it's a great read'. It's not a bad parliamentary tactic: Grant Robertson often used it to highlight his successes and the Opposition's shortcomings. Bishop's effort this week worked wonders in cheering an otherwise gloomy backbench. In Question Time this week Chris Bishop revealed a passion for reading Treasury documents. Photo / Mark Mitchell Willis and Bishop have done a clever job in giving the impression Treasury's LTIB was mostly about slamming Labour for the Covid response – it's true, that's what's new in the final version vis-a-vis the earlier draft, but overall, the backward-looking part of the report is a small part of the whole. Labour's responses are as interesting as the report itself. Leader Chris Hipkins dismissed it as 'spin', former Robertson staffers Craig Renney and Toby Moore had more detailed critiques. Renney, posting to his Substack, quoted Michael Cullen to describe report as an 'ideological burp' and decided to skewer the conclusion that managing economic cycles was primarily the job of the Reserve Bank. In Renney's view, the whole government is responsible for managing the economic cycle. If this is left to just the Reserve Bank, its focus on inflation would mean that other, distributional impacts become neglected. Hammering inflation somewhere means hammering the economy everywhere. To be fair to Treasury, its report does briefly touch on fiscal policy's ability and obligation to smooth the bluntness of monetary policy. That's worth pursuing in more detail, particularly given the experience New Zealand had during the pandemic, in which the Reserve Bank's money-printing played arsonist to the housing market, before the bank guiltily and belatedly doused the inferno in a series of rate rises so blunt in their asphyxiating cruelty they cast thousands on to the dole queue, and shunted thousands more into the airport departure lounge. Moore's piece, published in the Herald, was more of a right of reply to Treasury. He resurfaced papers he first received as a staffer in Robertson's office and which were subsequently published in the Herald to note that as late as Budget 2023, Treasury was still advising Robertson to spend yet more money – not on Covid stimulus, but via his operating allowance, the pot of money to fund ongoing cost increases in departments and to pay for new things, like removing the $5 prescription charge in that Budget. In that Budget, Robertson actually spent slightly less than Treasury told him, not more. In that Budget, as for all of Robertson's Covid Budgets, the advice to spend more was consistent with the economic forecasts continually being revised in the right direction. This meant more money flowing in, allowing the Government to spend more money while returning to surplus in a creditable timeframe. The trouble with these forecasts is that they were wrong – and badly wrong. The economy did not grow nearly as much as hoped, tax revenue fell – and the effect was compounded, tax revenue as a share of the smaller economy was smaller than forecast too. The spending still happened, but we're still waiting on the money to pay for it. There were, then, two obvious flaws, given just passing detail in Treasury's report: the first is that Treasury's forecasts were badly wrong, the second was that Robertson did not show enough caution when he relied upon Treasury to put his Budgets together. That telling of the story is no less interesting to either side, but it has a different moral lesson: the solution to the fiscal problem really is, as Willis says, growth. If the economy had grown to where Treasury earlier forecast it would grow to, we'd be in surplus and reducing the debt ratio by now. A Treasury graph plotting which fiscal years have run counter- and pro-cyclically. Graph / Treasury Treasury quietly dropped another paper this week – this time by one of its economists, with the usual disclaimer that it does not necessarily represent the views of Treasury as an organisation. It pondered whether governments were running pro-cyclical or counter-cyclical fiscal policies, with the latter generally preferred because it allows the Government to moderate the economic cycle. Cullen gets the biscuit for running the most counter-cyclical budgets, Bill English and Steven Joyce get good marks too. Robertson's first term gets a pass, but not the second. The report only goes up to the fiscal year 2024, which was the year of a Labour Budget and National mini-Budget, but some back-of-the-envelope maths from the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update would suggest the Budgets for the last and the current fiscal years will be counter-cyclical – the first since 2019, a cautious vote of confidence in approval to Willis' economic management. The week ended on another blast from the past. The Covid-19 Royal Commission announced Labour ministers would not be appearing before the inquiry in person. Labour itself only found out the commission was going to announce this change a few minutes before it did so – the coalition seemed to have more warning, with each of the three parties putting out damning press releases shortly afterwards. Polling shows the public is clearly on the coalition's side and wants the ministers to appear, but they won't. The refusal led the news for 24 hours and is a good reminder to Labour the public haven't put the pandemic to bed quite as much as the party would like. Labour is proud of its Covid record but the fact the ministers won't appear in public allows the Opposition to argue, with some conviction, that perhaps Labour actually isn't – and its Covid record, particularly on economic matters, is really as embarrassing as the Opposition would like the public to believe. It's a dilemma for the Labour ministers, some of whom probably wouldn't mind appearing and defending themselves. One of the ex-ministers probably will be appearing in public in the near future – and, unlike Jacinda Ardern, will probably spend a lot of that time talking about Covid and money: Robertson's memoir Anything Could Happen is out later this month. There's a good chance some of these questions will get an airing in any promotional tour, and the book itself.
