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Otago Daily Times
22-05-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Opinion: What looks like thrift risks exacting great cost
This year's Budget was pitched as prudent and responsible, not a lolly scramble. But from where we stand — alongside whānau struggling to stay housed, healthy and hopeful — what looks like prudence risks being profoundly costly in practice. There are some welcome commitments: health infrastructure, early childhood subsidies and disability support. But they don't come close to the scale of need we see every day across Otago. I think of a mum who came to us recently, a first-homeowner with a young baby, working hard to make ends meet. A change in circumstances and rising power prices left her unable to afford heating this winter. We helped — but changes to the Best Start payment may now force her to give up work just to survive. Our financial mentors no longer teach "budgeting". They're navigating low wages, food insecurity, mental distress and housing instability, all compounding each other. Between January and April, we saw a 53% increase in people needing support. These aren't people living beyond their means — they are people whose means are no longer enough to live on. This Budget reinstates prescription fees, narrows Best Start and halts 33 pay equity claims — decisions that hit women, children and low-income families the hardest. That's not fairness. That's retreat. Social service providers such as PSO are foundational infrastructure in our communities. But most agencies got no funding increase and the burden of doing more with less continues to grow. We need a Budget that sees people not as cost centres, but as potential. That invests in food, housing, connection and care as fiercely as it does roads and rail. Balance the books, yes, but not on the backs of the vulnerable. True stewardship means investing in dignity. ■ Robbie Moginie is chief executive of Presbyterian Support Otago.
Otago Daily Times
22-05-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
What looks like thrift risks exacting great cost
This year's Budget was pitched as prudent and responsible, not a lolly scramble. But from where we stand — alongside whānau struggling to stay housed, healthy and hopeful — what looks like prudence risks being profoundly costly in practice. There are some welcome commitments: health infrastructure, early childhood subsidies and disability support. But they don't come close to the scale of need we see every day across Otago. I think of a mum who came to us recently, a first-homeowner with a young baby, working hard to make ends meet. A change in circumstances and rising power prices left her unable to afford heating this winter. We helped — but changes to the Best Start payment may now force her to give up work just to survive. Our financial mentors no longer teach "budgeting". They're navigating low wages, food insecurity, mental distress and housing instability, all compounding each other. Between January and April, we saw a 53% increase in people needing support. These aren't people living beyond their means — they are people whose means are no longer enough to live on. This Budget reinstates prescription fees, narrows Best Start and halts 33 pay equity claims — decisions that hit women, children and low-income families the hardest. That's not fairness. That's retreat. Social service providers such as PSO are foundational infrastructure in our communities. But most agencies got no funding increase and the burden of doing more with less continues to grow. We need a Budget that sees people not as cost centres, but as potential. That invests in food, housing, connection and care as fiercely as it does roads and rail. Balance the books, yes, but not on the backs of the vulnerable. True stewardship means investing in dignity. ■ Robbie Moginie is chief executive of Presbyterian Support Otago.
