New Zealand’s Budget On May 21: Housing To Get Priority As Students Keep Low Expectations

New Zealand’s budget scheduled for 21 May has aroused high expectations in many quarters. Obviously, the housing sector is expecting announcements to address the problems including soaring prices, skewed supply and profit booking by speculators. Finance Minister Bill English also confirmed that the budget will contain many housing initiatives to boost supply. But the upcoming budget has not excited the younsters, especially the tertiary education sector students.

Fund Squeeze in Education

New Zealand Union of Students’ Association, which is an umbrella organisation of students representing the interests of New Zealand’s 400,000 tertiary students, has stated that it has very low expectations on the budget.

Explaining the reasons, its president Mc Court said, “after seven long years of cuts to student support and underfunding of universities and polytechnics I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more of the same. Since 2008 National has made a series of cuts that on their own seem justifiable given the state of the global economy. But now people are seeing the cost of those cuts. Those cuts add up to a severe reduction in opportunity for New Zealanders and the public has cottoned on."

The student leader wanted to know why New Zealanders kids have never had it so tough in tertiary education. He wanted the Government to prove its seriousness about providing access to New Zealand’s world-class education system, by introducing support for student housing costs in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and handle the issue of NZ$14 billion student debt. "It’s time the Government finally did something positive for students. He said after seven long years of getting shafted students and their families are worse off with more toxic debt and rents going through the roof. He said the challenge for the Government is to harness transformative power of tertiary education into building a more resilient, fair, economy. The test is whether the coming budget will be a good one that lays out a vision for where New Zealand will head after the global financial crisis."

Thrust on Housing

Meanwhile, the Finance Minister Bill English reiterated that the budget will have more housing supply initiatives. He made these comments after the inspection of printed copies of the Budget in Petone. English said the proposed Budget measures plus announcements made in the last three or four years will give the big picture on housing with its focus on increasing supply, reports Radio Nz.

Housing Minister, Nick Smith also said the Government has no magic formula in solving housing challenges. But he added that in Budget 2014 also, the government did many things and that trend can be seen on Thursday's budget.

(For feedback/comments, contact the writer at k.kumar@ibtimes.com.au)