Budget 2015: What you need to know

Key points from the Government's 2015 Budget include a boost to benefit payments for families, a deficit and the end of the $1000 KiwiSaver kickstart.

The increase in benefit rates is the first in 43 years outside annual adjustments for inflation.

Finance Minister Bill English said the Government needed to target a narrower range of families to have an impact on those living in hardship.

The Opposition has accused the Government of helping the most vulnerable at the expense of "those just a couple of rungs up the ladder" and doing the "bare minimum" to address child poverty.

Review RNZ's live coverage of Budget 2015 - as it happened

New spending on child poverty

• Beneficiary families will receive an extra $25 a week, after tax, from 1 April 2016 - the centrepiece of a $240 million a year 'hardship reduction' package.
• The last time benefits were increased, apart from adjustments for inflation, was 1972.
• The Government says about 110,000 families will receive the increase in rates.
• Solo parents who receive a benefit will need to be available for work when their youngest child turns three - two years earlier than the current requirement.
• Non-beneficiary families with low incomes will receive increased payments through Working for Families, and more childcare support.

Surplus versus deficit

• The Budget is forecasting a $684 million deficit for 2014/2015, moving to a surplus of $176 million in 2015/2016, growing to $3.6 billion in 2018/2019.
• Economic growth is forecast to grow by an average 2.8 percent during the next four years.
• Average wages are expected to rise by $7000 to $63,000 a year by mid-2019.
• Unemployment is forecast to fall below 5 percent next year.

Savings on KiwiSaver

• The $1000 kickstart for starting a KiwiSaver account is gone - from 2pm today.
• As RNZ Political Editor Brent Edwards put it today, Finance Minister Bill English generally tries to find savings to balance spending increases, which is where this likely fits in.
• The Government will still match savings up to $521 per person per year.

Child support penalties scrapped

• The Government will scrap $1.7 billion of penalties owed for child support.
• Revenue Minister Todd McClay said New Zealand's child support debt was currently $3.2 billion and rising, and only about $700 million of that was actual child support.
• He said scrapping the penalties would encourage parents to pay what they actually owed.

Education: "Slim pickings"

• "Slim pickings", as RNZ Education Correspondent John Gerritsen put it - with no extra money for early childhood services or most tertiary institutions.
• Schools will get an operations funding increase of just 1 percent.
• However, as outlined in an earlier announcement, the Government will spend $243 million over four years for seven new schools and expansion at others.

Health: "Flat-lining"

• The Government will spend $76 million of new money on palliative care for the terminally ill over the next four years.
• It has already announced $98 million over four years for more elective surgery.
• There is no funding to take a bowel cancer screening programme in Auckland nation-wide - although funding for the scheme in Auckland will continue.
• Overall, year-on-year, the health sector budget has increased by $311 million.

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