Source: Radio New Zealand
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister Nicola Willis announcing the fuel support package on Tuesday. Samuel Rillstone/RNZ
Almost 150,000 families will receive an extra $50 a week for up to a year to help ease the pain from soaring petrol prices driven up by the war in the Middle East.
Speaking at a media conference at the Beehive on Tuesday, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said the relief would come through a boost to the in-work tax credit – part of the Working for Families scheme.
That means only low-to-middle-income workers who have children are eligible. It excludes beneficiaries, superannuitants and those without children.
“The policy is carefully targeted to families in the squeezed middle – parents who are working hard for a living, are not eligible for main benefits, and yet have modest household incomes with which to support their children,” Willis said.
“We know these families will be hit particularly hard by the global fuel-price shock. We are delivering them timely relief.”
The temporary increase would last for as long as one year, or until the price of 91 octane petrol dropped below $3 a litre for four weeks in a row, Willis said.
About 143,000 households would start seeing the full benefit in their bank accounts from 7 April, if they were paid weekly, or 14 April, if they were paid fortnightly. A further 14,000 households would receive the support but at a lesser rate.
In the current tax year, the cut-off for receiving the tax credit was around $89,000 of annual household income for a family with one child, $112,000 for a family with two children and $135,000 for a family with three children.
The policy was estimated to cost $373 million if it ran for a full year, or less if it did not, Willis said.
Willis said that cost would come out of the government’s operating allowance for this year’s Budget, meaning it had already been factored into Treasury’s fiscal forecast.
“Funding the policy this way will not add to forecast debt or inflationary pressures. It is consistent with the government’s fiscal strategy which seeks to balance the books and bend the debt curve down.”
Willis said the government could not relieve price pressures for all businesses and families who were feeling price pressures. She said “large, untargeted government spending programmes” could make the situation worse by driving up inflation and debt.
“The government is conscious that a careless response to this crisis could have long-lasting and painful consequences. We saw this in the aftermath of Covid, where excessive spending more than doubled debt and sent inflation soaring and mortgage rates skyrocketing. Kiwis are still grappling with the effects of that today.”
More to come …
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
LiveNews: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/03/24/fuel-crisis-package-nearly-150000-families-to-receive-50-a-week/