E tū, Aotearoa’s largest private sector union, says Budget 2026 keeps the care and support system in crisis and offers nothing to fix the wages and conditions driving workers out of the sector.
The Budget banks a $400 million health underspend that came out of community and residential support services, the parts of the system that pay home support, aged care and disability support workers. It does nothing to restore the pay equity stripped from those workers last year, and it finds billions for the next stage of the Government’s defence plan, for roads, and for prisons.
The only measure for home support workers is the previously announced temporary increase in mileage rates. That increase does not cover the inflated costs, and it disappears once the Government decides fuel prices have settled. The funding model that forces these workers to run their own cars for the job, which Health NZ admits is structurally flawed, is left untouched.
The Budget also leaves the rest of the workforce behind. After a year of factory closures and job losses across the regions, there is nothing here to keep manufacturing jobs in the country or to support the workers losing them. The Government is spending heavily on roads, prisons and defence while its own forecasts show unemployment climbing to 5.5%.
Gisborne home support worker and E tū member Monique Behan-Kitto says the Budget is a blow to the sector and the people it cares for.
“It’s really disappointing. This Budget isn’t addressing the needs of older Kiwis, or the people who work in the sector. There’s the underfunding, the understaffing, the cost of travelling,” Monique says.
“It’s squeezing us even harder and making us the working poor. It’s a struggle living week to week. It’s a big F-U to us, really.
“A week’s rent in Gisborne is huge, and full-time work is hard to find here. I love my job and I’m absolutely passionate about it, but I’m seriously thinking of going to Aus in the next year or two.
“We need to vote in a Government that’s actually going to invest in aged care and the people who work in it. We’re going to lose people like me to Aus, and if we don’t change the Government, it’s only going to get worse.”
E tū Director Amy Hansen says the Government made the wrong choice.
“Last year this Government stripped pay equity from the women who hold our care system together. This year it could have put the $400 million health underspend back into the services it came from. Instead it banked the money to make its books look better,” Amy says.
“The Government says this Budget is about security. There is no security for an older person who cannot get the care they need, or for a home support worker who cannot afford the petrol to reach them. It found billions for military hardware, but it could not find the money to pay the people who hold our care system together, even when that money was sitting right there.
“You cannot run a safe care system on poverty wages and worn-out goodwill, and there is nothing here to turn that around.
“Right across the country, our members have watched factories close and good jobs disappear this year. This Budget could have backed those workers and the towns that depend on them. Instead, they’ve chosen roads and prisons, and left the regions to fend for themselves.
“The surplus the Government is celebrating is built on hope. It assumes a war in the Middle East will be a short blip, and that health, ACC and others will find billions in savings. Treasury’s own risk documents say none of that is guaranteed. If those bets go wrong, it will be workers and the families already going without who pay the real price.
“This Budget was written to protect the Government. It was not written to protect the people who keep this country running.”