New Zealand Government’s Wellbeing Budget creates Coronavirus Response and Recovery Fund

The New Zealand Government has announced a $50 billion COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund (CRRF) it 2020 ‘Wellbeing’ Budget.

Following principles announced in 2019, the budget, announced yesterday (14th May) focused on five key pillars - economic recovery, jobs, health, education and housing.

While the budget contained no specific reference to a recovery package for sport and recreation, which had been flagged by New Zealand Finance Minister Grant Robertson for several weeks, it mentions that “further announcements will be made over the coming weeks and months as we kickstart the economy and rebuild with a focus on a better New Zealand.”

Minister Robertson had previously advised “sport, recreation and play are vital for the health and wellbeing of our communities and we are committed to doing everything we can to support the sector, both at a grass-roots and elite level, into the future.”

A Sport NZ spokesperson told Stuff that “there is money for sport, and an announcement will be made in the coming days.”

Stuff reported that last week that “Sport NZ (has) announced a $25 million relief package targeted towards community and regional sport. The package included a $15million community resilience fund, with the view to helping financially stressed clubs and associations meet their fixed costs.

“The focus on grassroots level sport followed an initial package of support to national sports organisations (NSOs) and regional trusts announced early last month, which guaranteed 2020 funding levels will roll over into 2021 - a commitment of $70 million.

Both initiatives were the result of some creative accounting at Sport NZ HQ, utilising funds redistributed from other projects and cash reserves.

With regards to arts and culture, the 2020 Wellbeing Budget ensures that funding is available to preserve New Zealand’s taonga (treasure), celebrate its diversity and history and promote creativity. The package provides support for the local film industry and culturally significant historical collections, as well as ensuring the accessibility of public media platforms to diverse audiences, such as New Zealanders with hearing impairments and those from our Pacific communities.

Key initiatives in this area include:

• Saving the Crown’s Audio-visual Collections ($5.3 million operating total and $26.6 million total capital). The Crown’s audio-visual heritage content, including a diverse range of broadcast news, documentaries, films, music and oral histories, is stored in at-risk formats. The collection captures the issues and experiences of New Zealanders through the decades, unique cultural events and defining moments in our nation’s history. This initiative provides funding to ensure the preservation of this taonga for future generations.

• Sustaining Crucial Public Media Platforms ($25 million operating total). This initiative provides funding to support the work of public media platforms that deliver content to under-served audiences. This funding will support the sustainability of the Pacific Media Network (PMN), disability media (captioning and audio descriptions) and community access radio stations, helping ensure that all New Zealanders have access to vital media content.

• Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Cost Pressure ($6 million operating total). This initiative provides funding to adapt and open the Kate Sheppard House as a heritage and public education space. Funding provided by this initiative will also help ease financial pressures arising from increased insurance, information technology (IT), property management, accommodation and staffing costs.

• Tāhuhu: New Archives New Zealand Facility and Design of National Library Alterations and New Regional Shared Repository ($46.6 million operating total and $146.0 million total capital). This initiative provides funding for the construction and ongoing costs for a new Archives New Zealand facility, initial work to link this facility to the National Library of New Zealand, land purchase and design for a new shared repository for heritage materials.

Tāhuhu (Preserving the Nation’s Memory) will ensure the appropriate management of our physical documentary heritage and taonga by the National Library of New Zealand and Archives New Zealand and future proof the delivery of services.