Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi – 
It has been a year since National was elected for a third term and since then we have been working hard for New Zealand families.
On July 1, all children aged under-13 became eligible for free GP visits, after-hours services, and free prescriptions. The uptake of the scheme has been fantastic.
In the months since its launch, 98% of general practices across the country offer free GP visits, covering 99% of children under 13 year of age. \
Improving health
Additionally, more children are being immunised and receiving health checks before they start school. Latest results show that 93% of eight-months-olds received their full immunisations and a record 92% of eligible four-year-olds received free B4 School Check, which identifies and addresses any potential health or developmental problems at an early stage. Meanwhile rheumatic fever rates continue to fall dramatically with 24% decrease in first episode hospitalisations since 2012.
As part of this year’s Budget we delivered a $790 million package to help children living in some of New Zealand’s poorest families.
The package includes a balanced mix of greater work expectations for solo parents.
It also includes $25 a week increase in benefit rates for families with children – the first time since 1972 that benefit rates have increased by more than inflation.
Working For Families
We are also lifting Working For Families payments and providing more childcare support for low-income families to help parents into work, education or training. These changes will make a real difference by allowing parents to better provide for their children.
In addition, from the start of July, families have been benefitting from an increase in paid parental leave payments to $156.85 a week. This follows from policies which began on April 1. The policies have also been helping more families including paid parental leave increasing by two weeks, to 16 weeks; it will increase by another two weeks from April 1, 2016. The parental tax credit rose from $150 a week to $220 a week, and the entitlement will increase from eight weeks to 10 weeks.
Motor Vehicle Levy
The average ACC motor vehicle levy (including the annual licence levy and petrol levy) is expected to drop to around $120 from 2016, saving New Zealand families a wad of cash.
This is on top of the already confirmed reduction, from around $330 currently to $195 which commenced on July 1 this year.
Since 2012, ACC levy reductions have saved New Zealanders around $1.5 billion and we have just announced another $500 million of indicative reductions as part of the upcoming Budget. That is $2 billion in total for New Zealand businesses, workers, and motor vehicle owners to keep in their pockets.
HomeStart Scheme
Our HomeStart scheme, which came into force from April 1, is helping more Kiwis into their first home. The $418 million scheme has been projected to help 90,000 people over the next five years. So far, the feedback on this policy has been extremely positive and the uptake has been encouraging.
Families are also being helped by an economy which is continuing to grow.
There were 69,000 new jobs created in the 12 months to June 2015.
The services sector, which includes tourism, has seen 35 months of straight growth.
We have also had 11 straight quarters of job growth, with 69,000 more jobs in the last year.
The average annual wage is now over $57,000 for the first time; that is $10,000 more than when National first came into office.
National is sticking to its plan to continue supporting our families so that they can live happy, healthy, prosperous lives.
Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi has been a Member of Parliament on National List since November 2008. He is also currently Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Law & Order.
