Nicola Willis Must Act Now: Home Support Workers Are Subsidising The State With Their Own Petrol – Te Pāti Māori
If essential workers are forced to subsidise the system just to do their jobs, then the system itself is already failing. The question now is how long the Government expects them to carry that burden alone.
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer is calling on Nicola Willis to urgently increase mileage reimbursements for home support workers, warning that thousands are effectively subsidising essential healthcare services out of their own pockets.
Why home support workers are under financial pressure
Te Pāti Māori MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer is calling on the government to urgently increase the mileage reimbursement rate for home support workers, after meeting with four Wellington workers this week who laid bare the impossible position this government has put them in.
“These wāhine told me what their week looks like. Juggling back-to-back clients across Wellington, keeping their cars warranted, registered, insured, and serviced all out of their own pockets while being reimbursed 63.5 cents a kilometre. A rate that hasn’t moved since 2022. A rate that was already inadequate before petrol hit $3 a litre.”
The real cost of travel for care workers in NZ
“They cannot carpool. The nature of their work moving between the homes of elderly and disabled people, often at different times, in different suburbs makes that impossible. So, every kilometre, every litre of petrol, every warrant of fitness comes out of wages that were already too low.”
“And this government has the nerve to call itself fiscally responsible while 23,000 home support workers are quietly subsidising the delivery of essential health services with their own money.”
Impact on vulnerable communities and care services
Ngarewa-Packer says the workers she met were not just worried about themselves, they were worried about their clients.
“That’s the kind of people these workers are. Sitting there, telling me about their own financial stress, and in the same breath asking: what happens to my kuia, my kaumātua, my disabled client if I can’t afford to keep doing this job? Who is going to care for them?”
“The answer this government is giving them right now is silence.”
Why the Government can act immediately
The mileage rate is governed by the Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Act 2016. The Minister of Health has the power to direct an increase immediately no legislation required, no delay justified.
$45.7 million: workers subsidising the system
In 2025, Health NZ estimated it would cost $45.7 million per annum to bring reimbursement up to the IRD rate.
That means home support workers across Aotearoa are collectively putting in $45.7 million of their own money every year just to reach their clients.
“This government stripped these same workers of their pay equity pay rise last year to balance its books. Now, as the fuel crisis bites, it is asking them to absorb that cost too. Enough is enough.”
“Home support workers are essential workers. They are the reason vulnerable people can stay in their own homes with dignity. It is long past time this government treated them that way starting with an urgent, meaningful increase to the mileage rate.”
“The government has a review due before 20 May. I am calling on the Minister to act before then. These workers cannot wait until May. Their clients cannot wait until May.”
