Govt to consider additional measures to ease cost of living pressure

Cabinet this afternoon will be considering additional measures to help ease the pressure on struggling families.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Breakfast the Government was aware families were "absolutely feeling" the "wicked, perfect storm" of economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

New Zealand currently has the fifth most expensive groceries in the OECD and Kiwis are seeing prices at the pump rise.

"That is why Cabinet today will be considering additional things that we can do to try and ease the pressure," Ardern said.

"We're particularly concerned by those incredible increases we're seeing at the pump as a result of war in Ukraine."

Ardern said the Government has had concerns about the rising cost of living since last year. She explained that is why benefits are going up in April.

Main benefits will increase more than 3%. The Winter Energy Payment is also starting again in May and ends in October.

"In a week we've had incredible increases at the pump and we know that will be causing a lot of pain," Ardern went on to say.

"We cannot expect people to be able to change all of their travel habits around transport as quickly as we're seeing those prices increase."

Ardern said the Government wants to move quickly to introduce any additional measures to ease cost of living pressure.

"The war is impounding an already existing problem that we had globally with pandemic recovery. It's created this wicked, perfect storm … We were hearing this before now as well. We wouldn't have that package of initiatives coming in on April 1 if we didn't already have a concern around the cost of living," she said.

"What we're looking at now is what in addition we can do on top of that. That April 1 package is a significant one for many of our low, middle income earners but at the same time we are particularly concerned about what's happening to petrol prices."