Budget 2026 - disability related initiatives
Budget 2026 includes a range of initiatives that may be relevant to disabled people.
This is not a definitive list, and Whaikaha is not the lead agency for most of these initiatives. They have been identified in the Summary of Initiatives for Budget 2026 (Treasury website) external URL .
Education
Learning Support – Deaf Education Volume Pressure
This initiative, allocated $3.04 million over 4 years, provides funding for volume pressures for Deaf education services in schools, and for Deaf parents to access interpreters to attend more educational events.
Learning Support – School High Health Needs Fund Volume Pressure
This initiative, allocated $21.991 million over 4 years, provides funding for teacher aide support for an additional 100 eligible students with a significant health condition to attend school, and funds 1 full-time equivalent to support the timely processing and assessment of applications.
Further Literacy and Maths Support
This initiative, allocated $131.593 million over 4 years, provides funding to further strengthen teaching and learning as part of achieving the Government’s target of 80 per cent of students being at curriculum level by 2030. Areas receiving additional investment include Mathematics and Pāngarau, Writing, Literacy and Professional Learning and Development. This is targeted towards students in Years 0-10.
Children
Ready to Learn – Children in Care
This initiative, allocated $12.093 million over 4 years, provides funding for measures to support children and young people in care to attend and engage at school. These children are more likely to experience enrolment issues, change schools frequently and gain low-to-no secondary qualifications compared to other students.
Reports of Concern – Meeting Service Demand and Improving Service Efficiency
This initiative, allocated $90.516 million over 4 years, provides funding to respond to an increased number of Reports of Concern (formal notifications to Oranga Tamariki that a child or young person could be at risk of harm or in need of care), and to implement measures to help respond to Reports of Concern more efficiently.
Specialist Care Responses – Supporting the Increasing Numbers of Children with Complex Needs
This initiative, allocated $94.323 million over 4 years, provides Oranga Tamariki funding for additional staffed care placements for the increasing number of children with high and complex needs. It will also enhance the range of care responses and intensive clinical services to prevent escalation of needs and placement breakdowns, providing better outcomes for children and their families.
Housing*
Accommodation Supplement – Increasing the Maximum Rates
This initiative, allocated $374.347 million over 4 years, provides funding to increase the maximum rates for the Accommodation Supplement in all areas by between $10 and $30 per week from 1 April 2027. This increase in support helps reduce rental costs for households in the private accommodation market and improves equity and incentives across those receiving housing subsidies.
Housing Flexible Fund – Further Investment for Social Housing and Other Housing Solutions
This initiative, allocated $69.238 million over 4 years, provides funding to support the delivery of up to 2,250 social homes and other housing solutions which will be delivered over a two-to-three-year period starting from 2028/29.
*These initiatives are part of an integrated package of housing initiatives: Delivering fairer social housing - Beehive website external URL
More initiatives
SuperGold Card – Official Form of Identification
This initiative, allocated $6.46 over 4 years, provides funding to introduce a version of the SuperGold Card that can be used as an official form of identification, meeting a need for older people who have difficulty accessing supports that require photo identification, such as banking services. The rollout of the upgraded card is expected from October 2028.
Veterans’ Affairs Cost Pressure
This initiative, allocated $6 million over 4 years, provides funding for additional personnel to ensure Veterans’ Affairs can meet new legal obligations from a High Court decision and process claims under section 15 of the Veterans’ Support Act 2014.
Veterans’ Entitlements Arising from Retrospective Declarations of Qualifying Operational Service
This initiative, allocated $61.406 million over 4 years, provides a one-off non-cash increase to the Crown’s Veteran’s Entitlements Liability. This increase allows the Crown to meet its Veterans’ Support Entitlement Obligation to personnel from past or current qualifying operational service deployments.
Common Operating Picture: Strengthening Emergency Management Sector – Operational Systems
This initiative, allocated $9.742 million over 4 years, provides funding to procure and deliver a real-time intelligence platform, operational tools for coordination during an emergency event, and an upgraded National Warning System. This will improve the effectiveness of emergency management response and recovery efforts across New Zealand. Part of this funding is held in contingency. The contingency figures have been withheld due to commercial sensitivities.
Charities and Not-for-profits – Taxation and Changes to Settings
This initiative, allocated $1.89 million over 4 years, introduces changes to the charities and not-for-profit sector, including:
- increasing the effective tax-free threshold for taxable not-for-profits to $10,000 of net income
- allowing in-year donation tax credit refunds in certain circumstances
- allowing donors the option of transferring their donation tax credit directly to a charity
- allowing not-for-profits to treat honoraria as salary or wages.