We're calling for the Government to extend the Winter Energy Payment to students (AGAIN).

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Te Aka Tauira – Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA) has re-launched a petition calling on the Government to extend the Winter Energy Payment to include tertiary students. 

“Energy companies are announcing record profits whilst students are ending up sick in the hospital with respiratory illnesses such as pneumonia,” said VUWSA Welfare Vice-President Josh Robinson. “This is whilst the added pressure of the cost of living, and increased transport costs continue to mount.” 

The Winter Energy Payment is designed to help those struggling with rising living costs to keep their homes warm and dry during the coldest months in Aotearoa. Yet, tertiary students remain ineligible for this vital support — despite often living in some of the coldest, dampest, and poorest housing, and surviving on deeply strained incomes. Access to the Winter Energy Payment would ease the impossible choice students currently face; a warm home or affording the necessities. 

According to the People’s Inquiry into Student Wellbeing, two-thirds of students regularly go without enough money for basic necessities like food, clothing, power bills, and healthcare. Meanwhile, annual electricity prices have climbed by $120 since April 2024, and Aotearoa’s four largest energy companies reported a staggering $2.7 billion in combined profits last year. 

In 2024, nearly 1,000 students applied for Victoria University’s Winter Energy Grant, with the most common concerns listed being financial hardship and cold accommodation. 

The Winter Energy Payment, introduced in 2017 by the Labour Government, currently supports most beneficiary groups — except students. VUWSA believes this is an unjust oversight and is urging the Government to correct it. “Students deserve to live in warm, dry homes without sacrificing their health or skipping meals,” Robinson added. 

Te Aka Tauira is calling on all students, whānau, and supporters to sign the petition and support the push to end student poverty and energy hardship.

Sign the petition now on the ActionStation website.

Grand Theft Academia: Government Continues to Rob Young People of Their Futures

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Te Aka Tauira – the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA) is staggered by the Government’s failure to fund tertiary education, and failure to provide any meaningful support for students struggling through with the cost of living, a lack of jobs and  gutting of public services.

VUWSA President Liban Ali says, “This Budget fails students. Costs are rising, but support isn’t. Students are working longer hours to get by. Study is harder. Life is harder. We asked for help – the Government gave us nothing. Freezing student allowance thresholds is a cut by stealth.

This Budget ignores the student cost of living crisis. It makes it harder to live, and harder to learn. Once again, students have left behind. We deserve better, we won’t forget this.”  

This year’s Budget has nothing to offer students, with bread-and-butter initiatives being underfunded by the Government. Inflation adjusted, Budget 2025 has only made room for a measly 3% increase in student allowance funding and has also made it harder for young people to access the Jobseeker Benefit by introducing means testing.  

VUWSA is also concerned by the 20% reduction in funding for essential student loan management services while, as has been recently reported, students have already been facing increased wait times to access essential funds from StudyLink.

“It is disgusting to see the Government continue to overlook student poverty.” VUWSA’s Welfare VP, Josh Robinson says, “In the aftermath of the rise of public transport fares, increased energy prices, and cost of living, the Government is both setting a price on the human right to education and robbing it from us in broad daylight.”  

VUWSA is disheartened by the Government’s continued failure to adequately fund the Tertiary Sector. “Education is a public good.” said Academic VP Ethan Rogacion, “It is time that our Government starts acting like it.” This year’s Budget allows Universities to hike fees up to 6% and sets aside some funding for some STEM subjects but still comes at significant costs to students.  

“The Government has disestablished the PM’s Scholarship for Asia and South America from June, has made University more expensive, and has pitted faculties against each other by increasing funding for STEM at the cost of humanities subjects,” Rogacion says.

“Our Government has a responsibility to its students, to ensure that all young people can get an education that helps them achieve their goals, and does not merely push them into fields they deem to be economically useful.”

In addition, Engagement VP Aidan Donoghue adds, “To give with one hand, and take with the other, is not growth, it is stagnation. I am puzzled as to who or what this goal of growth is for?  It certainly isn’t for women, students, the poor, health or education?

“It's matter of choice, and this government is making active choices that undermine decades of social investment. The average student has thousands of dollars invested in them, and all the opportunities they’ve been promised have been ripped out from under them.”

VUWSA Spokespeople: