Veterans Minister, Chris Penk, has announced a temporary increase in support for veterans to help ease fuel cost pressures for those needing to travel for treatment and rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
The Minister confirmed Veterans\u2019 Affairs will increase private vehicle mileage reimbursement rates for eligible treatment-related travel by 50%.<\/p>\n
\u201cGlobal fuel price volatility has hit household budgets, and the Government is looking closely at where these costs are having the greatest impact, particularly for Kiwis with limited transport alternatives,\u201d Mr Penk says.<\/p>\n
\u201cKiwis who have served our nation bravely, often at great personal sacrifice, should not be discouraged from accessing essential care during this period of elevated fuel prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a targeted, temporary increase to ensure veterans who receive support from Veterans\u2019 Affairs can continue to attend treatment, rehabilitation, and medical assessments for their accepted conditions while fuel costs remain high.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new rates will be:<\/p>\n
For veterans travelling under 200kms for a round trip in a private vehicle, the reimbursement rate will increase from 62 cents per kilometre to 91 cents per kilometre;<\/p>\n
For veterans travelling more than 200kms in a private vehicle, the reimbursement rate will increase from 27 cents per kilometre to 41 cents per kilometre.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere travel for treatment occurs by other means, full reimbursement will continue to be provided,\u201d Mr Penk says.<\/p>\n
The Minister said the temporary adjustment is expected to remain in place until the price of 91 octane petrol drops below $3 a litre for four consecutive weeks and will be kept under continual review by Veterans\u2019 Affairs, allowing the agency to monitor its impact and reassess settings as fuel prices change.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe increase is being funded from within Veterans\u2019 Affairs existing budget and is expected to have a negligible fiscal impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot control the effect of global conflicts on oil markets, but we can make sensible decisions to ease pressure on those who need support most, including the Kiwis who served in defence of our nation, our interests, and our way of life,\u201d Mr Penk said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veterans Minister, Chris Penk, has announced a temporary increase in support for veterans to help ease fuel cost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":["post-417132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}