Iran war: Charitable trust acts to support workers hit by rising fuel costs
Monday, 20 April 2026
The Post’s Under The Pump series investigates how the global fuel crunch is disrupting New Zealand businesses - but more importantly, how they’re planning to survive.
Fuel prices are now permanently at or above $4 a litre on Auckland’s Waiheke Island, and it’s putting huge pressure on the island’s team of frontline healthcare workers.
But the charitable trust that operates the island’s medical centre and community health services is working to support them, and learning how to “do more with less”.
Waiheke Charitable Trust chief executive Jen Glover told The Post high fuel prices were nothing new for Waiheke.
The average cost of fuel on the island was always more expensive than anywhere else in the country, apart from Stewart Island, she said.
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“But the Middle East war-driven fuel crisis means it has gotten much worse recently, with fuel prices now permanently around $4 or above for a litre.”
High fuel prices had led the trust to build a fleet of electric cars for its nurses and occupational therapists, and it also had a shared hybrid vehicle for the rest of the staff.
Glover said investment in the fleet, which was built up over many years and enabled by community funding raising efforts, seemed particularly worthwhile in the current environment.
“While the higher costs stemming from the situation are difficult for us as an organisation, they are more painful for lower wage workers, including our team of home support workers.”
Those workers use their own vehicles to travel to their clients, and they fund the costs.
Until recently their mileage was reimbursed at 63.5 cents per kilometre but the Government has increased that by 30% for up to a year to help offset the cost of fuel prices.
Glover said the trust, which has 18 home support workers, did not think the 63.5 cent rate was fair - it was about half the IRD kilometre rate - and had been paying its workers at the IRD rate since 2024.
The trust had long prided itself on paying staff above the Health NZ rate, she said, but rising costs meant it recently gave support workers a 3% pay increase.
“Protecting staff from rising travel costs is critical to maintaining care in the community, and we wanted to recognise that they are the ones most feeling the pinch.
“We also went to the community to see if they could help us offset the costs our workers are facing, and local vendors responded with vouchers for things like free classes at a yoga studio and movie tickets.”
Glover said the trust did not want to pass increased costs on to its clients, so it was trying to wear them as much as possible - and hoping the crisis eased relatively soon.
But it was another reason the trust had decided to open up its fleet of electric vehicles to home support workers on the weekend, she said.
“The fleet is used by our nurses and allocated workers during the week, but we’re now operating a system for their use on the weekends, and it has come with a benefit.
“It has become much easier to roster staff on for the weekend as people are more keen to work when they don’t have to cover fuel costs.”
Times like this, along with the increasing number of severe weather events, highlighted the importance of looking at how to deliver services more sustainably, Glover said.
“We all need to learn how to spend less to achieve more, to think about what we use and how, and to stay local and self-sufficient where possible. That’s heightened on the island!”
The trust was exploring solutions, such as the introduction of an integrated health hub and telehealth options, so people did not need to go off the island for the services they needed, she added.