Students Are Drowning: AUTSA Categorically Opposes ACT’s Minimum Wage Freeze Release
by Auckland University of Technology's Students' Asso · SCOOPAUTSA categorically opposes ACT’s proposal to freeze the minimum wage and reduce the youth training rate.
Students are drowning under the cost of living. They are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table, get to campus and meet the basic costs of getting an education.
At a time when students desperately need a lifeline, freezing the minimum wage risks pushing their heads further underwater.
The scale of student hardship is already significant. Earlier this year, RNZ reported that the number of students using a foodbank at AUT had risen from around 100 in 2020 to more than 1,800 in 2025, with around three quarters of those students being international students.
AUTSA President James Portegys said those figures should serve as a wake up call to anyone proposing policies that hold down the incomes of low paid workers.
“Students are drowning. They are struggling to stay afloat, and ACT’s answer is to freeze the wages of some of the people who can least afford it. Students need a lifeline, not another weight around their ankles.”
“We have seen the number of students using a foodbank at AUT go from around 100 in 2020 to more than 1,800 in 2025. That should tell us everything we need to know about the financial position students are already in.”
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“You cannot solve student poverty by holding down students’ incomes. When rent, groceries, transport and virtually every other basic cost continues to rise, freezing someone’s wage means asking them to go backwards.”
“If a student can work, study and do everything we ask of them and still have to walk through the doors of a foodbank to eat, the problem is not that their wage is too high.”
“For years, students have been trying to keep their heads above water as the cost of living has risen around them. Freezing the minimum wage does nothing to lower that water. It simply makes it harder for students to stay afloat.”
“We are particularly concerned about students who already face barriers in the labour market. International students make up around three quarters of those using a foodbank at AUT. Disabled students, international students and young workers should not be expected to carry the burden of policies designed to reduce labour costs.”
“A low wage economy is not something New Zealand should aspire to. Students deserve the opportunity to work, study and actually afford to live.”
“Students are already making impossible decisions between food, rent, transport and their education. There is only so much you can cut from someone’s weekly budget before there is simply nothing left.”
“AUTSA will categorically oppose this policy. Students are already underwater. Freezing the minimum wage while their living costs continue to rise risks dragging them even further down.”
“Students do not need their wages frozen. They need some breathing room. When the cost of everything else keeps rising, standing still means sinking.”
AUTSA believes addressing student hardship requires improving students’ ability to meet their basic living costs and access meaningful employment, rather than suppressing the incomes of low paid workers.
Students are already struggling to stay afloat. Government policy should be focused on helping them get their heads above water, not adding another weight around their ankles.
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