There is no money for - well, there is money for the important stuff. You’ve got the schools and the classrooms, and the hospitals, and the Waikato Expressway, and Winston Peters’ pet projects.
But everywhere else, there is just no new money. It is tight.
Now, that is exactly how it should be. And in fact, I would say this still doesn’t go far enough.
For the third Nicola Willis Budget in a row, it isn’t tight enough because we haven’t even hit our debt peak yet. We are still going up that peak mountain. That is still two years away, which means that interest payments are already at $9 billion and they’re only going to go up.
It’s going to take us to about 2040, roughly, before debt is back to where Bill English left it as a proportion of GDP.
And that is just the most optimistic scenario. The rest of the scenario is basically never getting back down to where Bill English left it.
Nicola Willis is making a virtue today of the fact that she’s getting the books back in black by 2028/29, which she says is earlier than expected.
But that is a little bit of game-playing that’s going on, because it was always going to be 2028/29 until December.
Then in December it changed, then it became 2029/30. Now it’s just been brought back again to where it was about six months ago.
And that is only, by the way, because Nicola Willis is using a made-up measure, OBEGALX, which makes surplus appear a year earlier than the standard old measure, which basically would have had surplus arriving only in 2030 or thereabouts.
And by the way, all of this is a broken promise, because Nicola Willis promised the country that if you voted for National at the last election, she would have the books back in the black.
When? Today. This year.
But after three Budgets, I think we’ve learned to temper our expectations on that front.
Now, on the bright side though, she has decided to borrow $6 billion less than she had planned to. I will take that.
And while there is a lot of poor spending that continues, at least there isn’t new, more poor spending.
And for that, I suppose you have to give the Budget a solid holding-pattern score of 6 out of 10.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and radio broadcaster who hosts Newstalk ZB's weekday Drive-Time Show – where this article was sourced.
6 comments:
It's a good budget, but i could have done a much better job.
There are srill billions to be saved. They didn't do it.
However, The woke far left dei losers are out in force as there there is no money for puberty blockers or lbqgt for hamas, in this budget.
So yes a good budget - logical, sound, fiscally responsible, makes complete sense....just not to the stupid left.
She should be applauded! She’s doing her best to take money away from the needy to fund landlords and smaller, less useful, and more expensive ferries. I’d like to see you do better than that.
Well the readers at this site and Du Plessis sure were suckered by this phoney budget. There will be no surplus in 2028 / 29. The Treasury figures were not realistic economic forecasts. Instead what happened was bogus assumptions were made about oil prices plummeting, immigration rising and public servants disappearing to reverse engineer the surplus number and soundbite that Willis wanted to campaign on in the election. Treasury's own Long Term Fiscal Forecasts in September 2025 show no surpluses, only greatly accelerating debt. Since then the Iran war has worsened, not improved, these forecasts. The budget is a dishonest document that fudged numbers to give the Minister the headline she wanted. Shame on the NZ Treasury for becoming an untrustworthy institution.
Commentators seem to forget there’s two sides to every budget, revenue and spending. If there’s a deficit, the demand is always to reduce spending. Taking action on the other side of the balance sheet , increasing revenue by, say, raising taxes on the wealthy, seems never to be considered. Wonder why?
I would
get rid of working for families entirely
Cut all projects, grants, and funding for anything based on anyone’s race or ethnicity - all of it. (All races and ethnicities- if it carries a box asking what your race is it gets cut).
Reduced super for those still working. (& lowered the income tax to half for anyone still working over the age of 60….keep people in the workforce).
Enabled pre tax kiwi saver contributions to lower people’s taxable incomes.
Gotten rid of ACC - it isn’t working for any of us. Replace it with tax deductible income protection insurance, and.return peoples rights to sue for gross negligence that leads to someone’s serious incapacity. (There are some things the Aussies and yanks get right - their workplace safety records are way better than ours because of this right that workers have.)
I’d reduce all road user taxes (except for trucks going long distance.)This would do a few things - reduce the immediate cost of living in all areas for everyone. But it would also act a protective racket for kiwi rail to keep shipping freight by rail and keep big long haul trucks off our roads.
I’d cap council rates and council functions - rubbish, water, local roads, libraries, parks, and administrative duties like building permits etc….nothing on events/ feels, iwis, ceos and senior staff get pay caps and have to work for a bonus like in the private sector …they have to deliver something of value to ratepayers to get more money out of them.
I’d also aim to cut the public by 1/3rd by first nit replacing anyone who is retiring, not opening any new headcount roles….all new roles must be sourced using existing staff or ai.
I’d fire anyone who can’t explain how their job adds value to taxpayers in 20 words or less.
I’d also eliminate all dei and race based hires - every one of them.
But, but ... NZ music? Sob.
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