Peter Wilson: The Week in Politics - Reserve Bank raises OCR, Budget reaction continues

Ahead of Wednesday's Monetary Policy Statement there was much speculation about how the Reserve Bank would react to the government's budget spend-up.

Would it increase the Official Cash Rate by more than the expected 25 basis points? Would it say further hikes were needed because of the inflationary effect of increased spending?

Opposition parties warned that mortgage rates would be higher for longer, more pain for struggling homeowners.

They were eagerly awaiting anything that could be interpreted as "we're raising interest rates because of the budget".

None of that happened.

Cam Slater: Latest Poll Shows Labour’s Ship Sinking Slowly

The latest 1News/Kantar poll, and the last for the year has delivered nothing but bad news for the Ardern regime, inexorably sinking lower and lower with each month. They will start the political year next year well behind National and ACT.