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I started to write about the budget a week after its reading in parliament but scrapped it, deciding it was too late. Then, in the Weekend Herald, an article appeared on the topic from Bruce Cotterill. A lot of what he said reflected the points I was making. Bruce described it as a boring budget, but boring in the right way. I agree with his reasons: this boring budget is reflective of the current economic climate.
As Bruce points out, an election year lolly scramble was not on the table. Nicola Willis told us there wouldn’t be one and she stayed true to her word. This was in sharp contrast to Grant Robertson’s ‘wedding’ budgets where money was thrown around like confetti. He was married to the idea of putting the country into hock; no matter that at some point down the track we would have to divorce ourselves from such intimacy with irresponsible monetary spending. In this budget Willis proved herself to be the divorcee and the apostle of commonsense.
There were no ‘giveaways’ in this budget. What money there is has been put where it was needed most, including health, education, roads and rail. Notably defence received a boost: not enough but it never is. The bloated public service got a shave in terms of staff numbers. I would argue it was more like a number-one haircut that was required. Only the other day the ever vigilant Taxpayers’ Union found Oranga Tamariki employed 815 more staff than the number of children in its care.
Another saving in this budget is no money being wasted on the Paris Accord. We were giving $1.3 billion, projected to drop to $100 million for the next three years, but instead there is...nothing. I’m certainly excited about that.
As Bruce points out in his article, the usual suspects are not happy. The Public Service Association and the unions are in a tizz because the bloated outfits they represent are being, in their words, “pared back to the bone”. The truth is a lot of the ‘fat’ is being removed from various departments. The left aspire to the ‘big is beautiful’ mantra, which means an expanded public service employing far more staff than are required.
Of course the Māori weren’t happy either, with iwi leaders calling the budget “economic apartheid”. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. How about they start paying taxes on their business earnings like the rest of us do? How about they stop rorting the system at every opportunity? How about they stop screwing the meaning of the Treaty to suit their narrative? How about getting their young people into work? How about attending to the excessive amounts of domestic violence, particularly in relation to their mokopuna? How about owning up to their failures rather than blaming them on everyone else?
The current economic times are hard on everybody, including Māori, and the budget reflected that. A responsible government has to be careful when it comes to appropriating money – our money – and ensuring it goes where it can have the most impact in terms of the future good of the country. There is still work to do. Further cuts can be made in the public sector, we should extricate ourselves from the climate change nonsense, the government should tighten up on welfare, ‘drill baby drill’ should become a priority and excessive handouts to the descendants of the ‘moon and stars’ canoeists must cease.
I give Nicola an eight out of 10 for her budget. She kept the confetti in the box and the rabbits in the hutch. Money went to those areas of the economy where it could have the greatest economic impact. It can be argued how good it was in terms of balancing the books, but to my mind it was a budget for the times.
