This is the livestream of the budget and a post to leave budget related comments.
- The Government will spend up to $50b fighting the Coronavirus crash with a massive injection of funding for jobs, training, and infrastructure.
- It doesn’t know how to spend all of the money it has set aside, only allocating $15.9b of the giant fund in Thursday’s Budget.
- $3.2b targeted extension to the wage subsidy scheme for a further eight weeks
- $3b in infrastructure investment with 8000 new public homes being built
- $1.6b for trades and apprenticeship training
- Treasury expects this spending to save 140,000 jobs over the next two years, but for unemployment to still bounce up to 9.8 per cent in September
- Total amount forecast to spent on Covid-19 recovery over the four-year forecast period is in fact $62b, but $20b of that remains unallocated.
- The school lunch programme is greatly expanded to cover 200,000 more children, at a cost of $220m. This is expected to create 2000 jobs. Question: Who fed the kids over the past 8 weeks?
- Social service providers like food banks get a $79m boost, community groups $46m, and family violence services $22m.
- $20m tertiary student hardship fund is established for this year.
- No changes to benefit rates or payments
- $5 billion house building effort is expected to roll out over the next five years, and $570 million in rent subsidies
- 8000 new state homes promised. Not sure how they can promise that given they couldn’t deliver Kiwibuild.
- Last year’s $7.4 billion surplus evaporate into deficit of $28b (9.6 per cent of GDP), followed by a $29.6b deficit in 2021, and $27.2b in 2022, and $16.5b in 2023.
- Labour delivers a decade of deficits for the second time.
- Books only return to surplus in 2028, when Treasury is forecasting a surplus of 0.1 per cent of GDP.
- Net core Crown debt will hit $200.8b in 2024, or 53.6 per cent of GDP, from just 19 per cent last year.
- Giving the Ministry of Social Development a $400m boost and investing $1.6 billion in Trades and Apprenticeships.
- Intends to rapidly retrain about 10,000 hospitality and aviation sector workers for primary sector jobs as part of Budget 2020’s investments in jobs and training.
- The funding is part of a $50b fund to respond to the Coronavirus crash and rebuild the economy; with $16b allocated on Thursday, $14b already spent, and another $20b available if needed.
- $1.2 billion has been set aside for NZ’s rail system and replacing the Cook Strait ferries.
- Packages for the media sector are still to be developed.
- A $400 million targeted tourism recovery fund and a domestic tourism campaign, alongside an extension of the Wage Subsidy Scheme.
- Sports and Arts luvvies will get a special package
- No significant tax reform in this budget and no tax cuts.
