While the government carries on about the necessity of continuing to tighten belts to make life better for those in the future, and goes all gooey-eyed at the prediction of an earlier-than-expected return to surplus, an ever-increasing number of New Zealanders are unable to pay their bills and are becoming homeless.
Yet, just last week the government confirmed it wanted to get rid of around 8700 more public servants in the next three years. It has shown callous disregard for many thousands of others who have lost their jobs and for the repercussions that has had on their families and communities.
There are so many obvious disconnects with reality among the occupants of the Treasury benches that, just over five months away from the next election, they seem even more out of touch than ever.
Earlier this week, Deputy Prime Minister and Act NZ leader David Seymour gave us the soundbite that this would be a ‘‘tough-love Budget’’. At the Petone plant printing yesterday’s lacklustre documents, before the paua pies, Ms Willis appeared happy to go along with his synopsis.
Yesterday, however, there was little mention of ‘‘tough love’’ from the government benches. In fact, Labour leader Chris Hipkins made the point in his reply that there was no ‘‘love’’ of any sort in the Budget.
Instead, Ms Willis’ word of the day seemed to be ‘‘responsible’’, in her mind apparently as far as you can get from the ‘‘Band-Aids’’ and ‘‘sugar hits’’ which she also referred to negatively several times.
She and her colleagues are clearly weak at the knees over the Treasury’s forecasts that show the country crawling out of the red by 2028-29. However, Ms Willis at least accepts that rosy scenario is based on the current inflated fuel prices being just a temporary problem, which could possibly be the case but realistically is unlikely to be.
Just to be prepared, the Budget has set aside a $450 million rainy-day fund as a financial contingency, a buffer if the oil shock carries on due to war in the Middle East.
It’s encouraging that health is getting $5.8 billion of new money, with $5.5b of that to be spent over the next four years on frontline services. Interestingly, the highly contentious Waikato University New Zealand Graduate School of Medicine gets $80.5m in capital funding, which comes as another slap in the face for Dunedin and the Otago Medical School.
There is also more in the kitty for education, with a $2.1b programme which the government says will strengthen parts of the curriculum, double the number of places for those seeking trade skills, allow for more than 230 new classrooms and redevelop about 10 schools.
Already announced are large amounts for defence — $2.3b in capital investment and $1.2b for operational funding. Foreign affairs, NZ First leader Winston Peters’ ministry, has picked up extra funding for foreign aid, increasing it by $116m to $1.2b, as well as receiving $275m in new operational funding across the next four years.
It would be fair to say this feels more like a Budget aimed at the North Islanders than those living beyond the windswept bluffs of Wellington’s south coast. After all, it is they, and particularly Auckland voters, who will largely determine if National is the majority party after the November election.
However, Ms Willis did mention a handful of South Island locations when it came to $150m of highway upgrades to make them less vulnerable to severe weather, slips and flooding. There was Milford Sound and Te Anau, Hāwea and Haast, Cromwell and Kingston, along with the Tākaka Hill.
Unsurprisingly, there appeared no significant funding to encourage big business to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to do something about what’s driving that extreme weather.
It’s been a bad week for the government, one in which its optics have been well off-track on several fronts.
Little from yesterday has changed that.
