Finance Minister Grant Robertson has tried to walk a tightrope of helping the back pocket of struggling Kiwis without doing anything to increase inflation, the 1News political team says.
The scrapping of the $5 prescription co-payment fee, extension of 20 hours free early childhood education and free or cheaper public transport for young people will grab the headlines, as Robertson looked for ways to help those struggling with the cost of living.
There’s $1.2b less in extra spending than last year as New Zealand grapples with the cost of the cyclone rebuild, while not stoking inflation.
The 1News political team say concerns over inflation have cramped the Finance Minister's style. (Source: 1News)
“There’s not a lot of discretionary spending here,” Political Reporter Cushla Norman said.
“80 per cent is keeping the lights on because of cost pressures and inflation. It’s quite a bit less than last year – about $1.2b overall, they are clearly tightening their belts.”
Norman pointed out that while NZ was dealing with the aftermath of climate-fuelled disasters, there wasn’t a whole lot of cash for combating climate change.
“What we’ve seen the Government do is try and target areas of not pushing up inflation
“What I can see is they are spending billions of dollars, there’s $6 billion going to resilience, patching up after these weather events which are climate change fuelled, but there’s not the same amount of money being directed into reducing emissions,’ she said.
“The biggest investment I can see on ways to reduce emissions is $300m, that’s what they are spending in the green investment fund, which is essentially a bank, it’s loans to help companies decarbonise. The question for the climate change minister is ‘have you got that balance right?’ Because it seems they are doing a patch-up job but not tackling the problem.”
Inflation concern
Political Editor Jessica Mutch McKay said there were no big surprises.
“What we’ve seen the Government do is try and target areas of not pushing up inflation, try and target things for New Zealanders that they are already spending money on.”
Colleague Benedict Collins pointed out that while free public transport fares for under-13s and half-price for under-25s was good for them, older New Zealanders would see half-price public transport coming to an end shortly.
“They are going to lose that half price subsidy that they’ve grown accustomed to, like myself, some people are going to see their cost of living jump up.”
Follow live coverage of the Budget on TVNZ1 from 2-4pm and on 1News.co.nz throughout the day.
SHARE ME