Normally a Budget can be the make or break for a Political Party, but with this unprecedented pandemic moment, this Budget will make or break the country.
We’ve all heard of the dreaded Mother of All Budgets when Ruth Richardson sacrificed the poor on the altar of Milton Friedman, this staggering $50billion dollar budget is the Mother and Father of All Budgets.
NGOs, Environmentalists and the progressive Left are crying out for this to be the massive reset that the climate crisis, housing crisis, poverty crisis and inequality crisis are all demanding.
On the Right they are still screaming Jacinda has taken over the country with a secret socialist coup and any day now private school children will be rounded up for re-education camps that the CTU have quietly built in the South Island.
And something about gun rights and tax cuts. The Right are all angry about those things too.
To be honest, no one is listening to the Right.
So as the economic armageddon from the post pandemic nightmare descends, what has the Government done to save us?
WINNERS:
Infrastructure – 8000 new state and social homes plus $1.2billion for Rail so that’s far better than the current situation, (would still like another 10 000 state houses on top of these new 8000). Health and education also pick up an additional $3.3b so the public services should be happy. They won’t be, but they should be.
Big Business – It’s all their socialist Christmas’s come at once. Marx is Santa, but he’s giving them the presents! So much money being poured into their forever hungry wallets. Yum yum yum. They will still be hungry in a months time.
Jobs – Green jobs, new jobs, job job jobs. If I had a dollar for every Government who said they would build jobs I’d have $50Billion! Tourism will get money to market us as plague free, but surely the infrastructure to quarantine people at the border is what is needed before we start marketing the country to the world? The wage subsidy plan will keep jobs in place and the plan is to save 140 000 jobs while creating 370 000 new jobs. That’s an extraordinary goal.
The Invisible – Maori ($900m), Pacifica (195m), students ($1.6b), hungry school children ($220m) and the disabled ($830m) all get huge chunks of money thrown at them, and that is righteous. When you consider how little these invisible parts of the electorate ever get, it’s about time they received some real attention and not the lip service they usually get.
Politics – Keeping $20b until the election is the pork barrel lolly scramble of all time. Not since the Treaty was signed in 1840 has there been so much blatant bribery of the country.
LOSERS:
Beneficiaries – They get a smack in the face. No real changes here, and it suggests that Labour doesn’t fear the newly employed having to deal with the toxicity of WINZ because they are planning to create 370 000 new jobs. Delusional optimism or outright denial, you choose.
New New Zealand – There’s nothing here that actually builds NZ towards a new sustainable vision with diversified markets. That’s not surprising really, Grant Robertson is Mr Ultra Cautious and while he will do what needs to be done to stop NZ sliding into dystopia, he doesn’t have the imagination to build utopia.
Climate – Pffft. The climate gets bugger all, if we were honest, this budget probably speeds global warming up.
Peace – Thanks to the American Military Industrial Complex Franchise ‘RocketLab’ and NZ secretly signing a space deal with America to launch military satellites into space, NZ is a target for Chinese and Russian Subs sitting off the East Coast so that means we need planes that can drop torpedoes onto those subs. The NZDF is buying four P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft for that task and beefing up with almost $900m to buy new C-130J Super Hercules. With China and America standing off in the South China Sea and implicating each other in the pandemic, it looks like we might spend our money but not get the toys before the fighting starts.
CONCLUSION:
Grant & Jacinda have stopped the bleeding and will go some way to healing the nation, but in resetting NZ in the way it desperately needs? This isn’t the budget and it is a once in a lifetime missed opportunity. If we were all honest we would acknowledge this is about $15b more than what National would have spent.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot here that we should be grateful and thankful for in the budget, it will save hundreds of thousands of lives and is the largest undertaking any Government has had to attempt ever, but beyond the immediacy of the crisis and getting as many people back to work, it’s still in an environment of an inequality crisis, a housing crisis, a poverty crisis and a climate crisis.
Vote for Labour in September because they’ve earned your vote, but look elsewhere for the revolution.
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There ain’t going to be a revolution through a normal political system. New Zealand is too middling and comfortable. Anyone revolutionary won’t get to the treasury benches.
The only likely revolution in a traditional Che Guevara sense ain’t happening. There’ll be too few on board. Something to consider is that such a revolution won’t be favouring the good of the people in a traditional socialist sense. The guns, arms and lunatic notions are in the hands of right wing nutcases.
Oui, I resemble that comment. I am often called a knutjob, I am heavily armed (I think mostly legally) and I know I am surrounded by lunatics. I also think a revolution is close and nearly justified but hopefully not to socialism, it’s a system that always ends in tears. But I have never once voted right (as defined by TDB)
Hyperpartisanship shows a lack of understanding of others.
The wage subsidy extension runs out one week after the election.
Possibly as the benefits of the budget kick in.
At any rate,… there can always be an ‘extension of the extension’ covered by the budget. They are essentially interrelated.
Well, the coalition government will just have to spend that $20 billion election fund on a massive rewrite of the coalition agreement.
The COL will stay intact and will be govt after next election.
That agreement is a fiscally conservitive one. It now has to reflect new norms and fiscal liberalism.
Depends upon this country’s wage and salary earners in this country and around the world.
If there is mass discontentment, there may be changes afoot,… very few of us have experienced the Great Depression,… and this budget may become more than the norm , in fact other measures may need to implemented in future that weaken the neo liberal status quo.
Patience is required.
As you say wasted opportunity.
I guess the control file on Jacinda is as strong as it is on the rest of the politicians. Disheartening to say the least !
Set up your Fortress Aotearoa party Martyn, we need a genuine alternative to this timid right of centre Labour party.
I think in time, as it progresses, we might just see some of Fortress Aotearoa emerge. That would be the optimum, however, lets just wait a little bit and see….
The international money markets get a chance to part take too! The get to buy $57b worth of debt in bonds from the RBNZ! Adding that to the $236b that NZ already owes internationally! Woop! Woop!
So, all of this money is Capex or Opex? Business as usual or just feeding the machine? I suspect its mostly Opex business as usual with a note; “I hope this works for you!”
I think Cinders has spent most of her capital-dust by now when you take into account the butcherous handling of the ‘kinda legal’ lock-down and the in-house shenanigans happening down in Manurewa! And to add to that, the attack on Maori and Marae where the Gestapo can storm the gates at our Marae!
13 Maori Labour MP’s said waaa!! What wankers!
The $20b that Robo’s holding in reserve to buy this next election will be interesting to see where it will find a home or a bridge to prop up!
So John Key borrowed in excess of 200 million every week for a decade to support the welfare state and the attempted privatization of NZ and we came out of all that with degraded health and education infrastructure, mass poverty and a boot up the arse, – and you complain about this COL govt???
L0L !
This Government is borrowing a SHITLOAD more in 3 months than the last Govt did in 9 whole years and you think that’s funny?
Wooooww……… you must really hate NZers.
I hear your disgruntlement Denny Paoa, yet in all of your posts I have yet to see an alternative?
What are your alternatives and which party best suits those?
One should never say never but never will there ever be a revolution in this country that those on the far left of the political spectrum call for. It is just not the Kiwi way. What we witnessed today is as close as we have been to something akin to what Savage implemented following the great depression. The wee ship has changed course a few degrees though and the challenge will be to stay the course.
Very good words.
Desperate hopeless words.
Fear not, Kemosabe white man,…
I wonder if the large injection into rural ,environmental, and urban industrial jobs will have a spin off as more money is in the local community , and that unemployment and other benefits will need to be readjusted to real time costs of living. They are always the last in the queue , but can hardly be left behind in this environment.
As for the military spend up?… NZ is surrounded by thousands of square kilometres of ocean, with obligations throughout the greater South Pacific area, we should never have let our military shamefully degrade the way it has…our Navy and Air Force in particular,… as fishing , rescue and civil emergency relief operations are all part of the military’s field brief. They are not just there to conduct warfare.
I am hoping job creation and housing take off and exceed expectations. I believe those are the big ones to reset our nation, – and not just cluster housing in the already big centers but strategic growth plans for the rural areas, – as opposed to the ‘neo liberal minimum wage condensing the population into the big centers’ that sacked and plundered the rural areas.
Hopefully the injection into the rural sector will influence permanence and stability with those community’s once again. Diversification is key.
I believe the investment and final recognition and admittance into the importance of rail is more than welcome. It was the lunacy of the far right wing and their degradation of rail seeking investment opportunity’s via the trucking industry’s that let it downgrade,- now it is recognized that once again ( as it always should have been ) rail will be essential in domestic transport. And that will be important with such things as Shane Jones vision of a ”dry-dock facility and the development of a port in the Far North”…these are the sort of things that stimulate the local economy.
These are only a few things, but your statement : ”Vote for Labour in September because they’ve earned your vote, but look elsewhere for the revolution” may be a little premature as overturning 35 years of neo liberal austerity needs to take time, – far more time than a mere 3 year term, it will take longer than that. Patience is required.
I think the point is Labour don’t seemed to have even tried to do ‘what needs to be done’.
At least if they’d made some (MUCH NEEDED) changes and said more will be done later, they could have carried people ‘with them’ and also acknowledge the large problem (left by death cult capitalists).
However IMHO they have just come across as deaf. And if this ‘once in a century event’ can’t make them do what truly needs to be done for the 90+%’ers, than SADLY, NOTHING EVER WILL !
Bottom line, new boss, same as the old boss, ….except this one isn’t a traitor, or a financial lying crook. But still the same nett effect, bar a ‘feel good factor’ illusion.
If there was true P.R in this country, 5% threshold makes sure we can NOT have true P.R, then there might be a genuine left wing part worth voting for. Presently it’s the better of two ‘evils’.
The budget isn’t all the spending announced yet. As a Labour Party member, I think the current welfare and tax settings need to be adjusted/fixed and have pushed a lot for that through policies and at conferences etc., but also that for major changes, they should be in Labour’s election manifesto to get a mandate first.
Yes , I can concur with much of that sentiment as in it was forced upon them and not done out of a genuine sense of overturning 35 years of ‘Big Rodgers’ little neo liberal games,…
But it has set a precedent ,… if this budget had not put an injection into areas sorely needed , – there indeed will have been a revolution , and not a particularly nice one. Govt’s around the world who have placed themselves in the neo liberals camp will be doing much the same,,, which will , have an psychological effect on wage and salary earners globally.
And the question will be asked, – , why couldn’t have this been done before when there was no threat to the economy?”…” why are we subject to the global elite and in effective financial servitude to them in such severe ways?”
It will stimulate the bold to again challenge the status quo in countless articles. Questions such as,… what use is the World Bank and IMF ,…who were originally formed by Keynesianist principles but were hijacked by the neo liberals in the mid 1960’s to become a tool for putting nations into debts they could never repay unless austerity measures were imposed upon them…which in turn stimulates the question : JUST WHAT is an ‘economy’ and WHO is it designed for?
Is it there for the 1% elite or is it deigned for the overall betterment of humanity?
These are the sorts of things that will be pondered by the egg heads and the high brows,…in NZ ?… we are a small component, but we are a link in the chain,…and its going to take a power to dismantle 35 years of unorthodox economic theory , in this country and others without the odious methods of violent revolution which brings more problems than its worth.
We need to be patient, – which is like scraping fingernails down the blackboard for those who want change and change NOW ! Our generations have never ever experienced what it is like to go through a Great Depression,…yet it may take just that to a lesser or greater extent to reset the way we do trade and economics. Only time will tell, but at least for now lets get on board and endorse what has been offered,…as the power and initiative has now been put in our camp and in those of other country’s…
It would be morbidly interesting to see what would happen around the world if govts do not do enough for their populations,…the threats of mass global unrest in the global citizenry…I suspect the powers to be would be forced to act in a way that will placate them,… and in doing so, give unwitting credence to the question:
‘JUST WHAT is an economy and WHO is it designed for?’
Yeah what this budget does is spent big to rescue dying capitalism, all paid for by the future surplus-value of the working majority. It doesn’t reset the vast gap between rich and poor. Nor reset production as sustainable. Nor reset the gov’t as a lackey of the US and China towards one that represents the interests of workers and not the tiny minority who rule the world. Yes, look for revolution in the working masses world wide who are paying the price for capitalism on its death bed in the ICU by having their lives sucked out of them.
Disappointed but not surprised they still haven’t fixed the welfare system and made it more humane.
Nothing radically transformational to see in yet another feel good budget from this government. Just investment in tired worn down infrastructure and a few tree plantings around the edges. Perhaps John Key and the previous successive governments are to thank for their decades long legacy of neglect and decay which the current government can pump billions of overseas borrowing into as a means to stimulate the economy and leave it for the future generations to never pay off. Probably the most radical reform will be this years Cannabis referendum. Especially as it becomes a more and more lucrative market to tap revenue from. Because if it makes money its got to be good for us.
Can you imagine the incredible amount of money generated by investing in the provinces, – especially the rural areas again? And a housing program rolled out to encourage working people both salary and wage earners to relocate to a revamped rural sector?
Things like a dry dock and port facility in Northland, – and a rail link to service that? , – let alone similar initiatives being replicated across the nation!
Yes there will be jobs, jobs, jobs, – and yes there will be a plan , plan , plan. Because this is precisely what NZ saw during the Mickey Joseph Savage years,… borrowing, and strategic development. Borrowing and strategic development that saw the building of the infrastructure we take for granted today. It was only through the economic blip and retrograde steps taken by ‘Big Rodger’ and his little neo liberal games that derailed that process.
If anything, this govt is getting its licks in early. Don’t think they will not be taking into consideration looming negative economic forecasts. Because they will. This budget , in all probability , will be one of a series of implementations and initiatives. To become too prematurely cynical is to not giving this govt a fair go. That is the sort of thing the National party’s leader indulges in.
Patience is required to see the effects of these roll outs,and major works do not happen overnight, we need to wait and see.
NOTHING has changed, the neolib settings remain, bail out, period.
Do you believe in wishes? If change is not achievable through democratic means then I to will truly believe that your greatest wish of all will come true, a bloody revolution will be yours.
Indeed, inevitable.
Yes, but the investment in NZ is greater than anything since ‘Big Rodger’ came along with his little neo liberal games, effectively this virus has forced this govt to back-peddle on any notions of continuing the neo liberal convenience offered up as a non excuse to effect any real change.
And as the economic Depression really starts to bite, … we just might be seeing more of the Michael Joseph Savage style way of thinking…
Patience required.
Marc Somethings have changed. And one of the best is the money being allocated for apprenticeships, tertiary education, and up-skilling. After the efforts of Bill English to demonise young New Zealand men as work-shy druggies – to enable importing exploitable labour – this is a offering them a sustainable future, and good.
I am so glad you had the courage to mention the plight of young men regarding the trades, I have a 24 year old son who is at a crossroads , tossing up becoming a plumber, or going to university and studying the earth sciences… my heart lept when I saw the budget with the 1.3 billion to trades and 1.1 billion allocated to green jobs…our young men need some good news. They really do. As the reality is, one day they will have wives/partners and then in all probability, children. And despite modern day role and gender confusion, it is still often the man who works and the women looking after the young children – which is the hardest of all jobs in my opinion.
And women being women , they naturally have a tendency towards academic achievement, the young men more inclined to tactile things like trades,… it is time our young men are given the boosts they need to do well.
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*Now , if we can just get rid of the ghosts of ‘Big Ruths’ Employment Contracts Act 1991 , – and set wages to an award rate,… our young men will no longer be conveniently viewed as ‘too drugged out to work’ by these stinking neo liberals who just want cheap imported labour to line their pockets….I can just imagine the screams and gnashing of teeth if we did,… but it wont be coming from our young men…they’ll be too busy earning a decent living to utter a sound…
Let us see how it works out sending city youth to work with hands.
The legacy stuff will come in the last term of this government. They are limited by trying not to alienate the centrist voters in an election year. If given a second term, their bravery will be decided by the numbers on election day. A close election will keep them risk adverse, a strong mandate will give them confidence.
Jobs to do pest control, ahem, Kiwis don’t like to get their hands dirty, get an immigrant in.
…’ Jobs to do pest control ‘ …
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No, no , no ! For Petes sake’s! – you’ve read it all wrong ! It reads ‘jobs to do far right wing pest control’…
Geez mate, get with the program !
What a joke this comment is WK.
REVOLUTION “a turn around”) is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due to perceived oppression (political, social, economic) or political incompetence.
Naivety comes to mind if some think a ingrained NZ political party was ever going to bring about a revolution.
A revolutions ground swell comes from the bottom not the top and especially not from those in power.
Like Marc says the neo liberal settings remain in place.
HUGE amount of money being created and guess what?
We all get the privilege of paying it back with interest!
There is no way around that. So how will we be paying it back if not via austerity?
Well, i guess rates & levy increases, new fees, ACC inceases, more fuel levies, maybe even gst increases…..
Pension age eligibility will increase maybe.
Anything and everything to drive inflation pressure
If the money was truly being “created”Ross it would just add to the money in circulation . ait only has to be paid back because it is not being created but borrowed . Someone else is creating it over there for us to borrow.
D J S
ohhh shit… sorry Charlie……I’m whinging again mate lol
Note to self: (must think positively for Charlie)
Like many on the Left I felt very disappointed by the lack of innovation in the budget. But then I remembered how we had put many millions of dollars up to promote gambling. I refer to the bailout of the horse racing industry. The suspicion I have isthat this was the price we had to pay to get winnie to approve of even this lacklustre budget.
How much is “many” though?
Consumers will be coming back to the streets half heated so revenue for next quarter will be at least half that of last years. Yknow we can give businesses a shot in the arm but there will be some that will fall flat after next month even with the smartest businesses minds in the universe there will be businesses that won’t make it. But by next quarter we will know which innovations are working and that will be the last chance to really put the foot down.
No there’s no revolution, but the romantics from the left with their idealistic ideas for change just expect too much. I’m from the right but almost feel sorry for Grant Robertson. He’s trying to save the present with not enough money to change the future. Those with their own map for the future don’t have to do his job. To save our country. In this situation JA is A meaningless poster in my view and GR could have run this country superbly. One of the few people with a brain in the Coalition. It’s too hard to half satisfy the population in the next three years. There will be economic unrest and pain for many that have never known hardship. Those couch critics that are on super with a roof over their heads like myself, are the lucky ones.
I haven’t read the above Post by awesome @ MB yet because I’m a bit too drunk to find my glasses. Other than the one I’m drinking from. Thank God that drinking glasses, unlike pairs of seeing glasses usually only come one at a time is all I can say and what not.
I think that Labour is trying to do it’s best by us. I really do. But it’s a bit fucked,see, because roger douglas, a humble pig exploiter ( Oh, the irony! Given Animal Farm/ George Orwell etc.) .
And the problem I have with roger douglas is that every time I write the Scunthorpe’s name I feel I give it oxygen.
For those of you who read here, be restful in the knowledge that AO/NZ is a powerful Global force and will be made all the more powerful because our farmers, so it is reported here, can feed forty million others and no matter where they are, provided they have funds because refrigeration fuckers.
Imagine a kingdom that is both wealthy and beautiful. Imagine jerry brownlee in spandex tights and wearing high heels and lipstick? Ha! See? Trick question…
Imagine a kingdom that has enormous wealth and the king and queen flounce about in lace frocks or designer jeans. Imagine…? But imagine also the terrible truth that the source of such riches which enable such excesses comes from that most dreadful and abominable and monstrous creature, the fama dahlings. Imagine? What a thing! Muds? Only for the rugby surely.
Not tourism. Not Ponsonby. Not fancy, flouncing nancies in their B EM Double ya’s while wearing the designer undies with those platinum iArse plugs that are surgically implanted up the bleached, international, multilingual anus Bluetoothing essential medical data back the iwatch? No.
Dirty old, hard working old, filthy old fama’s. Dahlings? ”
Cracked pepper with that uncomfortable truth Sir? Sir? Sorry… I think your arsehole’s txting you…? ”
You wonderful, beautiful, elegant, erudite city people? Living in your little bubbles. You have no idea, do you?
You have no fucking idea.
Oh look !? Here come the floor. Marvelous.
BTW. ” The four horsemen of the budget” Surely, the four horse persons ?
Fifty billion to maintain the status quo. It’s gone and it wont be coming back.
“Fifty billion to maintain the status quo”
So whats the alternative, surely not what Bridges had to say?
Good god no he would have us even more dependent on foreign supply chains. I was hoping for some autarky. No reason why we can’t invest heavily into our own industrial base and reduce our dependence on global supply chains.
Good god no he would have us even more reliant on global supply chains. I was hoping for some Autarky.
Alternative, a redirection to a green and sustainable future.
No surprises from Jacinda and her team of business-as-usual neoliberals; just more ‘investment’ in infrastructure which will have no utility in the not-too-distant future and continuing dependence on fossil fuels, along with continuing dependence on unsustainable international trade; zero preparation for the conditions -economic, social, energetic, energetic and environmental that will prevail the immediate future whilst exacerbating all the predicaments that will ensure there won’t be a future for the children of this nation.
No transformation, just short-term propping up…..until it all falls over.
Not that National would do better. They would just make matters worse faster while permitting fewer breadcrumbs to fall off the table into the mouth of the proles.
Choice between pest and cholera, I suppose.
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