Budget 2026: National Fails Final Test – Labour
Barbara Edmonds says Budget 2026 was National’s last chance to prove it had a plan. Instead, families get higher rents, job cuts and more pressure.

Barbara Edmonds says Budget 2026 was National’s last chance to prove it had a plan. Instead, families get higher rents, job cuts and more pressure.

Banks get a joke tax. Landlords keep their loot. Beneficiaries, students, tenants and public servants get the bill. Budget 2026 is class warfare with spreadsheets.

State tenants pay more. Students lose Fees Free. Beneficiaries are squeezed. The rich remain protected. This is not a recovery Budget, it is punishment with a sermon attached.

David Seymour thinks councils can be bribed into fixing housing. Dave Bainbridge-Zafar says the real blockage is in Wellington, where state housing has been abandoned for market theatre.

Luxon says he is committed to New Zealand’s Paris climate target. Budget 2026 shows no plan to meet it and no honest accounting for the potentially massive bill.

Higher rents, fewer public servants and less help for people already struggling. Chris Hipkins says Budget 2026 proves National has chosen who pays.

National says its Budget delivers recovery. Barbara Edmonds says working families, state tenants and public services are paying the price. Can Labour offer something better?

State tenants pay more. Students lose Fees Free. Beneficiaries are squeezed. Banks get a token levy. Budget 2026 is not recovery, it is abandonment.

A Budget promising security leaves children in poverty exactly where they were. NZCCSS says vulnerable whānau have been abandoned again.

Māori funding goes backwards while the wider Budget grows by billions. Te Pāti Māori says Nicola Willis has chosen war, prisons and the wealthy over whānau.