Budget growth forecasts: even ZB isn’t buying it
The Government’s surplus fantasy relies on growth forecasts no one believes. When even ZB starts calling it fiction, the wheels are off.
The Government’s surplus fantasy relies on growth forecasts no one believes. When even ZB starts calling it fiction, the wheels are off.

First they came for the beneficiaries, because that’s where the State tests cruelty before rolling it out to everyone else.

This is what austerity looks like when it puts on a suit. Whānau struggle, community groups carry the load, and the Government calls it responsibility.

The Government calls this security. Care workers call it poverty wages, broken cars, impossible rent and another Budget that tells them they do not matter.

Chlöe Swarbrick calls Budget 2026 austerity in slow motion: a country made poorer while corporations profit and public services are left to crumble.

The Right cuts revenue, creates the hole, then screams about debt monsters. Martyn says Budget 2026 is austerity theatre designed to protect private wealth.

Teanau Tuiono says Budget 2026 makes the Government’s priorities brutally clear: Pasifika wellbeing is cut while landlords, fossil fuels and military spending win.

Banks get a token levy. Public servants get the axe. State tenants get higher rents. Budget 2026 is not balance, it is class warfare dressed as discipline.

Marama Davidson says Budget 2026 makes the Government’s priorities brutally clear: landlords, fossil fuels and military spending before Māori, whānau and taiao.

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.