Budget 2026 Exposes This Hard-Right Government
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.

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.

Workers First says Budget 2026 is a misery Budget: a crumbling house with fresh paint, built on cuts to students, women, disabled people and public servants.

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.

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?

Workers must prove their English. Millionaire investors do not. Public servants face AI cuts. Martyn Bradbury takes apart another week of government hypocrisy.

Jobseeker recipients now reapply every six months. MSD can now use automated systems for welfare decisions. Somehow the poorest are always first in line for State experiments.

National has stopped pretending to be centrist. Six months before Election 2026, the cruelty is out in the open and the target is anyone too exhausted to fight back.

National’s vision of AI-powered public services sounds less like innovation and more like automating neglect.