Charlie Brown (yes that is his name) put up a "ballsy budget" in 1856 and then a reign of healthy budgets by Sir Julius Vogel started in 1869 and he had a go at cutting up the cake another five times over the next 20 years.
Ruth Richardson put up her Ruthanasia budget and soon after Rogernomics followed suit.
This week it is Bill English's turn to try to balance the books and sow a seed of budget belief for the next 12 months.
So what does that mean to the ordinary bloke looking forward to the weekend or the struggling family looking for a place to call home?
For what I know and what I have heard this could well be the "wish and wash" budget, especially in light of the needs of the clientele I advocate for on the bottom of the housing ladder.
Their wish is to have a Warm And Safe House (Wash), no more and no less.
Until now, our team at Te Tuinga had little hope to offer them and just like Lucille when BB King left her behind, the thrill of life for them had gone.
Enter Minister Bennett who took time to visit Te Tuinga last Friday.
No, she didn't arrive on a white stallion but more in a grey ministerial BMW with local minister Simon Bridges.
And arrive she did, pretty in pink and bubblier than a Fernland Spa pool on a cold winter's afternoon.
As Associate Finance Minister and Minster in charge of Housing it certainly was a sorbet of hope to have her in our humble little whare.
We have a whakatauki or prophetic proclamation that we live by in our line of social services delivery: "Our clients need to know that we care before they want to know what we know."
The same goes for us at the forefront of poverty, of our leaders and politicians, who put us between them and the front line of homelessness for whom the thrill of life has gone.
We need to know they care.
So when they show up and sit down for a kanohi ki te kanohi (face-to-face) korero, as they did last Friday - in fact, all of last week with local MP Todd Muller and Minister of Maori Affairs Te Ururoa Flavell all fronting up, it gives us great heart that our needs and concerns are being listened to.
Some see budgets as a sprinkling of crumbs while the cake of commercial growth, especially in affordable housing becomes bigger for fewer.
Others see little but a lolly scramble, with few or no solutions for the wealth and health equality of Aotearoa.
For me and my board, we have no preference which party shows up - or the colour of their collar. Bridges or Bennett blue, Flavell whero (red) or Winston white, just as long as they show up, and last week they did just that. We will talk to anyone and everyone about emergency housing who is willing to help because child poverty and emergency housing have symbiotic solutions when we consider paying 80 per cent of your income on ridiculous rents takes away kai from your kids.
It's just that simple of an equation.
A "wish wash" budget was what we placed on the table for Ministers Bridges and Bennett to listen to and it was all about emergency housing and how they could help us to help those who need a "wish wash" whare and being the class clown I could not help myself in my closing summary: "Out that window is a community in crisis when it comes to emergency housing. Out there is troubled waters and in here around this table is the bridge to help them. And like a bridge over troubled waters we need you, Paula and Simon, to help us lay down the solution."
Sure it was a little cheesy and wishy washy but the seriousness of the situation, I felt, was not lost as they left. All we can do now is hope that the "wish and wash" budget that Bill English releases on Thursday is one that can help whanau find a warm and safe house that they can finally call home.
-broblack@xtra.co.nz
Tommy Wilson is a best-selling author and local writer.
