COMMENT:
It wasn't a mini Budget. it was a mega Budget. Four per cent of GDP in one fell swoop. It's $12 billion that we would rather not be spending.
It makes the Muldoon Government's ill-fated 'Think Big' era look small.
The Beehive sold us its $12b infrastructure spend earlier this year, saying we've never been able to borrow money at such competitive rates, at around 1 per cent interest over 10 years.
Well they've now more than doubled that and of course there's one big winner in all of this: the banks and big international corporates who want a safe park for their money through government bonds.