KEY POINTS:
Political correspondent John Armstrong assesses Finance Minister Michael Cullen after seven Budgets and before his eighth tomorrow.
The indicators: the good and the not so good
* Inflation: At 1.5 per cent in early 2000, inflation was running well within Reserve Bank parameters. Now at 2.5 per cent after hitting 4 per cent in June last year.
* Unemployment: Labour's big success story. Unemployment was just under 7 per cent when Labour took office. That figure has since almost halved to 3.8 per cent.
* Economic growth: The economy was steaming ahead at a growth rate of 6.3 per cent in early 2000 - but that increase was off the back of recession. Growth slipped as low as 1.1 per cent last year before lifting slightly to 1.5 per cent.
* Interest rates: Labour's Achilles heel. The 90-day bank bill rate was 6 per cent when Labour took control of the Beehive. The rate now stands at 8.08 per cent. Likewise, variable first mortgage rates dropped from 8.1 per cent to a low of 6.7 per cent in 2002 but have been gradually rising since and are now close to 10 per cent.
* The Dollar: Was worth US49c in early 2000. Now heading north at an export-wounding US73.75c. The TWI - the trade weighted index that measures the effective value of the dollar - was 53.9 in 2000. It has risen to 71.48.
Cullen's imprint: what his tenure will be remembered for
* The fiscally-responsible finance minister? Seven budgets; seven surpluses. A buoyant domestic economy has seen actual tax revenues make a nonsense of forecasts. The operating balance has gone from around $1 billion to as high as $11.5 billion last year.
* The tax-and-spend finance minister? Tax revenue has risen from $34 billion in 2000 to a forecast $51.5 billion this year. Government spending has similarly rocketed from $34 billion to $54 billion - an increase of nearly 60 per cent.
Labour introduced the new top tax rate of 39c on income earned over $60,000 in April 2000. It was initially supposed to not affect more than 5 per cent of taxpayers. That club has since expanded to 12 per cent. Dr Cullen's decision to hold off tax cuts means more taxpayers are caught by "fiscal drag".
* Tax cuts? no. tax relief? yes - for some The 2004 Budget detailed Labour's flagship Working for Families package for low-to-modest income earners. A couple with three children and earning $52,000 a year before tax along with a mortgage of $385 a week are now better off by $246 per week all up. But how much of Labour's pride and joy would survive National's preference for across-the-board tax cuts?
* Repairing the social fabric: labour sticks to its knitting Spending on the public health system has risen from $6.8 billion to $10.7 billion - a 57 per cent increase. Spending on education is up from $ 6.3 billion to $9.6 billion - a 52 per cent increase.
* The cullen legacy: part one The 2001 Budget saw the first injection of money into the national superannuation fund set up to pay for the extra retirement costs of an ageing population. It had assets totalling $12.5 billion by this April.
* The cullen legacy: part two New roads, hospitals, schools and military equipment. The Budgets have tackled the "infrastructure deficit" created by cutbacks in Government spending in the 1980s and 1990s.
* The cullen legacy: part three The boom years wasted? Hundreds of millions of dollars "invested" in Labour's growth-and-innovation strategy and subsequent economic transformation agenda. But New Zealand is still marooned in 22nd place out of 30 in OECD rankings in terms of gross domestic product per capita and income per capita.
* The cullen legacy: part four Will Labour pay the ultimate price at next year's election for his refusal to adjust income tax rates and thresholds beyond the meagre offering in the 2005 "chewing gum" Budget? In hindsight, minor but more frequent tweakings might have been the better option fiscally, economically and politically.
