Liam Dann breaks down the Budget for you. Video / NZ Herald
Kiwis have spoken out after the Government’s Budget announcement in which Finance Minister Nicola Willis pledged income-earning Kiwis will get a tax cut from a $14.7 billion tax package in this year’s Budget.
Willis said the $14.8 billion package would play a major part part in tackling the “prolonged cost-of-living crisis”.
One of the key winners in the 2024 budget was Kiwis with young families.
However, not all Kiwis are happy with Thursday’s announcement, with some saying it’s a budget of “broken promises” while others claimed they’ll “still be poor”.
Tax cuts ranged from $4 to $40 a fortnight for all workers on more than $14,000 after the Budget delivered on National’s election campaign promise.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis with her Budget of 'substance'. Photo / Mark Mitchell
So what does it mean for Kiwis?
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A minimum wage earner will be better off by about $12.50 a week.
A working couple whose combined income is $150,000 will be better off by $40 a week.
A single adult earning $55,000 a year will be better off by about $25.50 a week
A sole parent with two teenage children will be better off by about $45 a week.
And a retired couple receiving superannuation will get $4.50 a week, rising to $13 a week, although part of this calculation depends in forecast superannuation increases.
The big handouts are to families with children in Early Childhood Education (ECE), who qualify for FamilyBoost.
A couple with one parent earning $80,000, and another earning $60,000 with four children, two of whom are in ECE will get $135 a week.
A couple earning $62,500 each, and spending $600 a fortnight on childcare will get $126 a fortnight.
More than 2500 people marched on State Highway 2 and Hewlett’s Road after gathering at Whareroa Reserve in Tauranga this morning. Photo / Alex Cairns
Kiwis react strongly to Govt budget
Despite the $14.7b announcement, Kiwis and politicians from across the political divide weighed in on the package.
Everyday Kiwis were quick to criticise.
“When those at the bottom get the biggest tax relief in actual money terms I’ll give the Minister credit. Not before,” one Herald reader said.
A second added: “Clown government. Only in it for the rich. Masking it by giving struggling families a few more extra dollars. What a f***ing joke.”
“Ooooh $25 a week but from April 1st power goes up by $15 a month, food goes up daily, petrol, insurance, land rates. What an UTTER joke all while they drive us into more and more debt,” a third claimed.
A fourth said he’d rather the government reinvested the tax cuts elsewhere.
“Y’all could’ve kept my $16 a week, i’d rather it went towards school lunches and funding public services so they’re actually fit for purpose. We’re still gonna end up getting rent increases and price gouged at the supermarket and pump so this is chump change.”
Pensioners - some whom will gain as little as $4 a week - also chipped in.
“Tax cuts are a sad joke. As a pensioner I get an extra $4.50 a week,” one said.
Another stated: “Well well, the superannuates who worked so bloody hard to bring this country through the 1960s and up to the 2000s will get all of a loaf of bread a week”.
A third claimed: “What a joke, equivalent to a loaf of bread for pensioners”.
However, other Kiwis were a little more supportive of the Government’s announcement, while others contemplated how tax cuts would differ in its help for families in different situations.
“I think I’m $20 a week better off,” one stated.
“I don’t really have a marker of what is considered good. $20 a week per person for one family could be huge if its two loafs of bread, few tins of baked beans a bottle of milk and some fruit and veges. To another its loose change. But it could equally equate to nothing if everything rises in price anyway.”
A second supported the announcement, writing: “I believe they are working with what have and in the best interest of New Zealanders. Good on them. Let’s face it, Ardern and labour left a huge bloody mess and moved on with no repercussions.”
Another cheered: “Outstanding work National great to get more money in the pocket keep up the good work.”
“Well done National any thing is better than nothing given the last few years,” a fourth claimed.
Green Party co-leaders Chloe Swarbrick and Marama Davdison both hit out at the government's Budget announcement.
Politicians react to budget announcement
Labour MP Arena Williams took to social media criticising the government, claiming the announcement is a package of “broken promises”.
“The government is delivering a Budget of broken promises in Parliament right now. Families were promised $250 a fortnight, but they’re not getting that,” she wrote.
Labour spokesperson for Finance, Barbara Edmonds, labelled the announcement “grim reading”, claiming it was a backwards Budget that is relying on borrowing to fund tax cuts.
Edmonds said she was “absolutely astounded by it”.
Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick criticised the lack of focus on climate action.
In a press released headlined “coalition of cowards”, Swarbrick said actions spoke louder than words and this Government’s attack on the climate would ripple through generations.
“The other day, Government parties said, ‘Drill, baby, drill,’ and today, they may as well have said, ‘burn, baby, burn’,” she said.
“This Government has slashed and burned almost all climate and environmentally minded policy whilst pouring coal, oil and gas over the roaring climate crisis fire.
“Today’s Budget has seen funding from almost every major programme in the Emissions Reduction Plan absolutely gutted.
“What remains of climate action funding is not nearly enough to meet the scale of the climate crisis. The Minister of Climate Change needs to front up and explain how big a chasm his government has created in the emissions budgets that it signed up to, and how they plan to make up for that.”
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson described it as “mean and nasty”.
“This is a cynical Budget that serves mostly the short-term interests of a few.”
She believed the Government had acted to preserve policy and ignore climate change action.
Davidson also spoke of how 63,000 children in New Zealand woke up in poverty today and how the Child Poverty report released alongside the Budget showed that wouldn’t change.
“That’s what this Government chose, [it] chose for child poverty to flatline... for shame.”
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said there’s nothing in the Budget the party is happy with and labelled it an announcement “full of privilege”, highlighting the lack of Māori specific policies.
“We knew what we were coming into and we’re not happy with it at all,” she said.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the Budget has taken New Zealand backwards.
“It’s a Budget that is abandoning our commitments around climate change, it’s putting more children into poverty, it’s cutting a lot of the things that Kiwis rely on like public transport subsidies, school lunch programmes and so on.
“The increase in funding for services like health and education isn’t keeping up with the rising cost of living.
“We will see job losses in those sectors as a result of this year’s Budget.”
He said the biggest losers are the next generation of New Zealanders.
“More children living in poverty, cutting support for young New Zealanders, in a number of different ways, and for those young New Zealanders looking towards the dream of home ownership, they’re just being left behind.”
