Audrey Young
Inside Politics
Bill Birch called his Budget a "threshold Budget" - and if that means neither here nor there, he was dead right. The $4.2 million for glasses to children of the poor epitomised it: not nothing, but not substantial either.
And the glasses might come in handy for this Budget. The bold print is yet to come.
Mr Birch's final Budget could never be a panacea for poll-challenged National. The party is trying to rejuvenate itself this year - hardly a job for its craggiest minister on the verge of retirement.
But although his swansong is not an election-year Budget in the classic lolly-scramble sense, it has been designed with the election in mind.
The stronger election-year messages will come after National's conference in July, when the Treasurer-designate, 37-year-old Bill English, will help to relaunch the party.
He and his other young cabinet cohorts have about $130 million to play with before the election. Almost $230 million of the $600 million in extra spending flagged in the Budget Policy Statement last December is not specifically allocated.
Taking off about $100 million for a likely PPTA pay settlement, that leaves $130 million in the kitty.
The touch-and-go, zero-operating balance forecast for the next year will allow National to put the acid harder on Opposition promises in the campaign.
The blandness of the Budget can also be partly put down to the lack of surprise. Key elements like abolishing the broadcasting fee and increases in the car registration have been well heralded.
But part of it is down to the composition of the Government. Yesterday's budget was the Government's, not National's, last set-piece.
Act and Mauri Pacific can claim trophies, although the Act leader, Richard Prebble, rates the Budget "no more than a pass."
Act can rightly claim abolition of the broadcasting fee and stamp duty.
With more limited resources and skills for an election campaign, however, it was more important for Mauri Pacific to claim prizes from the document, and it can.
Problems with Maori employment, health, education and crime are addressed, but as the New Zealand First leader, Winston Peters, noted, each initiative is a commentary on failure.
