Heather du Plessis-Allan: Signs the Budget was cobbled together

Grant Robertson deserves praise for cobbling this package together. Photo / Marty Melville

Opinion

OPINION:

An observation I heard a few weeks back came back to me on Budget Thursday.

It was mid-April. I was on a Zoom call with a few others. We were just about to start a presentation to a class of Auckland University post-grad students. But first we took our punts on the outcome of next year's election.

Most felt Labour would still win. But political scientist Dr Edward Elder wasn't so sure. He reckoned governments struggle to win elections when they stop being able to control the media narrative.

And even by then Labour had lost control of the narrative. The Opposition had control of it. Instead of the Government choosing what we were talking about, it was constantly responding to the Opposition's talking points.

And that's exactly what happened on Thursday.

There are plenty of signs Labour was forced to cobble together a cost of living package because the Opposition kept banging on about it.

That $27-a-week payment looks like it was put together in a rush.

To pay for it, Grant Robertson raided the Covid Fund, the easiest place to get lots of money, fast.

The Treasury advice on the policy came in very late. It's dated May 4. That's only slightly over two weeks before the Budget.

Treasury officials write that the Minister of Finance sought "urgent" advice on the $27 weekly payment.

That payment is part of a wider package cobbled together to look like more than it is. Also in there is the half-price public transport fares. That is listed in the Budget documents under the Climate Emergency Response Fund Initiative. It was originally meant to be part of the climate package. Then there's the urgent legislation to target supermarket land-banking. Supermarkets have already voluntarily agreed to end the practice.

This was a Budget that feels like it was supposed to be about something else. Climate Change. And while Labour still threw money at the climate, the subject barely got a mention in Thursday's Budget lock-up.

Labour probably knew it couldn't run out this year's Budget, blowing money on everything from the climate to Māori health, while Kiwis struggled to make ends meet themselves. And - importantly - while the Opposition kept banging on about the cost of living crisis.

National's made hay with that in recent months. They nicked the idea from Act, who've been talking about the "squeezed middle" since last year's Budget.

Labour's constantly felt on the back foot on the cost of living. The Prime Minister refused to call the cost of living spike a "crisis" only days before public opinion forced her to cut the excise tax on petrol.

Robertson deserves praise for cobbling this package together. It's just enough to buy the Government some time. It's not much time though. The $27 payments end by November 1. Inflation will still be high. Budgets will still be stretched. As soon as the half-price public transport fares, cheaper petrol and free money run out, we'll be back to as bad a situation as we are now, likely worse.

When those payments end in November, it will still be more than six months before the next Budget can throw more cash at Kiwis' tight budgets. That's six months of the Opposition controlling the narrative unless Robertson can come up with a plan.

Robertson's Budget has only bought Labour time, nothing else.