Budget 2022: Mike Hosking - This Budget should be about getting the economy moving

OPINION:

Welcome to Budget day, a day in which yet more money we don't have is announced on a vast array of things that may or may not (a) come to fruition (b) change anything for the better or (c) be any sort of value for money.

Every cent spent today is borrowed, in fact, one of the ironies in the build-up to today's document is the confession earlier last week that the dream of an annual surplus is being pushed out by at least a year.

We are not only in debt, we are adding to the debt with each and every announcement.

I note also that Grant Robertson no longer tells us the economy is "cooking with gas", even when he was telling us that it wasn't true, now it's especially not true. As the BNZ told us last week, we are getting closer and closer to a recession as each day passes.

Which makes today's two key platforms inexplicable.

Firstly, health.

Yes it needed reforming, 20 DHBs was absurd, but what we are replacing them with looks possibly worse, proving to change things for the sake of it isn't always a good idea.

The co-governance part of the health reforms is dangerously divisive and already ruinously expensive. Of all the hundreds of millions spent so far, none of it has gone on an operation.

Secondly, climate change.

In this, there are several worries.

First, we are obsessed with the subject at a time the world isn't.

The world is going through serious geopolitical changes and the planet's major emitters - namely India, China and America - are focused on other matters like war, fuel and inflation.

While they remain preoccupied there is nothing we will do that will make a jot of difference to the planet and its emissions.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson with a copy of his Wellbeing Budget 2022 at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Yes, we can play our part, we can be seen to be "doing the right thing".

But if you ask the average Kiwi right now whether they would prefer the money we don't have put into addressing our inflation mess, our cost of living crisis or yet more projects that may or may not come to pass around climate, I know what the vast majority would say.

The disconnect between the Government and the public is stark, and that's putting it kindly.

What I can't work out given the polls, is have they given up? Do they know they are heading out of office so are determined to install every last piece of ideological change they can before they are shown the exit?

Or are they so isolated from the real world that the PM reassures them that according to her Facebook page everyone still loves her and they are on the right track?

What this Budget should be about, is getting the economy moving.

The charade of pumping the place full of printed cash and pretending that was real growth, is now laid bare as the fraud it was.

As the cash stopped flowing, we have all seen what has happened to the economy.

We have all seen what has happened to the mood, we have all seen the growing spectre of us going backwards. But not just this year - the BNZ suggests all of next year as well.

Robertson will tell you it's the war and China, and in part it is. But our non-tradeable inflation is the second highest in the world. We borrowed per head of population more than anyone bar America.

We have a ballooning public service. Waka Kotahi alone with over $145 million on consultants as part of the NZ upgrade programme. The only thing being upgraded is the pay packets of the consultants, the 88-strong public relations team, oh and the people who make large red zeros.

Close to half a billion so far on Three Waters and it hasn't even started yet.

You wonder why David Parker is scurrying around looking at a wealth tax, they spend our money like water.

Look for the real numbers today, deficits, how big, for how long, debt, up by how much, growth, is there any? This year or next? And if so, how does it compare with our trading partners? Those are the core details of a Budget. Announcing free stuff using money you don't have isn't a skill, but that will be the smokescreen they rely on to distract you from the real mess.