It turned out that was all an act to try to build up an air of suspense.
The tax cuts delivered to 3.5 million people were exactly what National campaigned on.
The only difference was they take effect a month later.
Despite all the grumbling about whether tax cuts were needed, or whether the money should be spent on something else, that was exactly as it should have been.
When push comes to shove, what voters want from a Budget is what the Government they voted into power had promised they would do in order to get those votes. They will pocket those tax cuts. They might even suggest they are not enough.
Willis also largely achieved her goal of making judicious spending cuts rather than taking out the chainsaw to find the money for the tax cuts – she secured about $6 billion through nipping and tucking without any massive outcries over where the cuts have fallen.
Getting further savings will be harder from here. There is only so much fat in a system before it starts to affect people.
She will need to find cuts to pay for new things. The allowances for extra spending set for the next three Budgets are very slim indeed: only $2.4 billion for the next three years of which a massive chunk will be swallowed up by inflation.
It delivered the promised increases in spending in health and education and law and order – although a big chunk of that will just cover the increased day-to-day costs and wages. There were new police cars and money for 500 new police to drive them, funding for Te Matatini, money for cyclone recovery and Shane Jones’ $1.5 billion regional fund has been pulled into duty for resilience, climate change and Māori development funding.
Willis’ promise to target lower and middle-income workers in tax relief was achieved by way of boosting the existing Working for Families in-work tax credit (160,000 families get it) and expanding the independent earners tax credit (725,000 people get the $20 credit). Early childhood education rebates would benefit about 130,000.
On their own, the income tax cuts are not exactly whopping so there was a slight air of “does my tax cut look big in this?” in the bundling together of tax cuts with the tax credit moves.
The Government also did not spell out how many of those 3.5 million would only get the income tax cuts in its offering, instead choosing to present “averages” which included those who get the more generous amounts.
Based on the numbers who get the tax credits, it is presumably somewhere above the 2 million mark.
Willis also achieved her goals of showing inflation was coming under control and she had found a path back to surplus – in 2027/28.
However, achieving that means voters will not be in line for many more treats for quite some time.
All Budgets leave people disappointed and this was no different. Some promises have not been met – such as the promise for new cancer treatments.
Labour set out to call it a Budget of Broken Promises, taking aim at the Government’s debt figures and accusing them of smoke and mirrors for claiming the tax cuts were funded out of spending cuts rather than debt.
But all up, Nicola Willis’ first Budget has done exactly what she had put on the tin.
