Prime Minister Chris Hipkins duly responded in the House, saying the biggest blowout he’d seen was the “hot air” coming out of Luxon.
The National Party attack came after Finance Minister Grant Robertson today delivered a multi-billion-dollar spending package that some believe might threaten to undermine the Reserve Bank’s attempts to tackle inflation.
It included cost-of-living spending announcements - expanding free early childhood education, abolishing prescription co-payments, and free public transport for children - that could blunt the effects of higher interest rates and inflation, which Treasury now expects will be higher for longer.
Luxon, making a speech in the House, said he saw “no ideas” in the Budget to tackle the underlying causes of inflation and retain skilled New Zealanders.
“Prime Minister, your job is to fight to keep Kiwis home in this country,” he said.
“This Budget needed to deliver a plan for New Zealanders to grow the economy and it didn’t.”
Luxon told reporters afterwards that National did not support the cost of living initiatives. They preferred their own policy of tax rebates to families for childcare and called free public transport a “nice-to-have”. He also said free medicines were not targeted enough but while they didn’t support it, they wanted to see more detail before committing to reintroducing fees. The party later clarified they would reintroduce the $5 fees.
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Luxon said he was a “big fan” of free school lunches, but that while National would not commit to scrapping it they would make it more targeted and effective.
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said there were important steps in the Budget but it fell short in supporting people and addressing the climate crisis. They also called out the Government for not making any major tax changes, such as a wealth tax for which they have long advocated.
The Greens supported the public transport initiatives, funding for early childhood education and making homes warmer and more energy efficient, which they had campaigned on.
But the Greens wanted to see tax changes to deal with the major challenges.
“Aotearoa is facing a perfect storm of crises super-charged by climate change: an outrageous and immoral level of income and wealth inequality; people struggling to put food on the table, pay the bills, and heat their homes as massive corporations cream it; and farms, towns and cities ravaged by floods and storms,” Davidson said.
“The Greens will continue fighting to secure genuine action to end poverty by lifting incomes to a level that means everyone has what they need to thrive.”
The key highlights:
Co-leader James Shaw, who is also the Climate Change Minister, said he was frustrated too that the Budget stopped short of doing what was needed to confront the climate crisis with the urgency it demands.
Act leader David Seymour, in his speech to the House, said: “The Government is running out of other people’s money, running out of excuses, running out of options and it’s going to do a huge amount of damage in the process.”
Seymour spent a few minutes talking about law and order early in his speech, saying vigilante justice was occurring because the Government wasn’t protecting people well enough.”[Dairy and convenience store owners] don’t know when the next robbery or ram raids is going to hit... so they’re starting to fight back.”
Later speaking to reporters he said he did support infrastructure funding and for medicines.
However, he did not support the overall extra spending in the Budget and increased deficit, saying it could lead to 10 per cent mortgage rates by the end of the year.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said they supported the boost to Te Matatini kapahaka festival funding - $34m over the next two years, up from $3m annually currently. This puts it above funding for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra for the first time - long a discrepancy the party pointed out as highlighting how the Government favours Pākehā institutions.
But Ngarewa-Packer said they felt the Budget was still too much in favour of the wealthy. She reiterated their party policy to lower the cost of food, including removing GST.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins in his speech acknowledged times had been tough for families, but lauded the fact that it was estimated New Zealand would avoid a recession.
“That’s not by accident,” Hipkins said, crediting the work of Finance Minister Grant Robertson.
He welcomed the prediction inflation would return to between 1-3 per cent by the end of next year and reiterated the Government’s long-term focus.
“Even in cost of living crisis, we need to be building for tomorrow,” referencing the $6b devoted to the National Resilience Plan to future-proof communities for severe weather events.
Citing National’s tax receipt plan, Hipkins jibed that he hoped some National MPs had kept their receipts when they selected their new leader as he suspected some would “want a refund”.
“Well done Grant Robertson, I am proud of the Budget you have delivered,” Hipkins said to conclude his speech.
