Devil beasts and fruit loops, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson and game show hosts all made guest appearances in the Budget debate yesterday.

Only if we are willing to look forward and devolve control of the money Government spends to individuals will we deliver solutions, writes Roger Douglas.

Bill English's Budget keeps a tight rein on Government spending to meet its goal of a surplus, but it makes significant moves towards a redesign of the welfare state.

Bill English's effort is a liquorice allsorts kind of Budget with enough variety to satisfy most tastes. That makes it a hard Budget to criticise, writes John Armstrong.

Devil beasts and fruit loops, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson and game show hosts all made guest appearances in the Budget debate yesterday, but all found themselves upstaged by a humble fake mouse.

The Finance Minister's latest public dance on the fiscal tightrope was the predictably cautious affair we have come to expect, writes Fran O'Sullivan.

Residential rents could rise and historic buildings might be abandoned, say property chiefs who have mixed feelings about real estate changes in the Budget.

About 3000 long-term state house tenants will be moved out into the private housing market under a surprise Budget move to put all existing tenants on fixed-term contracts.

The Government has agreed to develop a warrant of fitness scheme to require rental housing to be warm, dry and safe.

The Budget is an unimaginative and inadequate response to a dire need to address the job crisis, child poverty and housing availability, writes Helen Kelly.

The Government will waste no time selling down Meridian Energy with Treasury officials expected to meet investment bankers on Monday.

Two of Prime Minister John Key's own departments - the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and also Tourism - are to get some of the biggest increases in funding.

The Government's move to crack down on student loan defaulters, including arresting the worst offenders at the border, has been labelled "all stick and no carrot".

People who look after their highly disabled adult family members are at last in line to be paid by the Government - but only the minimum wage.

The extra $188.6 million being ploughed in to pay for the Government's welfare reforms includes a $51.8 million package to contract out the case management of 1000 sole parents and 1000 people with health or disability issues

Opposition parties have criticised the Budget, saying it delivered nothing to middle New Zealand and, despite pre-Budget hints poverty would be a major focus, the initiatives amounted to little more than tinkering.

Meridian Energy, New Zealand's biggest and most profitable power company, will be partially privatised later this year, Finance Minister Bill English confirmed in yesterday's Budget.

Social housing was a big element of today's Budget, but the Government's new housing policy has been accused of doing little to ease the pressure for first-home buyers.

National's latest budget undercuts many of the areas in which Labour has been attempting to campaign on, writes Bryce Edwards.