![$10b for schools, but critics not happy](/pf/resources/images/placeholders/placeholder_l.png?d=795)
$10b for schools, but critics not happy
Spending on early childhood education and schools is to top $10 billion a year - but is not enough to avoid parents paying more for pre-school, an industry body claims.
Spending on early childhood education and schools is to top $10 billion a year - but is not enough to avoid parents paying more for pre-school, an industry body claims.
Finance Minister Bill English may have lived up to his promise there would be no lolly scramble in the Budget.
Social security and welfare spending rises $625 million to just under $24 billion. Much of that is down to a $687 million increase in New Zealand Superannuation payments offset by small falls elsewhere.
Aspiring first-home buyers looking for a leg-up into the property market in yesterday's Budget had little to cheer about.
Auckland motorways have been paved with gold in the Budget, while not an extra cent has gone to public transport.
Start-ups pouring money into research and development will get a cash-flow boost under a tax measure that is seen as a "great response" to the sector's challenges.
National's extended paid parental leave scheme lifts New Zealand almost to the average for developed countries - but qualifying Kiwi parents will still be much better off if they have their babies in Australia.
A child health expert has hailed the policy to extend free GP visits and prescriptions to all children under 13 as "returning New Zealand to the developed world".
Police officers have warned "something will break" if their budget is squeezed any further after the Government sliced a little more off their funding.
Editorial: The Budget manages the election-year trick of appearing both fiscally responsible and socially generous.
New Zealand's biggest listed company, Fletcher Building, could be hurt by the Budget move to axe temporarily anti-dumping duties on building materials covering 90 per cent of a new home's construction, say experts.
Groups fighting a kauri-killing disease are relieved the Government has committed millions more dollars to the battle, allaying fears that research funding would dry up.
The Government is putting another $100 million into getting beneficiaries such as solo parents and the sick into work and stopping them ending up on welfare in the long term.
Auckland mother Catherine Nola feels extending paid parental leave to 18 weeks is a step in the right direction, but says 26 weeks would have been better.
Jobs and companies could be lost if masses of cheap overseas construction materials flood our boarders, say building companies.
New Zealanders will welcome the family focus of today's Budget, Prime Minister John Key says.
Government will slash tertiary tuition fees for science, agriculture, and some health science courses, Budget 2014 shows.
Bill English has delivered an election year Budget which includes a bigger than forecast surplus, free doctors' visits for 400,000 more children, big cuts to ACC levies and dangles the prospect of tax cuts in front of voters. Finance Minister Mr English said the Government's much vaunted return to surplus would be $372 million, still slender but well ahead of the wafer thin $86 million forecast six months ago thanks to a rosier economic outlook.
The police budget has been frozen for the fifth consecutive year, and Government had no immediate plan to increase it again before 2018.
Join us for a live video stream from Parliament as Finance Minister Bill English delivers the 2014 Budget from 2pm.
Finance Minister Bill English has defended today’s modest Budget measure to trim the cost of new homes as one step in a larger programme to improve home affordability.
Here are ten things you need to know about the Budget.
A data visualisation of where the Budget money is going.