Danyl McLauchlan: We can speculate on the govt’s intentions with this Budget, but where is the opposition?
Chris Hipkins: Labour heads the polls, but its leader has question marks over him. Photo / Getty Images
The most significant theme during the lead-up to the budget is the decline of the power and prestige of the managerial class: Maiki Sherman, TVNZ’s political editor, resigned in the wake of a leak alleging offensive behaviour (which was followed by a torrent of conservative commentators who’ve spent years complaining about the horrors of cancel-culture demanding her scalp). RNZ’s CEO Paul Thompson made public his resignation (he told his board last December), shortly after Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour seemed to single him out, predicting “he won’t be answering the call at RNZ for much longer”.
In the pre-Budget announcements, we saw the abolition of the fees-free tertiary funding policy; public servants are (theoretically) being replaced by artificial intelligence agents; National will toughen up immigration and commercialise the conservation estates. Both National and Act supported New Zealand First’s bill to define the terms “woman” and “man” in legislation.
All of this adds up to a sustained attack on the institutions and values of the modern left: university funding, the public service, state media, climate, conservation, trans rights. During its first year, the coalition overturned much of its predecessor’s accomplishments. Its second year was taken up by the debate on Act’s Treaty Principles Bill, and a black-comedy routine in which the Prime Minister and Finance Minister praised the astonishing economic recovery they’d engineered against a backdrop of business failures, factory closures, rising unemployment and increasingly dire GDP statistics.
But this year’s Budget features significant spending announcements on defence, with $1.58 billion for maritime security and drones, and more funding for health: there will be the inevitable argument about whether this funding increase is sufficient to meet demand. The government will claim record spending, the opposition will say the amount should be even higher, and therefore the government has “gutted” the health system. There’s funding for primary and secondary education, infrastructure and the police.
Old-style government
It’s a move towards a mid-20th century form of conservative government, away from both the progressive centrism of the Key years and the minimal state of the neoliberals. The elements of the welfare state that benefit older, more right-leaning voters are locked in, other components are cannibalised to pay for it.
This is – not accidentally – the long-term vision of Winston Peters, whose political gravity is pulling his coalition partners towards him like tiny bodies plummeting towards a supermassive black hole.
New Zealand First has recruited two former cabinet ministers to stand in this year’s election: National’s Alfred Ngaro and Labour’s Stuart Nash. Peters is preparing to wield greater executive power in his government’s next term.
This Budget, more than most, will function as a magic trick. When National pulls back the curtain and reveals its fiscal position and spending plans – which are unlikely to withstand close scrutiny – it also hopes to unveil Chris Hipkins, alone and exposed in centre stage.
Labour has promised to release policy once the government opens its books. Will Hipkins cancel the public service cutbacks? Restore fees-free and last year’s pay equity cuts? If so, will he fund this by cancelling the increased defence spending and leave New Zealanders vulnerable in this frightening and uncertain new world? Or would he scrap the vital new investment in hospitals and school infrastructure? And so on.
Hipkins will be trapped between a sceptical public, a political media that’s already criticising the cynicism of his small-target tactics, and an activist base that will demand the immediate restoration of everything that’s been cut. There are many charts and dubious economics statistics circulating among online progressives claiming the country is actually rich, that we can afford to borrow lavishly with no risk, and Labour activists will want to know why an aspiring left-wing leader would hesitate to do so.