Latest / Best of Business / Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I would argue Budget 2026 wasn't tight enough

Transcript

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I would argue Budget 2026 wasn't tight enough · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talks at be
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Well, you wouldn't have done well to heed Nikola Willis's
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: warnings ahead of this budget that there would be no
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: spend up because there is no spend up. There is
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: no money for the Well, there is money for the
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: important stuff you got the schools in the classrooms, and
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: the hospitals, and the White Cutterwer Expressway and Winston Peter's
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: pet projects more on that lately, but everywhere else there
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: is just no new money. It is tight now.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: That is exactly how it should be.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: And in fact, I would say this still doesn't go
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: far enough for the third Nikola Willis budget in a row.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: It isn't tight enough because we haven't even hit our
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: debt peak yet. Right we are still going up on
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: that peak mountain that is still two years away, which
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: means that interest payments are nearly are already a nine
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: billion dollars and they're only going to go up. It's
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: going to take us to about twenty forty roughly before
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: dead is back to where Bill English left it as
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: a proportion of GDP, and that is just the most
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: optimistic scenario. The rest of the scenario seet basically never
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: getting back down to be where Bill English left it. Lolli.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Willis is making a virtue today of the fact that
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: she's getting the books back in black by twenty twenty
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: eight twenty twenty nine, which she says is earlier than expected.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: But that is a little bit of game playing that's
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: going on, because it was always going to be twenty
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: twenty eight twenty twenty nine until December, and in December
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: it changed. Then it became twenty twenty nine to thirty.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Now it's just been brought back again to where it
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: was about six months ago. And that is only, by
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: the way, because Nichola Willis is using up a made
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: up measure obergil X, which makes surplus a year earlier
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: than the standard old measure, which was basically would have
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: had surplus arriving only twenty thirty or thereabouts. And by
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: the way, all of this is a broken promise because
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Nikola Willis promised the country that if you voted for
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: National at the last election, she would have the books
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: back in the black when today this year, but after
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: three budgets, I think we've learned to temper our expectations
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: on that front. Now, on the bright side, though she
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: has decided to borrow six billion dollars less than she
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: had planned to, I will take that. And while there
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: is a lot of poor spending that continues, at least
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: there isn't new you more poor spending, And for that,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I suppose you have to give the solid the budget
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: a solid holding patterns score of six out of ten.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: For more from News Talks at b listen live on
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio