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Ruth Richardson: Former Finance Minister and Taxpayers' Union Chair unpacks Budget 2026 · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So of course Nikola Willis presented her lovely scramble less
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: budgets yesterday.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: I know many Kiwis are doing it tough right now,
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: and I would love to be able to give them
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: the immediate relief that so many want, But I know
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: it is their future selves that would pay for that
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: with interest.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: The big winners were infrastructure, health and education. Plus she
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: was predicting a return to suplus sooner than expected using
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: some interesting metrics.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Though.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Ruth Richardson is a former finance minister, chair of the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Taxpayers Union and joins you now goot boarding to you, Ruth,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: good morning. I'm going to guess you think there's not
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: enough savings in this thing.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Well, first things first, New Zealand should breathe a huge
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: sigh of relief that the government has understood the imperative
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: for fiscal responsibility. I mean, this really does face up
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: to our problem and throws down the gautlet to those
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: who are main addicted to tax, spend and borrow. That's
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: a failed formula.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Where did Nichola go soft when she could have gone hard?
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't think it's a matter of soft, it's
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: the rhetoric is very important. It's got a nice ring
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: to it. Back to black. But does the reality match
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: the rhetoric, And that's the big question that we should ask.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, debt continues to rise, the operating allowance continues
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: to rise, numbers can change. There are a lot of
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: heroic assumptions in those numbers, and it's all on a
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: promise that while they're spending for now, we we'll have
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: savings later. So there are two big risks, the failure
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: to execute or the reversion to old fiscal habits.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, do you see a surplus in twenty eight twenty nine?
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: As you said, some of the some of the aspirations
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: are somewhat heroic. Do you think the Treasury's predictions are
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: a bit too rosy?
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Well, reasonable people can disagree, and the Reserve Bank has
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: a different set of numbers. I think the reality will
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: turn out to be different. This is all those shifting
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: sounds of what might happen in the Middle Eastern, the
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: reverberations from that. So I don't think that we should
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: be banking that as a surplus slam dunk. I think
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: the direction of travel is important, and that is the
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: commitment at last to try to have a major course
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: correction in the New Zealand fiscal ships, which quite frankly
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: has been sailing to the rocks.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Excuse me, Nicholas obviously fighting her coalition partners. It's fair
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to say, is this MMP once again holding us back
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: from making positive and direct decisions.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Well, to be fair to the minister, I think she
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: has taken the leader she should. Her three associate Ministers
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: of Finance, two of them come from the coalition partners
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: at in New Zealand. First, it's their budget as well.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: But I do worry about reversion. Are you already here
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: politicking which is or we can go and buy a bank,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: no problem in that, we can finance that, or we
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: don't need to do anything about superannuation. I mean, that's
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: just sheer lunacy.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Well that's my final question, Ruth, because Nicola Willis came
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: out and there's a bit of argibarde between Shane Jones
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and Winston Peters and Nicola when she actually said we've
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: got to start seriously thinking about superannuation. How do we
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: do that?
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: Well, it's all boils down to leadership and facing the facts,
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: the fact that unless we shrink superannuation it will monster
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: the budget. It needs to be addressed. In my time,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: we lifted the age of eligibility. That's an obvious first
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: step that we should be taking to shrink the superannuation build.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Ruth, I thank you so much for your time today.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: That is Ruth Richardson, Taxpayers Union Chair, former finance minister
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and a person who knows about austerity and how to
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: make the hard decisions. Remember always there is retail politics
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: at play here. As Liz Trust found out, sometimes the
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: right thing to do can be the wrong thing to
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: keep the Treasury benches. But I think the balance is
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: about right.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: For more from early edition with Ryan and Bridge. Listen
• 4:01
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• 4:04
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