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Liam Dann: NZ Herald business editor at large speculates about Budget 2025 · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: There were two weeks away from the budget, so the
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  Speaker 2: hints keep on dropping. The Prime Minister said the government
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  Speaker 2: will increase total capital expenditure it's allocated in its upcoming
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  Speaker 2: budget by four hundred million dollars. That money goes into
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  Speaker 2: capital projects in health, education, defense, transport, portfolios and so on.
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  Speaker 2: Liam dan Is, the Herald's business editor at large, and
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  Speaker 2: with us.
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  Speaker 3: Now, Hey, Liam, Hi, how's it going.
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  Speaker 2: I'm very well, thank you. So why the significance of
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  Speaker 2: the capital budget going up as what?
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  Speaker 3: Well, we had a little bit about we had from
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  Speaker 3: Nikola Willis last week the operating budget and that was
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  Speaker 3: a big cut to it, and that was that's the
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  Speaker 3: money on hand to basically pay wages and keep the
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  Speaker 3: government functioning, and that that was pretty austere. And so
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  Speaker 3: you know, Nicola Willis had called her speech last week
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  Speaker 3: a growth budget and you're sort of scratching her heads. Well,
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  Speaker 3: it doesn't look very growth orientated. So the capital expenditure
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  Speaker 3: is a bit larger, but you know, so that that's good,
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  Speaker 3: and there was talk about some significant significant investment in
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  Speaker 3: infrastructure projects, which you know would be great. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: that's the sort of money that you can you can spend.
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  Speaker 3: Of course a few you've got to make the projects happen,
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  Speaker 3: as we've found out in the last few years, but
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  Speaker 3: you know, that's a good thing. Just I just think
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  Speaker 3: we'd probably have to remember, there's there's a big decisions
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  Speaker 3: that the government has to make about how much of
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  Speaker 3: this bending on defense goes, you know, in the next
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  Speaker 3: year or so and over the next four years. So
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  Speaker 3: they've actually you know, said they're going to up defense spending.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's something like six point six point five
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  Speaker 3: billion or something like that on top of what they're
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  Speaker 3: already doing. So that would be from the capital allowance
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  Speaker 3: as well. So yeah, there's there's you know, it's sort
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  Speaker 3: of like they're they're giving us little clues as they
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  Speaker 3: go as to where this budget's going. It's it's not
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  Speaker 3: going to be a big gee whiz, well we got
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  Speaker 3: this and that and this, but it's you know, in
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  Speaker 3: terms of the jigsaw of how they navigate I guess
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  Speaker 3: this difficult fiscal period and keep going for gross it
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  Speaker 3: was a little bit more detail and it's kind of interesting.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, so Chris Luxon's done the speech today right
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  Speaker 2: where he's pumped up the support for business. What are
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  Speaker 2: we expecting to see. Have we got any idea at
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  Speaker 2: all what he's going to do to make it easier
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  Speaker 2: for business to be able to invest.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so he alluded to doing some some not not
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  Speaker 3: huge things, but small things that would help businesses invest.
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  Speaker 3: And I wonder whether it's this sort of the kind
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  Speaker 3: of tax rebate on you know that allows you to
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  Speaker 3: depreciate or will take a tax to rebeat on depreciation
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  Speaker 3: of assets, because I know that's one that say the
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  Speaker 3: Employers and Manufacturer's Association has really lobbied hard for over
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  Speaker 3: the years. It just means, you know, if to encourage
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  Speaker 3: businesses to invest in new equipment and new technology. Obviously,
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  Speaker 3: you know, the minute you take it out of the shop,
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  Speaker 3: it starts to depreciate, and every year it depreciates and
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  Speaker 3: you can claim back some tax on the depreciation. Now
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  Speaker 3: you can set that at a different level, so it
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  Speaker 3: may not be a huge amount of money, but you know,
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  Speaker 3: that's quite a positive thing because when we look at
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  Speaker 3: New Zealand's productivity, we know that you know, the not
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  Speaker 3: investing in the latest technology is one of the reasons
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  Speaker 3: that we say that we're sort of behind on productivity
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  Speaker 3: if you look at countries like Germany so on, where
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  Speaker 3: they use all the latest technology that helps drive productivity.
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  Speaker 3: So that's the kind of thing the government could do
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  Speaker 3: that would sort of pay a dividend in the end,
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  Speaker 3: is you know, in terms of boosting the economy and
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  Speaker 3: going for growth, which is their mantra obviously.
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  Speaker 2: Liam, it's always good to talk to you. Thank you mate.
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  Speaker 2: That's Liam Dan, the Herald's Business editor at large.
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