Less a bribe, more betting of the bank
Finance Minister Steven Joyce has delivered a politically savvy budget.
Ialways hate the term ‘‘election bribe’’. It’s the easy hit when the Opposition is struggling to come up with a stronger criticism of policies that may indeed be cynical, but that alone doesn’t make for bad policy. Or bad politics, for that matter.
The Government is sitting on a surplus, in an election year no less; they’re perfectly entitled to give people an incentive to vote for them.
Finance Minister Steven Joyce’s maiden budget wasn’t full of election bribes – although it was clearly an election-driven play.
There was additional pressure on Joyce for this one. He was fresh out of the gate, he had cash to splash and there are people in New Zealand currently living on the bones of their backside.
On that last point, it’s almost beyond contention that poverty has worsened due to Government’s inaction on an unchecked housing market.
But Joyce was also up against a heightened intrigue that goes with his proximity to National’s campaign strategy. Surely he’ll have an ace up the sleeve? The way Beehive staffers spent the past week raising the pitch of their voice, telling reporters to ‘‘wait and see’’, would suggest some surprises.
Largely, there weren’t. The Family Income package was speculated on almost in full, before the reveal. But did the Budget hit the right chord?
Mostly. It doled out broad income relief to a massive chunk of the voting electorate, dived heavily into left territory to do so, and kept a few sweeteners for feel-good growth, tourism and conservation projects, while down-playing some miserly spends in other areas ($4m on climate change?).
Criticisms will continue in areas like health but notably the Government now has it’s own new figure to shout – $1.8 billion. It has upped it’s funding significantly, but it’s never enough. Labour cries the starved sector has had an effective $1.7b stripped out of it over successive years of underfunding. While Thursday’s $1.8b to DHBs looks to the next four years, doing nothing to replenish what Labour claims is lost, it’s a figure that is purposefully a shade higher than $1.7b.
Joyce has also successfully corralled the Opposition into a tough spot, where they have the choice of supporting the Government’s income package or they can promise those same voters they’ll take it away for an asyet undetermined alternative, if they become the Government.
Nearly every voter will have banked the changes to their income as a done deal, even though it only comes into effect in April, next year. Many people will be expecting any promise between now and September to be on top of what was revealed in the Budget.
Even better for Joyce, both NZ First and the Greens voted to support the $2b Families income package (even if it was begrudgingly), while Labour was left the lone vote of dissent.
So as far as bribes go, Joyce’s first budget could buy him the ears of 1.3m voters, but he’s only offering what they’re arguably entitled to. If there are any ‘‘bribes’’, they’ll come closer to the election. Politically, is where this budget has been a success.
That’s Labour’s boxed into a $2.1b red corner, while the Greens stand figuratively in the blue.