It set the Opposition at each other’s throat

Labour immediately attacked the more miserly end of the tax threshold changes that deliver the very lowest-paid workers chump change of not much more than $1 a week. But barely had Andrew Little coined the phrase ‘‘$1 bill’’ to attack the Budget than the Greens and NZ First pulled the rug out from his feet by voting for it.

It boxes Labour in on spending

Little has already pledged to honour the boost to Working for Families and the accommodation supplement if he is in power and is non-committal on the tax threshold changes. That adds up to a $2 billion raid on spending Labour might have otherwise committed elsewhere.

It pushes even further into Labour territory

Labour is tearing its hair out. National’s last Budget dived deep into Labour’s heartland by raising benefit levels by $20 a week, the first increase in decades.

The big-ticket items in this Budget are all about low and middle-income workers – using Labour’s one-time flagship policy Working for Families – boosting public services and tackling child poverty.

It’s all about the battlers, in other words – once Labour’s blue collar core. There was barely a nod to National’s more traditional constituency of high-income earners, who do best out of the tax threshold changes but not obscenely so.

It’s hard for Little to make much political capital out of the ‘‘fat cats’’ getting an extra $33 a week in the hand (though he will try).

It doesn’t rock the boat

With regime change comes uncertainty and the big question was not just whether National could survive the loss of one of our most popular prime ministers ever, but upheaval in the finance role.

Trust in Bill English as a safe pair of hands was high for his stewardship of the country’s finances through the global financial crisis and Christchurch earthquakes.

Joyce needed to deliver a Budget that reassured voters it was business as usual. He achieved that – though it helps when inheriting whopping surpluses, uninterrupted growth and the ability to spend and pay off debt at the same time.

But while Joyce’s first Budget was well received, it’s not all bouquets. The Budget was predictable if not boring and while it scratched a lot of itches, it fell short on other fronts, including:

Vision

If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times. Whether it’s the business community, its opponents, or economists, everyone seems to agree that National’s economic vision has never been overly exciting. It doesn’t seem to have hurt National so far – when it came to power at the height of the global financial crisis people valued safety and security over risk, debt repayment over boldness.

But the mood may be changing. The polls might say something different and New Zealand’s economic story is the world’s envy. But out on the street it’s hard to get a sense that people are feeling the glow. What was once seen as a strength risks looking dull and plodding.

National identity

Helen Clark campaigned on a vision for a sustainable New Zealand. She was probably ahead of her time. The missing factor in Joyce’s Budget was a big, bold move on an issue that goes to the heart of our national identity, our 100 per cent pure, clean green brand. Putting its money where its