VIEWPOINTS

Richard Prebble comment

A fast way for a company to go broke is to have fantastic advertising and an awful product.

It is true of countries too. This Government has the best PR ever and no product.

It is the first Budget where Government says it is going to spend but does not know what on. As if just spending is a sensible policy. Thirty years of prudence blown in one Budget.

Government was warned of the pandemic in January. By going too late and then too hard the economy has been smashed. The Budget’s massive borrowing and reckless spending will be a burden for years.

Debt is projected to increase to $70,000 per household. The Reserve Bank printing $60 billion is a rash experiment.

As Walter Nash observed: “If social credit works, no one else has to.” We are heading for an Argentina-like currency and economy.

None of the steps to create sustainable new jobs such as reform of the job-killing RMA have been taken.

The Budget’s objective was never jobs, jobs, jobs but votes, votes, votes: “Spend whatever it takes” to win an early September election.

Whether the Budget has bought your vote is over to you. Richard Prebble is a retired politician who served in a Labour cabinet and as leader of the Act Party.

Josie Pagani comment

Despite the eye-popping numbers, this is a cautious Budget. A trickleup Budget, with the emphasis on “trickle”.

I hope Treasury’s forecasts are right because they see the economy bouncing back much faster and taking a smaller hit than I expected. Consequently, the cash relief for families is smaller than I had hoped.

But free job re-training, the big, immediate environmental stimulus and state-house building programmes are all great decisions.

They could have built twice as many houses and generated twice as many green jobs by partnering with local councils and experienced nongovernment agencies, such as Salvation Army and iwi authorities, using Government money.

With the Pacific facing devastation of its tourism-based economies, the increase in our overseas aid is the right thing to do. It will help our neighbours, and move us towards a Pacific travel bubble faster. A winwin.

True, the economy needs a clearer long-term strategy and that will need to be spelled out before the election. But not today. Right now the priority is helping people through the crisis.

Businesses need customers more than they need a handout right now. Cash in customers’ hands trickles up. That’s why I wish there was more cash going to families who will lose incomes as the economy shrinks over the next two years.

Ten per cent unemployment is less than I feared. I hope they’re right. Josie Pagani is an international specialist, former Alliance press secretary and former Labour candidate.

The Budget’s objective was never jobs, jobs, jobs but votes, votes, votes.