Treasury controlled the Budget

Treasury apparatchiks won the day with the Budget, proving that they still have the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, under their thumb.

Instead of ordinary Kiwis it was they, and the banking fraternity that they hail from, who won all the prizes from the giant spend the Government is undertaking.

Kiwis will see a significant transfer of wealth out of their pockets into the pockets of the financial elite, further widening the inequality already plaguing our society.

The Government had, in the back room, the Reserve Bank, a source of funding for its spending that could have provided debt-free, zero-interest money with no cost to taxpayers .

The $60 billion the Reserve Bank is now going to create proves that such a source of money is available and redirecting it straight to the Government would have been easier than flicking the points on a railway system and sending the train down a different track.

Some intestinal fortitude from the Finance Minister would have given the low-paid, people on fixed incomes, beneficiaries, the large number of Kiwis unemployed, and business owners about to hit the wall a future to look forward to.

Look back to the Great Depression and the First Labour Government when Reserve Bank credit built the state houses and got New Zealand out of the depression before most other countries.

Mary Grant, Mairehau

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about the work they do, and the pleasure that many Kiwis derive from it. Damien Fahey, Sumner not mention Ruth Richardson, who continued the philosophy of Roger Douglas with her ‘‘mother of all budgets’’ while she was finance minister in the Bolger National government.

Interestingly David Lange distanced himself from Rogernomics just as Jim Bolger would distance himself from Ruthanasia. Unfortunately both leaders acted far too late.

The scars of those failed neoliberal experiments are still felt today. Negative societal effects, particularly the rapid rise in inequality, meant that future governments had to use their budgets to attempt to right the wrongs, particularly with increased expenditure on law and order.

So while it’s extremely unlikely that Grant Robertson has benefited in any way from the actions of Roger Douglas, it’s almost certain he’s inherited the negative remnants from the policies of a government which had no right to call itself Labour.

Ken Orr, Shirley