Five things to expect
Finance Minister Bill English put his tongue into lock-down yesterday, refusing to answer any questions about the Budget other than advising reporters they will have to wait until today.
A raft of pre-Budget announcements has already been made, worth about $200 million a year, but by yesterday the flow of new spending announcements had been temporarily turned off.
But when English rises just after 2pm to deliver his eighth Budget, he will likely have five key issues at the front of his mind. 1. Housing His top priority should be the housing crisis, although the main points of the Budget may have been nailed down before the current furore around homelessness and emergency accommodation hit the headlines.
At the very least English will need to dress up any new initiatives as an answer to the current suite of concerns.
He needs to tackle both the lack of affordable homes – or even enough homes – in Auckland as well as the number of social and state houses available to the poor and the homeless.
Look for another push to make Crown land available for housing, more monstering of local government to remove building restrictions and another effort to boost the non-government social housing sector. 2. Surpluses, as far as the eye can see After scoring his first, wafer-thin, Budget surplus last year, English is expected to forecast another small one this year. But the main focus will be on the outlook for 2017 and beyond – what Treasury calls ‘‘the out years’’.
Signs are the forecast surpluses will rise to more than $5 billion a year and that should give the Government its cherished ‘‘choices’’ – how much more to allocate to spending, how much debt can be paid down towards its 2020 target and can he hold out an election year tax cut carrot worth $3 billion to help National win a fourth term. 3. A healthy spending rise Labour and the Greens have been hammering away at what they claim is a $1.7 billion deficit in health funding under this Government, and the need for an extra $600m to $700m this year just to stand still.
The Government has already announced extra cash for drugbuying agency Pharmac, but expect health to take the lion’s share of the remaining $1.4 billion left in the Budget war chest.
One big unknown is how much money will go into the first round of a major revamp of the Child, Youth and Family service. 4. Paying the price of immigration The recent surge in migration, including Kiwis returning home, has put the whole fabric of Government under pressure, from education to health care to prisons.
Look for big lumps of money, especially on schools, hospitals and infrastructure, to address the needs of a growing and ageing population. And then there is a need for more cash to help meet the shorter-term demands from burgeoning numbers of tourists. 5. The big reveal Every Budget needs a big positive surprise to give it a ‘‘brand’’ and to grab the headlines – so the Opposition doesn’t.
Last year it was extra benefit money for families with children; before that it was expanding free doctors’ visits to under 13 year olds.
This year it could be less a single surprise and more a broad range of social initiatives, including on housing, childcare and welfare.