Tough decisions for Key, English

Third-term budgets are supposed to be hard but someone tell Bill English and John Key. After years of scrabbling down the back of the sofa for spare cash, they’ve finally got a golden run of surpluses on the horizon – their first ever.

But spending them may be even more fraught than the penny pinching forced on them in previous years.

After years of preaching fiscal rectitude, any spending other than the usual – health, education, law and order – might be looked at with a jaundiced eye by voters who’ve wholeheartedly embraced the message that it’s better to pay off debt than spend.

Already, it seems like the prospect of surpluses as far as the eye could see might have blunted National’s normally reliable political antennae.

Knowing it had a good-news story to tell, it under-estimated the head of steam building under the housing crisis and rising homelessness.

A rushed announcement by Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett yesterday about a $5000 leg-up to beneficiaries to move out of Auckland looked like an attempt to make up for a shortfall in the budget in that area.

Key’s public musings about a $3 billion tax cut – not in today’s budget but possibly the next one – are another sign that National’s antennae might be off.

There doesn’t appear to be any groundswell for tax cuts and after years of belt tightening, people would probably rather the money was spent on areas like health.

That’s why tax cuts had already been taken off the table for this year’s Budget – that and the fact that any cuts would have been minuscule at best.

Who can forget the reaction to former finance minister Sir Michael Cullen’s infamous ‘‘chewing gum’’ tax cuts in Labour’s second term? Cullen still harbours a grudge about the stinging headline carried by The Dominion Post the following day: Is that it?.

Less is not more when it comes to tax cuts.

But if Bill English and John Key run true to type, they will pull a political rabbit out of the hat today that will put them back in charge of the political agenda and show their antennae is back in service.

National has so far defied convention that voters tire of governments after three terms; the latest Newshub/Reid Research poll has its support level pegging with its 2014 election result.

However, the same poll also points to a gradual slide in Prime Minister John Key’s popularity, though from a high base, and still miles ahead of his closest rival.

But whether it’s fallout over the Panama Papers, or an accumulation of small voter niggles, the lustre may be slowly wearing off.

So while Key and English aren’t under the usual pressure facing third-term governments for a big Budget surprise, that doesn’t mean they won’t roll one out – especially given their past history of using the Budget to take the wind out of their opponents’ sails.

Last year’s Budget delivering the first pay rise to beneficiaries in decades completely floored Labour.

But Budgets always walk a fine line between popular spending and looking like a lolly scramble.

That’s why National might find that finally having some money to spend is harder than having none.