Public service still larger than just nine months ago

• David Farrar writes –

Nicola Willis announced:

Workforce data for the quarter from 31 December 23 to 31 March 24 shows a decrease of 0.6 per cent (or 416 FTEs) indicating workforce size peaked in December.

“We knew that the recent increase in the number of back-office public service roles was unaffordable and needed to be reined in,” Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. 

Coalition Of The Unwilling?

• Brian Easton writes –

What does Budget 2024 tell us about the current government? Muddle on?

Coalition governments are not new. About 50 percent of the time since the first MMP election, there has been a minority government, usually with allied parties holding ministerial portfolios outside cabinets. For 10 percent of the time there was a majority government and for the remaining 40 percent it has been a coalition government. Even a coalition of three parties is not entirely new. The last term of the Clark-Cullen Government involved three – even four – parties although there were only two in the cabinet with the others holding portfolios outside.

The 2024 Budget Forecasts Are Gloomy About The Next Three Years

• Brian Easton writes

There was no less razzamatazz about the 2024 Budget than about earlier ones. Once again the underlying economic analysis got lost. It deserves more attention.

Budget review

• Muriel Newman writes –

The Budget is done and dusted and on the face of it, National successfully delivered on its election promise to provide tax relief to New Zealanders by lowering tax thresholds.

The current tax thresholds were established in 2010 by John Key’s National Government. The bottom rate was set at 10.5 percent for income up to $14,000, 17.5 percent from $14,001 to $48,000, 30 percent from $48,001 to $70,000, and 33 percent from $70,001.

Comparing Treasury and Reserve Bank forecasts

• Michael Reddell writes –

I put a range of charts on Twitter late last week illustrating why, from a macroeconomic perspective, I found the government’s Budget deeply underwhelming. I won’t repeat them but will just show two here.

Finding more for cancer drugs

• Ele Ludemann writes – 

National campaigned on funding more cancer drugs but the government wasn’t able to do that in this Budget.

These drugs would make the difference in both quality and length of life for some, and could be the difference between life and death for others.

Budget 2024 shows NZ has some tough choices to make – Scandinavia or Singapore

• Bryce Edwards writes –

To truly understand yesterday’s [May 30] Budget, it’s worth returning to a statement made in 2020 by the then British High Commissioner Laura Clark that New Zealand has “Scandinavian ambitions in terms of quality of life and public services, but a US attitude to tax”. Her point is that New Zealand politicians want an economic setting that doesn’t work – low taxes mismatched with high spending.

Eventually, the country must choose to either follow Scandinavian high taxes and high spending or US low taxes and low spending—or, indeed, something in the middle. But what is not a serious option is what Labour and National governments continue to promise: relatively low taxes and relatively high government spending.

The 2024 no-frills Budget

• Bryce Edwards writes – 

Today’s anti-government protests around the country will not be convinced by Nicola Willis’s budget. She has announced exactly what critics were expecting—a right-wing Budget containing tax cuts and further cuts to government programmes.

Yet the Budget is far from being the “neoliberal” or radical rightwing Budget that leftwing critics might have feared. Instead, it is positioned to win over the support of working people, and cleverly comes across as quite moderate.

There WAS something in the Budget for Maori – it’s the farm sector and rural communities that Willis overlooked

Buzz from the Beehive

Agriculture – the backbone of the economy – was not mentioned in Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ first Budget speech.  Nor was there any mention of “farming” or “horticulture” or “rural”.

Hmm.

Maybe there’s something for the farm sector in the deluge of press statements from Ministers eager to lay claim to having secured something for the sectors in their domains of responsibility…

Taking less, not giving more

• Ele Ludemann writes –

Ever since National talked about helping us by allowing us to keep some of our own money, critics have been vociferous in opposition.

There are so many urgent needs in core public services – education, health, infrastructure, police . . . it’s not hard to understand why they think the government needs every cent it can get.