Sugar-Free Budget

There's been uh a bit of this discussion bubbling in recent weeks about how Labour doesn't seem to have any new ideas and that it doesn't seem to be uh wanting to trust the electorate with any uh real proposals and wants to sort of um uh crouch um uh uh uh low target style and and and creep over the line that way. Uh there's really no excuse now for for Labour. They have to come out with some policies now, they've got a clear budget set of budget um numbers to plug into their own spreadsheets. So that that's part of the debate will now switch to so, okay, Labor, what are you gonna do about this these problems? You know, what what's where's the real choice? So that um changes the landscape a bit uh and puts the opposition potentially on the defensive, gives the government a strong, you know, uh base to uh to aim at the opposition from. Uh we'll also you know have this debate about uh um grown-ups versus kids, um, you know, tough love versus um spendthrift teenagers uh and um the public will have to make their own uh minds up about who to believe on that. Uh uh I I think also that uh we'll see a bit more of a debate now about New Zealand superannuation because the government's chosen to use the budget as a uh launch pad for for a real election debate on it. Uh and and also I expect that um the issue of the bank profit levy will now bubble up to the surface because from that news conference it's clear Nicola Willis really wants to do it and it's ACT that's stopping her. And you know, act supposedly um the association of consumers and taxpayers, which actually seems now to be very uh in favour of the human rights of very large corporations and very much fighting for no taxes at all on anyone uh and particularly corporates, and we'll always block the big tax. When you know the Australian government under a conservative government was the one that brought in a big bank profits levy, and these banks are the same banks, and they seem to operate perfectly well, and there's plenty of investment in Australia, and and for Nicola Willis to be saying, Oh, I so want to get my hands on those billions, and uh David's not letting me. I think that now becomes more of a debate. And I think also um uh we're going to have quite a bit of blowback from the regions now that we know a bunch of ROMs are not going to get the sign off before the election. The only big run roads of national significance, we should say. Sorry, yes, the only big big road that came out of this budget is the one in the White Cuttle. And uh Northland is still waiting. The other thing I think uh has sort of gone under the radar in the last few days is this news out of Rotarua, where the government decided to go ahead with a very simple new courthouse building, uh, which was the government borrows money and the government pays for someone to build the courthouse and then the government owns the courthouse and the government pays to maintain the courthouse instead of having a public-private partnership doing it.