TLDR: The dust is settling on a holding-pattern Budget designed to win back Labour some lost ground in the polls in the short term. The real action and expectation will be around next year’s Budget, the last one before the election.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson signalled to me yesterday in the Budget lockup news conference that the Government would look at using the 15 percentage points of GDP of headroom it has within the new 30% net debt ceiling to address longer term infrastructure challenges around housing, transport, poverty and climate. That suggests an election-year warchest of close to $50b.
Elsewhere in the news overnight:
Russia claimed last night that 1,730 Ukrainian fighters had surrendered in Mariupol over the last three days;
S&P removed Tesla from its ESG index because of allegations of racial segregation at the electric carmakers massive Californian plant;
The Auckland Chamber of Commerce announced this morning that Michael Barnett, who has been CEO since 1991, would depart in August and be replaced by former National Party Leader Simon Bridges.
Paid subscribers can see more of my post-Budget analysis below the paywall fold. Paid subscribers should also look out later today for email invites to our weekly ‘Ask Me Anything’ for an hour at midday and our weekly ‘hoon’ at 5pm today with Peter Bale and guests. The invite link to the live zoom webinar is under the fun thing.
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Kākā by Bernard Hickey to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
