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2:01 pm, May 28th, 2026 - 83 comments
Categories: nicola willis -
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This is simply your space to react to the hyperbole, the outrages, the theatre of this coalition government’s election year budget.
Buckle in.
Are those over in Australia being reassured they made the right choice?
Labour should say they will quadruple the bank levy to $800 million……easy pickings.
Gives them $600m to spend on public transport or solar/battery energy or health etc etc
A 33% tax rate on banks instead of 28% on $7B profit is $350M PA.
Not $50M a year ($200M over 4 years)
SPC-My proposal is that the levy is raised by Labour from $50m to $200m a year., National will not be able to attack it because it is their idea.
Your proposal (though I like it) will enable the Nats to attack Labour by saying that Labour is raising taxes.
Largely on foreign based banks (with half of the Oz bank shares owned by American funds) not New Zealanders.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/361011915/levy-expected-cost-banks-and-insurers-209m-over-four-years
2 months and 3 months before those over age 65 can apply for a Super Gold Card that can be used as ID (it being so embarrassing to have use a card that proves one is old enough to gamble or buy alcohol).
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360985202/supergold-card-will-soon-be-legal-id
It's a real issue for someone who can't hold a driver's licence due to age or health issues. There's not really any other form if Government issued ID, apart from a firearms or builders's license, and if you had one of those you'd have a driver's licence.
Sort of, old people without a drivers license can apply for a passport.
Oh come on. What a heartless sentiment.
Say that to someone who's just lost their mobility and has to work out how to get around in our car centric world. Why should they have to then fork out to get a passport and have to go through the rigmarole of getting a passport. Long past the time we had an alternative to a driver's licence as ID
not to mention the cost of getting a passport
Marvelous! With a passport they can cruise and travel to … Te Puke. And it only costs c16.5 pāua pies.
You said there was no other means of ID. Many use their passport after losing their DL.
They will have to supply a photo to get a photo ID Super Gold Card.
https://www.passports.govt.nz/most-citizens-can-apply-for-their-passport-online/most-citizens-can-apply-for-their-passport-online
The drivers licence has become a defect ID for government and private services. So identity is dependent on the ability to drive. If you don't drive, or loose the ability to drive, you have no way of identifying yourself. If you loose the ability to drive medically at a licence renewal that happens quite suddenly, and then you have to interact with government agencies to change support arrangements. Ooops, you don't have a valid ID because your drivers licence is expired. Gets really tricky, really suddenly. Happened to a close family member a couple of years ago.
We got through it by good fortune and contacts but it cold have easily had a different outcome. Good to see a proper solution, but it really needs to be available to the whole population, not just over 65.
I've never had a drivers license. I was once told by a police officer I could not prove I owned my house as I had no DL (an abnormal policing operation sting).
It's not hard to get a passport. Now that it is accessible online.
The minor problem of getting an acceptable photo (getting to a place that does them) may occur with the SuperGold Card.
Loss of identity proof (or problem getting or using internet services) is raison d'être for Citizens Advice Bureau or Aged Concern or Beneficiary Advocacy territory or some charity group.
This problem will still exist for another 2 years.
PS I've never used a mobile phone (though have been required to have one).
All those photos on the Gold Cards only need to be in greyscale.
🙂 Droll!
There are a few people like POTUS 47 about, just saying.
edit response below
The well to do, can summer all year around.
They also have face lifts and hair colouring schemes.
It is one way to spend their divorce settlement money before they move into a retirement village more experienced.
Orange? They could hand-tint, as he does.
Telling us it's easy to get a passport is simply not true.
First you need $247 bucks. Gold Card is free.
Second you must be a New Zealand citizen. So that excludes the 800,000 of the New Zealand population who need an i.d. card who are not citizens.
Third you need a RealMe login. This is a digital process that is not for the faint hearted.
Then a digital i.d. photograph that meets official standards.There's a few of those.
Then you need an identity referee who is also a valid passport holder. Your referee will be contacted, and they will need to respond favourably.
You must not have any court order against you, or specific parole or probation conditions. You must not have outstanding taxes, child support, or up to a certain level outstanding student loans.
You must not have any unresolved identity issues.
Your documentation must be perfect in every respect., or show any reasonable cause that the particulars are incorrect. And if you do, you'll be flagged to kingdom come.
Then you need a credit card ready.
And then you do it again every 10 years.
Whereas you get a SuperGold card as soon as you are eligible for the NZpension.
Cost cannot be the issue for those who can no longer drive – they have the cash from a sold car.
The same issues apply for those who are not yet age 65.
Nothing is proposed for them.
Telling people that they have money because they were forced to sell their car is just stupid, pitiless, and wrong.
Actually the driver license for those under OR over 65 is already a de facto i.d. card whether you are a citizen or not. Talk to any bar owner or cigarette seller or supermarket or social welfare facility.
Also it has a digital version which the Police accept already.
Claiming a person cannot afford the cost of a passport after they lose their DL and have a car asset is simply untrue.
What actually is your point?
How is that a response to my noting that there are people that have a problem with the lack of a DL for ID under age 65 – who are in no way helped by the over 65 option (in 2 years time)?
It's a start and it sets up an alternative / parallel process to the driver licence as ID. The cost here is in that parallel process to get the identification data onto another medium and into official systems, like every policeman's phone, the WINZ system, and every other organisation that uses that data to varying degrees to identify people.
Your presumption that the person who just had their ability to drive would also be forced to sell their car is offensive and borders on elder abuse. Maybe that person would refer to have a relative or known person drive them on outings in their own and familiar car, not be thrown on the heap by a faceless system that no longer sees them as a person. We encountered that "we know best, your expectations don't matter" attitude from HNZ social worker when assisting my relative. Just because you can't drive you shouldn't have your identity erased and be constructively hobbled then forced into care against your will.
One issue is if there is a problem gaining access to Real Me ID to communicate with government and its data systems.
That would apply for a passport, or access to an ID card (whether under or over age 65) and for providing the type of photo required.
As for the commentary
They can buy a $250 passport – heartless – a cost they could not afford (should not maybe)
My observation they have a car they cannot use for sale – you infer it is some requirement to sell and thus is elder abuse
If they want (they would then bear the cost of maintaining the car).
For mine, near all on Super can afford a one off cost of $250 (they have appliances they have to replace that cost a lot more).
For two more years the problem, such as it is, will continue.
One really needs something one can carry around in one's wallet.
The UK is doing that for anyone who wants it (and it is optional).
Here only an over age 65 option
The digital version of DL takes it down to phone size – could be the same for a passport?
The forecasted return to surplus in the 2028/29 financial year will not occur.
It is a charade, a grifter con.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/596612/budget-2026-new-zealand-digging-its-way-out-of-the-post-covid-hole-finance-minister-says
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/361011920/treasury-sees-surplus-2029-year-earlier-expected-warns-general-uncertainty
"Despite a rosier headline outlook, which had not been expected by economists, Treasury estimated there was a 40% to 50% chance that the Government would not get back to surplus in the year to 2030."
Good work SPC-why is the MSM not reporting this?
Someone at the Post read the Treasury advice (the public service play it fairly straight) – see the bold.
If journalists are unwilling to do so – it might be to retain the confidence of the party in power (being useful). But another staffer does it for them.
But the Herald may not want to.
As for TVNZ and RNZ is a wait and see (being seen as being critical placing themselves at risk – aka ex … or their organisation).
The New Zealand government – no matter who is leading it – now faces paying $9 billion per year just to service the ginormous public debt that both Labour and National have run up.
That is more than the combined expenditure per year on Police, Justice, Corrections, Defence, and Customs per year. \
SO any government – National or Labour led – is finding it is getting harder and harder and harder to spend on the new stuff when the old debt payments are just squeezing them.
That of course is precisely the same for Keir Starmer. Massive old debt that kills fresh expenditure that citizens want.
Citizens don't understand this, get impatient, resist every single measure to control this blowout, prefer to see Prime Ministers rolled no matter their performance or mandate, and prefer the lolly scramble of Reform or NZFirst.
This is a very destructive narrative which basically justifies all the harm National is doing with its budget.
If the government (any government) had a problem with 9 billion in interest payments it could write off up any amount of debt up to all of its debt. The fact that it's not doing this actually demonstrates it doesn't have an actual problem, just a convenient excuse for cuts it actually wants to make.
The most important thing to recognize about this budget is not only does it involve cutting, but the cuts are most likely counter productive on their own terms (actually push any forecast return to surplus further into the future) because of the way cuts to the public sector also impact the private sector and this feeds back on the government's budget. That's the most important thing about this budget, in the terms National has set itself the country would be better off with the public sector spending the government has cut out of the budget. Its mean and its pointlessly mean.
Agreed, except for "pointlessly" – NAct are being deliberately lean and mean.
Reform is not offering a lolly scramble.
But action against immigration and migrants.
Farage is to the right of the Tories on economics.
They have a tell
Solve a budget problem – cancel existing claims for pay equity and change the rules.
Why do we know they have a budget problem – the rushed nature of the magic AI move (the new money off trees, replace staff with a system without mentioning license of use capital cost and adjusted upward annual fees – it is as if they have never had IT issues in the past)
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/596541/budget-26-opposition-advocates-have-low-expectations-of-support-for-those-struggling-most
That was my instinct also – that the projected surplus, and its timeline, are bullshit. And that's because Willis is banking the projected savings from the public service cuts just announced without any idea how these will pan out, plus she is assuming that the effects of war on Iran will be resolved sometime soon. This would be bad enough if a surplus was a good thing. But right now, during a recession, it's a bad thing and it will make any recovery slower.
Alternatively it is the most economically uncertain time to forecast a national budget since COVID, so the level of confidence in the forecast is entirely reasonable.
Did you note that both Treasury and Reddell have said the AI cost savings plan is very uncertain?
I'm not expecting it to save anything at all.
$1B for rail.
By some folk's standards, that's the cooker vote tied up.
Who are they?
Moat of it is going into urban rail upgrades, which as Auckland has seen for the last three years is stuff that really stuffs your commuter timetables unless you stay on top of it decade after decade.
This is a sound investment from both a public service and climate point of view.
And the “National Rail Freight Network” plan is a future requirement.
This is a reality now.
There needs to be an assessment of transport network resilience and a works programme plan.
The value of a second Canterbury vessel for coastal shipping (in an emergency – including earthquakes) is becoming more apparent. It may help if we have Cook Strait issues (ferry transition etc).
NZTA do assess for this.
The rail and SH1 lines from Christchurch to Picton are the strongest state highway and rail networks we have, following the big earthquakes.
The big risk now is on the Wellington port side.
More highways being built in the Waikato for the rich who can afford to fill their Utes up – paid for by the poor who get less than nothing
The SH1 Cambridge-to-Piarere section is one of the deadliest sections of state highway we have, and is right in the middle of the 110km Cambridge expressway and the Tauranga roundabout.
They'll be lucky if the get it all built for that price, but there's no argument it's a vital piece of state highway that has needed upgrading for years and years.
Or you could reduce the speed limit in places and build central road barriers and carry out other safety improvements.
Much cheaper.
That's true in some SH1 areas like Puhoi-Dome Valley, but not in the Piarere section.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361013122/budget-2026-billions-capital-projects-major-investment-rail-roads-and-hospitals
Did Chris Bishop never have a train set when he was young?
Well, they are funding the National Rail Freight Network plan as well.
It is about connecting SH 29 and SH 1 (Tauranga to Hamilton via Cambridge).
Other
Also SH1 Taupo and onto Cambridge.
Otherwise Rotorua SH 5 to SH1 to Cambridge.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/361014479/177-billion-waikato-expressway-funding-transform-region
This is a deception. The reduced take up of new builds is no way connected to lower maintenance costs.
That is either a result of selling or demolishing older houses, or deferred maintenance work.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360985190/budget-2026-winners-and-losers-winston-comes-out-top-banks-lose
Christopher Luxon baldly lies that Labour’s CGT would impact farmers and small businesses. Then says they will tax peoples houses.
The lack of honesty is a tell.
Trump lies, Vance lies – they do it because of a total absence of ethics.
Lobbyists know them, they do not mind being managed by special interests, they welcome the donations.
The problem is cultural.
The entitlement, the only OECD nation without any of these – CGT, stamp duty estate taxation and gift duty. The past Conservative government of the UK had all of these taxes.
The most rich and sorted governance regime on Earth.
The propertied class and its rentier economy.
Luxon is a Sassenach (unfit to rule in Scotland).
Thanks SPC, well said / summarised. Here's another take on Budget 2026, from Joel MacManus in The Spinoff, recollecting a 'fast out of the blocks' Willis blunder.
To be fair to our new Lotto lady, Nicky-No-Boats has never really been about, let alone on top of 'the technical numbers' – she's more of a 'vibe' Finance Minister.
‘Fool me once…‘ Enrol to vote, and make sure everyone you know does the same!
https://vote.nz/enrolling/enrol-or-update/enrol-or-update-online
"Luxon is a Sassenach (unfit to rule in Scotland)."
He's unfit to rule here as well.
The last government that increased rents for state house tenants was the regime of 1990-1999.
The last government to cut payments to the disabled, also 1990-1999.
That regime removed the estate tax (1993) and stamp duty (1999).
So we have the most anti-poor and pro well to do regime since that one.
Jim Bolger had to remove Ruth Richardson before the 1993 election for the government to return to office. It would not have survived under MMP. In 1996 Peters campaigned as part of the opposition, then kept it in office.
This is why he did not block the increase in state house rents this time, he did not end market rents 1996-1998.
This government has provided MW increases at half the rate of inflation, the government of 1990-1999 was known for its low MW. This impacts on the lowest wage workers (why no IETC adjustment?).
Chloe Swarbrick says what is.
David Seymour follows up with platitudes about hard truths (which can be summed up as there are 3 parties that oppose standard taxation on the well to do). He reckons the US government is socialist because there is CGT and estate taxation on those who have wealth.
What an absurdity.
By the often used definition of Socialism, the State share of the economy, the USA is one of the most "Socialist" countries on earth.
With the worlds largest State run and operated make work scheme.
Even nominally "Democratically controlled". Democratic Socialism!
Ironically their economy would collapse without it. Even if a couple of million military trained, suddenly unemployed, didn't topple their oligarchy.
FACT CHECK
1975 National Superannuation
Muldoon knew that the impost would follow – he also knew that because of estate taxation there would be an inflow of boomer estate money
But estate tax was removed in 1993 by the next National government
If Willis wants to pout about this her party needs to restore estate taxation or remain quiet because they are the cause of this problem.
He opposes an estate tax, he is part of the problem.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/596618/budget-2026-nicola-willis-takes-swing-at-nz-first-over-superannuation
Hunker down, batten down the hatches, and sit tight. This storm will pass, the sun will come out again, and we’ll continue our jolly journey to brighter horizons that are just over the horizon. We’ve ordered a better, stronger, faster (turbo-diesel), smaller, but cheaper boat, without fishing cameras, so that will weather the next storms with a smaller crew and fewer passengers but feeling a lot more secure.
Ship of Fools.
Said Nicola, never……
There will be many an analysis of Nicola's budget …I dont see too much for….
FYI..I'm resilient, have fought for decades, can tough it out through adversity.
I fight for those..who maybe cant. Those from Emma's poem. November…a change coming for the Better
I thought that Nicola Willis’ Budget was a nothingburger, without jam, not today, not tomorrow.
She’ll have us believe that AI will save the government books. In fact, she’s pinning all her hopes on AI even saving the whole economy of NZ and making it grow beyond our wildest
hallucinationsdreams.Most likely, it’ll be a costly nothingburger – no Puku Pies for the hungry plebs.
Ain’t that the truth! This is how we should evaluate Nicola’s last and final Budget too.
https://theconversation.com/in-a-sea-of-hype-here-are-the-ai-nothingburgers-you-dont-hear-about-283767
The most corrupt government in NZ history appropriately produces the biggest budget con job in NZ history.
Drabs of money to health and social services to distract people from what this budget is all about – exercising National's enduring fetish for road building.
Food security, job security, economics in the real world.
?
Yeah right.
It's just ugly.
Rails, roads, and real estate – the people are unwitting extras in this Truman Show put on by the Coalition.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361013616/budget-2026-rnz-suffers-second-funding-cut-two-years
Surprised this latest cut wasn't deeper – seems our public broadcaster, RNZ, hasn't been ‘careful’ enough. Coalition of Corruption leaders are united in their antipathy towards NZ Aotearoa's most trusted news brand, because trusted public broadcasters are anathema to the CoC! A simple solution would be to starve RNZ of funds and let those lovely corporate-friendly media organs take over… banana republic here we come.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
So, basically, Budget-2026 was a budget for the international credit agencies and the lenders & funders (aka financial markets) that prop up us and the economy. Got it.
This means an increase to tertiary fees from 2027.
The government is saving $250M pa ending the fees free schemes.
The government is also funding an additional 1000 Youth Guarantee places (4500 to 5500pa).
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360985431/watch-students-protest-outside-parliament-after-tertiary-fees-increased
The overwhelming meta I take from this budget is the ideological exhaustion of the neoliberal prescription and the decadence of our political elites and rump MSM. There is a complete failure of our elites to grasp how bad things are in the country for lots of New Zealanders and for lots of New Zealanders who have voted for them in the past. There are huge problems of failing productivity, wealth inequality, rentier capitalism, cronyism, oligarchic power and growing corruption (sorry, "captured political economy") in this country and our intellectually exhausted political class is unwilling to face any of them. The ideological exhaustion is expressed in Willis's magical thinking and the complete absence of alternatives across the centrist political parties.
Decadence? Both National and Labour talk in complete banalities. The government needs to have a plan to deal with the cost of living crisis. Oh, should it Chris? Thanks for the insight. Kiwis are doing it tough. Thanks for that Nicola. Never occurred to me. These political elites have not updated their thinking since the mid 1990s. The media is the same. Stuck in 1996. Of course they are pro-business, so therefore all the business journalists want to reduce taxes because it boosts growth. Our elites behave as if the last 30 years never happened. They've all been preserved in increasingly rotten ideological aspic. Our pundits and journalists are a class of people selected via oligarchical self-reproduction and self-serving influence networks and our politicians from an undemocratic ouroboros where the MPs pick the leader and the leader gets the biggest say in who gets to be an MP.
This incestuous elite offers no new ideas for voters. 17 years after the GFC they still talk about tax cuts, free markets and free trade. Nobody in our government, or the opposition, seem to have asked some basic questions like, say, how did China get to be so successful? Because perhaps noticing that China socialised finance primarily to give their industrial actors a major advantage by giving them cheap credit and they've not floated the renminbi to keep the value of their currency low to give their industry an export advantage and that works would be to question the key pillars of financialised rentier capitalism?
Labour began the neoliberal nonsense with Rogernomics, it is up to Labour to end it. It won't be easy and first they have to win the govt benches.
Should they win in November and to repeat the challenge…"Nationals last chance….." that Labour put to Willis leading up to the budget……. it will be "Labours last chance…………………….."
Hopefully on November the 8th we can all say…"Last chance Labour……"
So when is Labour going to get stuck into this illusionist budget?
So far most of the criticism I have heard has been from the government's coalition partners.
Labour has to get up and start roaring now. No use exercising a respectful silence while they "wait for all the information…".
The information is cooked anyway, as it always is from National.
Hold your horses & ducks! Do you want a mouse that roared or brain-farted?
Give them some time to take in the information provided yesterday, by Treasury.
Labour must resist relying on AI for ‘ideas & solutions’ or they can rightly be accused of being like National-light.
The charge of the National Lite Brigade
To reduce the cost of living (same as forecast by the RB in 2023, by 2025 down to 3% inflation)(the likely rise to 4% is not their fault)
To grow the economy (did not meet the 2023 forecast)
To reduce the deficit down to hold down debt (did not meet the 2023 forecast)
1/2 out of 3 is lite.
The 2026 budget is their apology (we wanted more from banks and an older age for super, so do not blame us as an extra), but without the magic no cost (license and annual charges) AI being able to work quickly without any planning this too is bound to end up with a disappointing result once again – if the public should trust them.
Government debt comparisons.
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/06/government-at-a-glance-2025_70e14c6c/full-report/general-government-gross-debt_d52f12cd.html
The best part of the budget response was Dame Lynda Topp giving Goldsmith a blast at the Aotearoa Music Awards for the $27m cut in Arts, Culture. and Heritage funding. You should watch it – if you haven't already.
The "OMG" in Budget – is that Our Miserable Government?
New law allowing AI to make benefit decisions to modernise welfare system, government says https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/596791/new-law-allowing-ai-to-make-benefit-decisions-to-modernise-welfare-system-government-says
If that's true, then there must be some cabinet positions that could be replaced by ai.
Ai could certainly be programmed to find outdated regulations and that's one of the most expensive ministries per head. What other ministers could be replaced by AI?