The 2019 Wellbeing Budget: Reflections on "Transformational"

Ma'at, Egyptian goddess of truth, justice, morality and balance. pn399

It's unusual. A budget has been attacked by both left- and right-wing commentators, leaving only Government, the occasional sector or industry spokesperson and one or two others, to claim the Labour Coalition 2019 Wellbeing Budget was a good start towards "transformation".  The others, both left and right, think New Zealand, if not Rome, can be built in a day.



From the right, Heather du Plessis, in the NZ Herald, says Jacinda Adern is supposed to be kind and fluffy, but her government has come across as brutal as any. National's Amy Adams says it has disappointed middle New Zealand, and too little will be spent on education, health, mental health and Pharmac.  Simon Bridges says more is being spent on defence (which includes replacing our ancient surveillance planes) and "rail, that no one wants" (sic! not even urban commuters, or rural mayors concerned with the damage logging trucks do to their roads) and forestry, than on more important things.  Others have talked about social welfare reforms as "tax cuts for deadbeat dads."  And so it goes on. No pun intended, but Government can do nothing right.

From the left, Martyn Bradbury in The Daily Blog, writes that the Budget fell far sort of anything meaningful or transformational.  Too little is to be spent on everything. Government is more "passionate about protecting its civil servants (a reference to the budget leaks from Treasury) than looking after children in poverty." What hyperbole!

But there were comments from people less driven by ideology or the need to file juicy newspaper columns; people who were more concerned with an of evaluation of the Budget's strengths and shortcomings. 

Early comments on TV by Brian Fallow, Audrey Young and Barry Soper
 said little but were fair and balanced.   Duncan Grieve  in The Spinoff called it 

"New Zealand’s latest huge, weird experiment (which) deserves a decent opportunity to succeed or fail. Because despite all that has been stacked up against it, the ideas at its core are essentially inarguable."

Later, with more time for relection, left-of-centre columnist Gordon Campbell provided a good example of detailed, informative balance in his Scoop article, "On the morning after feeling from the wellbeing budget" in which one subheading "One hand clapping" (or "it's good but...") told all.  It is well worth reading in full. Campbell made two over-riding judgements:

(1) Much of the spending was to catch up for years of neglect and therefore could not be transformational. For example, to repair and replace trains, wagons, railway lines, and the inter-island ferries; 
(2) Large as the moneys allocated may seem, the main shortcoming of the budget was "lack of funding for a truly transforational agenda." To provide this money Government should have been prepared to increase  the national debt. Campbell and others think we can afford it.

Another  balanced appraisal, less complimentary than Campbell's, was Professor Tim Hazledine's article in  Noted NZ, "Budget 2019: Why the government is handling our wellbeing the wrong way"

I commend these articles and wish there were more like them in the mainstream media.

--ACW