Duncan Garner: This Budget Exposes A Government That Waited Too Long

This Budget tells you exactly where New Zealand is at. We are broke, tired, stretched, and still pretending there is some painless way out of it.

There isn’t.

Nicola Willis has delivered a no-frills Budget because there are no frills left. No lolly scramble. No “free money”. No election-year cash splash. Just health, schools, roads, and a Finance Minister telling the country to swallow the medicine because the cupboard is bare.

Fine. That is probably where the money should go.

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Classrooms matter. Hospitals matter. Roads matter. After years of population growth, immigration pressure, infrastructure neglect and political fantasy, the basics are creaking. Kids need somewhere to sit. Patients need somewhere to be treated. Cars and trucks need roads that actually move.

But let’s not pretend this is some grand act of courage.

This is National finally doing in year three what voters thought it would do in year one.

The public service was bloated. The spending was loose. Wellington had become a machine that fed itself first and asked questions later. National knew it. Campaigned on it. Talked tough about it. Then fluffed around.

They hoped the economy would bounce back and do the work for them. It didn’t. The grin-and-hope strategy failed.

Now the cuts are here, but late. The surplus is supposedly coming in 2028/29, and we are meant to clap because the Government is banking public service savings before all of them have even happened. That is not a miracle. That is creative accounting with a straight face.

This is not a catastrophe. We are not being taken over by the IMF. We are not on international life support. But the truth is still ugly. The money we do have is being swallowed by health, education, infrastructure, and far too much welfare. That is where New Zealand is. Too many people needing the state. Too few people growing the economy fast enough to pay for it.

And hanging over all of this is the thing politicians whisper about but rarely confront: superannuation.

Willis would love to save billions by changing the settings for National Super. Every serious person knows the cost is only going one way. But as long as Winston Peters is in the middle of MMP politics, it is off the table.

So we keep pretending.

We pretend a system built for a different age can survive forever. We pretend younger workers will just keep paying. We pretend there will be no harder decisions later. There will be. They will be uglier because politicians were too scared to make them earlier.

And that brings us to the bigger problem: MMP itself.

New Zealand has to ask whether this system is now a handbrake on growth. Too many voices. Too much consultation. Too many deals. Too many baubles handed out to keep minor parties happy. Nothing major gets done quickly because everyone is negotiating with someone else.

If the Government of the day is hamstrung by the system, then review the system.

While we are at it, ask why we need 120-odd MPs. The public once said 99 would do. They were ignored. Typical. If this Government is serious about reducing the size of the public service, it should start with itself.

Cut the number of MPs. Cap ministers at 15. Stop creating jobs, titles and offices to appease political partners. Lead by example or stop lecturing everyone else about restraint.

This Budget is the most National Party Budget imaginable. Health. Schools. Roads. Discipline. No treats. No sugar hits. No handouts.

That part is right.

But it is also an admission. National waited too long, moved too cautiously, and now has no room left to be kind, caring or understanding.

The country does need medicine.

It just should have been prescribed two years ago.