New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been criticised for her ‘wellness budget’ and ‘unrealistic’ climate change targets.
But even the model on the cover of the much-hyped Budget papers has relocated to Australia, citing cost of living pressures.
Mother-of-one Vicky Freeman said she couldn’t afford to pay rent in Auckland, and has since moved across the Tasman with her nine-year-old daughter, Ruby-Jean.
The new budget will see Ms Ardern splash $26.5billion over the next four years on tackling suicide rates, child poverty, homelessness and domestic violence.
The plan is an extraordinarily radical one designed to re-imagine how a country measures its success.
‘We are not just relying on gross domestic product, but also how we are improving the wellbeing of our people,’ New Zealand’s Finance Minister said on Thursday.
The high-spending budget has attracted attention across the globe – and has been savaged by critics amid fears it will lead to national debt and tax increases.
Radio host Steve Price discussed the budget with conservative commentator Rita Panahi on his 2GB show on Tuesday night.
‘Ms Ardern said it’s about embedding kindness and empathy, legislating those things,’ Price said.
Panahi replied: ‘This sort of silliness impresses some of the people sometimes for a little period but you eventually get found out and I think she’s going to get found out.’
‘It’s just going to be very ugly at the next election.’
Revealed: The model (pictured with her daughter) featured on the cover of the much-hyped Budget papers has relocated to Australia, citing cost of living pressures
The high-spending budget has attracted attention across the globe – and has been savaged by critics amid fears it will lead to national debt and tax increases. Pictured are Greens leader James Shaw, Finance Minister Grant Robertson, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters
The new budget will see Ms Ardern splash $26.5billion over the next four years on tackling suicide rates, child poverty, homelessness and domestic violence
Price said Ms Ardern had reversed a policy where people in social housing had to leave when they improved their personal circumstances, a direction Panahi disagreed with.
‘If you’re earning a decent salary then you’ve got other options, that government-subsidised housing should be for those who can’t care for themselves,’ Panahi said.
‘Some of the stuff they’re talking about is just kooky… when you look at the substance often there’s not much there.’
Caller Glen said he was in New Zealand during the Australian election, and sat in during a meeting of Parliament for a reading of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill – an ambitious plan to eliminate carbon by 2050.
‘How are they going to do that?’ Price asked.
‘One of the most bizarre things about this zero carbon is they’re going to cut methane…’ Glen said.
‘The opposition pointed out they’re going to have to cull half of their (cow) herds by 2050 to make this.
‘Half of the money New Zealand makes comes from exported food… you cut back half of your herds, New Zealand will be importing food by that time.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been criticised for her ‘wellness budget’ and ‘unrealistic’ climate change targets
‘As people flee, New Zealand will end up like Venezuela.’
Price said New Zealanders will end up in Australia, while Panahi said there would be an ‘influx’ of Kiwis moving across the Tasman Sea.
‘Build a wall,’ Panahi said.
New Zealand conservative commentator Mike Hosking said the Labour government’s budget was a ‘marketing exercise that no one has fallen for’.
‘One thing I always look for… is how much of other people’s money is being used to prop up the lot of others. In other words, how many New Zealanders are beholden to the state,’ he wrote in the New Zealand Herald.
‘Here’s your truth: it is an increasing and alarmingly large number.
‘Put as much kumbaya, flowery BS around it as you want, but the growth targets, the debt targets, the surplus numbers, the income, and revenue are all that matters.’
The so-called ‘Wellbeing Budget’ has drawn attention from global institutions including the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
‘We are measuring our country’s success differently,’ Finance Minister Grant Robertson said.
‘We are not just relying on gross domestic product, but also how we are improving the wellbeing of our people, protecting the environment and strengthening of our communities.’
The new budget will see her lavish $26.5 billion over the next four years on tackling suicide rates, child poverty, homelessness and domestic violence
While the usual financial measures were still there, the plan was laid out across key social welfare areas the government says need improvement based on international standards, and which it expects to regularly track in the future, such as child poverty.
In practical terms, a record $NZ1.9 billion ($A1.79 billion) of new spending over four years has been put towards mental heath programs and suicide reduction, and $NZ1.1 billion towards child welfare initiatives.
About $NZ5.5 million has also been set aside for mental health support for Christchurch after the March 15 mosque shootings in the city.
Another $NZ50 million is going towards boosting intelligence agencies, which have come under fire since the attack, while $NZ150 million has provisionally been allocated for gun buyback announced after the shootings.
But the opposition has labelled the budget a branding exercise with little change.
Despite the wellbeing focus, ministers have still found $NZ1 billion for investment in rail in a surprise announcement, under the banner of transforming the economy.
The defence force has been promised nearly $NZ470 million in new operational spending over four years, on top of $NZ1.7 billion earlier announced for new planes.
While expectations for New Zealand’s economy have slowed over the past year, the national books are predicted to stay in the black to the end of the forecast period, backing a four-year spending allowance that increased from NZ$2.4 billion in the previous budget to NZ$3.8 billion on Thursday.
The government ran an operating surplus of $NZ3.5 billion over the past year and expects that to rise to $NZ6.1 billion by 2022/23.
But the government has warned of headwinds and GDP growth for the year to June dipped has to 2.4 per cent. It is forecast to rebound to 3 per cent in 2019/20 based on increased government spending.
While the budget immediately won praise from social agencies on Thursday, economists this week told the AAP that the approach taken had been less stringent than welfare rules already employed by some European countries.
‘Every government has done work on health, education and policing … I think it’s more focused, and the rhetoric has been cleverer,’ Victoria University wellbeing and public policy professor Arthur Grimes said.
However, just hours before Thursday’s launch, New Zealand’s Treasury admitted an error on its website allowed highly sensitive budget information to be accessed earlier by the public, having earlier suggested there had been an stolen.
The department this week said it had been ‘deliberately and systematically hacked’, after the country’s centre-right National Party released details from the Labour-led administration’s upcoming national accounts.
But on Thursday officials revealed a problem with a test website had actually meant some details from the budget could be found using a search on Treasury’s website.
New Zealand conservative commentator Mike Hosking said the Labour government’s budget was a ‘marketing exercise that no one has fallen for’. Pictured: New Zealand Finance Minister Grant Robertson
Hours before the budget launch, opposition leader Simon Bridges held a press conference calling for the resignation of Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Treasury head Gabriel Makhlouf for what he said had been deception and smears.
Robertson and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern both declined to discuss the saga on Thursday.
Radio host Tom Elliott said Australians who said they would move to New Zealand after the Coalition’s shock election victory should stop gushing over Ms Ardern.
‘I just want to put a few facts out there for everybody who thinks Jacinda Ardern is God’s gift to government,’ he said on his 3AW show.
‘New Zealand takes far fewer refugees per head of population than what Australia does. We are the nice country to refugees, New Zealand is not.
‘They don’t want immigration, or certainly not as much as they used to have. New Zealand is not the open and welcoming country it used to be.
‘Teachers in New Zealand are complaining the government isn’t paying them enough and they’ve gone on a mass strike. So while we sit there praising Jacinda Ardern to the high heavens, New Zealanders see things differently. Just think about that.’