'Great day for NZ' or 'pathetic', 'backwards' and 'nasty': Parliament reacts to Budget 2024

Unsurprisingly, the coalition government’s first budget in power has been praised and pilloried by party leaders across Parliament.

Following the traditional post-budget speeches in the House, Christopher Luxon described the delivery of his government’s fiscal plans as a “great day for New Zealand”.

“I know what it’s like for those struggling from paycheck to paycheck,” he said in a press conference.

“I’ve sat down with those families in budget services who are at risk of losing their homes, I’ve been in those foodbanks with families who never thought they would have been there, but are there because of the price of groceries - and so this is a budget that is perfect for the times that we are in.”

However the Leader of the Opposition responded to the coalition's first budget with much more grave rhetoric.

Chris Hipkins said while the government will try and justify its spending cuts by delivering on tax reduction promises, Labour believed this budget will negatively impact future generations.

“This is a budget that is taking New Zealand backwards,” he said.

“It’s abandoning our commitments around climate change, it’s putting more children into poverty, it’s cutting a lot of the things Kiwis rely on, like public transport subsidies and school lunch programmes and the increase in funding for services in health and education isn’t keeping up with the cost of living so we’ll see job losses in those sectors.”

The government says 83 per cent of New Zealanders will benefit from tax cuts to help ease the cost of living.

It will also be introducing Family Boost which is a new childcare payment that will be available to low-to-middle income families with children aged five and under to help with the costs of early childhood education.

But Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said it was a “disappointing day”, particularly for Pacific communities given a number of targeted initiatives have been slashed.

There is no new funding for the Ministry for Pacific Peoples, as well as a $200,000 cut per year over the next three years to the Tupu Tai Internship Programme and a cease in funding for the Pacific Cooperation Foundation.

“It’s an absolutely backwards budget,” Edmonds said.

“I feel for our Pacific people, because we know, just like Māori, they are over-represented in most of the [negative] socio-economic statistics. But even for those Pacific people with aspirations to get into business - the Pacific Innovation Hub has been removed as one of the savings for this budget.”

Greens’ co-leader Marama Davidson described the budget as “mean and nasty”, while her colleague Teanau Tuiono used the term “pathetic” to sum it up.

“There is nothing in there for Pasifika at all. The minister couldn’t even be bothered putting out a press release and I know many of our people will be disappointed.

“They’ve signalled for sometime what they were going to do, like the $2.9 billion tax cuts for millionaires … but they’re focusing on all the wrong things.

“The existential threat that faces us as Pacific peoples in the Pacific is climate change, but there is nothing in there for the climate.”

However both NZ First’s Winston Peters and ACT’s David Seymour sought to take some credit for how the budget was going to right the country’s economy.

“Look at the savings that we’ve made right across the board,” Seymour said.

“This government is looking to spend less money than I suspect it would have, without ACT. Is it saving as much as ACT would like? Probably not, but is it saving more than it would have, without ACT?Absolutely.”

While Peters was quick to quash claims his traditional voter base of retirees hadn’t fared well, pointing out his focus was on growing New Zealand’s economy on the global stage.

“We’re not here to win for ourselves, but to ensure a better economic and social outcome for our country and turn this economy around," he said.

"In that context we’re very pleased with the progress we’ve made, particularly in terms of the investments in the primary area of this country’s economy but also looking to the money we’re going to spend to beef up our marketing capacity for the discovery of new markets.”

To pre-empt further criticism her government has faced over its approach to tangata whenau, Finance Minister Nicola Willis has said she is confident her budget will deliver for Māori.

Among the few funding announcements specifically for Māori, Te Matatini will receive $48m over three years, while Kohanga Reo will also get $12m for property maintenance. And Willis reiterated that the budget is focused on Māori needs, rather than targeted initiatives.

However Te Pati Māori co-leader Debbie said these announcements will do little to help her constituents.

“We were expecting a budget that would reflect the dismantling of kaupapa Māori, and what we have seen is not new money for Matatini, but less money than what was committed by Labour.

“I’m disappointed to be honest. Whanau ora for example - which delivers one of the best social returns on investment - no increase.

“But most importantly, we die eight years earlier than every other culture and there’s nothing in health [funding] that addresses those inequities.

“This goes to show the white-washing that this government has been doing in their budget and again is just pure evidence of how they see Māori, Pasifika and other marginalised communities.”