The post-budget debate had as many pop culture references as policy arguments. Joel MacManus was there for each of the seven speeches.

Nicola Willis 

The finance minister is the star of budget day and gets the first speech in the parliamentary debate, though it’s usually much drier than the rest. As Nicola Willis spoke, the opposition were busy reading the documents, while government MPs feigned excitement at hearing announcements they already knew were coming.

The announcement of a possible surplus in three years got National MPs clapping. So too did the idea of new housing for the defence force – “they deserve it,” Willis said. Erica Stanford beamed with pride after hearing the bowel screening age would be lowered from 58 to 56. Chris Bishop let out a “yeeeeaah” as Willis boasted of “leaving NCEA behind us”. 

Nothing got the National caucus more excited than when she listed off the names of their favourite state highways: 2, 3, 6, 25, 60 and 94. With each new number the reaction got louder. Mention of the Cambridge to Piarere Expressway in Waikato made Sam Uffindell and Tama Potaka clap so hard it’s a surprise their hands didn’t fall off.

Other MPs were more distracted. A mention of changes to the sole parent support benefit got no claps except from NZ First MP Andy Foster, who seemed to be preoccupied by whatever was on his laptop screen. Tim van de Molen scrolled on his phone and joshed with the MPs around him in the back row. Todd Stephenson scrolled his own Facebook page.  

Willis thanked Christopher Luxon for his “wise counsel, and for his enduring belief”, and held back some tears as she acknowledged her parents, husband and children sitting in the public gallery. “I know I’m not home enough; I work hard, and I hope to make you proud,” she said. One of her teenage daughters shed tears, another made a heart with her hands. 

Luxon kissed her on the cheek as she finished. Bishop leaned over as if he was about to do the same but didn’t fully commit and ended up awkwardly rubbing her mid back. 

Chris Hipkins

The leader of the opposition traditionally begins his budget speech with a symbolic vote of no confidence in the government. Hipkins opted to word this year’s motion as: “This House has no confidence in the government because after promising to grow the economy, it has shrunk it.”

That was an overall theme for Hipkins and a departure from his approach in previous years, where he had focused on picking apart particular policies or framing the government as cruel to poor people while his backbenchers yelled “shame”. There was a taste of that this year, but the main thrust of his case was an economic argument that the government’s austere approach to spending wasn’t working. 

When he said “Kiwi families will be asking themselves one question after this budget”, someone from the National side called out “who are you?” After he finished his sentence “..are they feeling better off today than they were three years ago?” National’s Nicola Grigg jeered “that’s what we said about you guys” (apparently missing the irony). 

On the talk of higher debt levels, Shane Jones moaned “boooring”. As Hipkins listed job loss statistics, Andy Foster shared a quiet giggle with Maureen Pugh. At the mention of benefit cuts, James Meager said “there’s a few jobseekers over there”, gesturing at the Labour benches. When talking of struggling families, Hipkins claimed “this government does not see them, it does not hear them, and it does not care about them”. As he said this, Luxon was busy replying to a long text on his phone. 

“My message to the members opposite is: enjoy the leather benches for 163 days more, because your time is done,” Hipkins concluded. In a dig intended to suggest his speech was ineffective, Winston Peters moved a motion to give Hipkins more speaking time. Speaker Gerry Brownlee dismissed it.

Christopher Luxon

Luxon opened his speech by saying “I would rather face 100 duck-sized horses than sit through another speech as woeful as that from the leader of the opposition.” He did not share his thoughts on horse-sized ducks. 

It was a dig at the bizarre leaked footage of a Labour training exercise, and a spin on John Key’s go-to approach of declaring whatever the Labour Party leader said as the worst speech he’d ever heard. The line fell a little flat because any objective observer would say that it was actually one of Hipkins’ stronger speeches in the House. Once he got past his cute pre-prepared opener, Luxon was also in better-than-usual form. 

He lambasted Labour for their lack of policy, labelling them “the laziest opposition in the history of New Zealand”. He latched onto a recent gaffe where Hipkins said New Zealanders “don’t really care” about policy details. “I’ve heard about Rogernomics, but I think what the Labour Party is now running on is ‘Don’t-care-onomics’,” he said. 

Luxon’s speeches often rely on hyperbole, which can either make his rhetoric more effective or just sound ridiculous. Labelling the oil and gas ban “the worst economic decision ever made” was probably a bit over the top. In one strange tangent, he claimed Labour’s education policy was “if the bus is late, steal a car and drive it into a vape shop”. 

He concluded by harking back to the duck-horses debate, saying, “This is what building the future actually looks like, not a TikTok, not a press release, and definitely not a song about ducks.”

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was her usual self: intense, indignant, and outraged at the government. Before she even started speaking, National MPs let out a chorus of groans. “Turn that frown upside down,” yelled Rima Nakle. Brownlee scolded Nakhle for a “completely unacceptable outburst”.

“We want New Zealanders to be happy, healthy, and safe,” Swarbrick said, “but this government is telling us, ‘Computer says no’.” Her reference to a 2004 Little Britain skit was somehow far from the most dated pop culture reference utilised by a party leader on the day. 

“Aren’t you sick of pretending that there is no money?” she asked Luxon and Willis, neither of whom were still in the room. “The National Party can find money when it wants to… they have found billions in their budgets – in the tax cuts for landlords, tobacco companies, and the wealthy and sorted.”

She said the government’s “made-up economic rulebook” of debt targets was damaging the economic recovery. She took aim at supermarket profits, the growing net worth of the NBR rich list, claimed Luxon had an “obsession with fossil fuels”, and repeatedly namechecked striking firefighters. “Blah blah blah,” Winston Peters jeered. 

When she concluded by urging the prime minister to “touch grass”, Green MPs jumped to their feet and applauded while Peters continued to make low rumbling moaning noises. 

David Seymour

The deputy prime minister said the budget was “a triumph that is better than our worst enemies’ worst nightmares”, a statement that raises many questions about who exactly his worst enemies are. 

He used his speech to double, triple and quadruple down on the need for lower government spending. “After years of easy lies about our nation’s finances, we are coming to the hard truths. We cannot spend and borrow our way to prosperity.” 

He said government spending had to come “back to reality, because, oh, there goes gravity”. The reference to the 2002 Eminem song ‘Lose Yourself’ prompted some grimaces from National MPs who remembered the Eminem-esque scandal of 2014. 

On the whole, Seymour seemed more like his 2014 self than his 2023 self; a libertarian policy wonk rather than a culture warrior. He spent much of his speech explaining the niche contributions Act had made to the budget: money for Pharmac, a gun register, and a programme to eradicate wilding pines. It was technocratic and didn’t inspire much enthusiasm from his backbenchers. 

While promoting the Waikato Expressway, he hyped up its benefit-cost ratio of 3.2 – “or, as Julie Anne Genter would say, a ‘BCR’,” he said, putting on a bad American accent. Genter later jeered back “why do you hate trans people?” There was no mention of trans people in his speech.

Shane Jones

For the second year in a row, Winston Peters handed the reins to his deputy Shane Jones, who had a bellowing voice and a cadence that sometimes sounded like a horse racing commentator. 

Like Luxon, he started with an attack on Hipkins, calling him a “vacuous saveloy sausage” and saying he hadn’t offered “one concrete idea”. He said the Green Party was “akin to the moa, soon to be extinct” (does he know something about the moa that the rest of us don’t?)

He was the only government MP to openly acknowledge the slower-than-expected economic growth during this term, saying it was “not the budget we would have hoped to pass back in 2023” and that the government was “not in a position to offer a budget of bliss”.

He took aim at “all the critics listening to Radio Waatea” who had complained about a lack of funding for Māori cultural initiatives. “Don’t tell me you’ll unleash talent and passion only with cultural pursuits,” he said. 

It was the most powerfully orated speech of the afternoon, but he occasionally got lost in his own rhetoric, rambling about New Zealand’s “Judeo-Christian background” and spitting out a word salad that seemed to be both pro- and anti-immigration. 

Peters didn’t seem particularly enamoured with his protege. He spent most of the speech staring across the room rather than looking at Jones. His face bore a steely expression and didn’t crack many smiles. With 40 seconds left, just as Jones ramped up into what was supposed to be a big finale, Peters let out a big long yawn. 

Rawiri Waititi

The final speech of the debate went to Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, who insisted on turning the entire thing into a Michael Jackson cover. 

He opened by singing “all I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us”. He complained that Māori only got 0.24% of new spending in the budget (a mischaracterisation, as this doesn’t account for the many government programmes that are eligible to all people, including Māori) and said “it appears it does matter if you’re black or white”. He said the government had overseen “two years of the worst economic performance in history”, which is definitely an exaggeration.

He claimed the government was fixated on overseas culture wars and “trying to start their own Thriller at home.” Despite being crammed full of lyrics, the speech was the most intense of the lot. It led to an odd juxtaposition when he said disadvantaged people should be “held, fed, cared for and loved” while almost spitting in anger.

He ended by urging Māori voters to tell the government, once and for all: “beat it”.