Live updates: All the latest as the budget is revealed

There are approximately 18 protest events under way throughout Aotearoa, with thousands airing their disapproval of the coalition government’s raft of policy changes impacting Māori. Labelled an “activation” by organisers and “illegal” by the prime minister. People around Aoteraoa are participating in hīkoi, car convoys, strikes and other actions to make known their disdain known.

The repeal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act, moves to replace or repeal Treaty principles clauses from laws, the Fast-track Approvals Bill, repeal of the Māori Health Authority, referendums on Māori wards in local councils, moves to relegate Māori names of government agencies, and a budget expected to fail to deliver anything specifically for Māori have spurred today’s actions.

Kaupapa began as early as 5am this morning in Waitangi. A march to parliament is expected to take place later today.

Read more: A turning point for Māori activism

Traffic was crawling across Tāmaki Makaurau this morning. Three “carkoi” car convoys began at 7am and created a gridlock extending from Massey, Papakura, and Albany into the CBD. Tauranga was also in a gridlock, though the hīkoi there was not expected to start until 9.15am. Police had previously warned motorists to plan ahead for travel this morning. Commuters travelling into Auckland city earlier this morning were greeted by people standing on motorway bridges waving flags and holding banners relating to Te Tiriti.

UPDATE 9:20AM
The Northwestern Mwy is now clear of slow moving traffic. Allow extra time for citybound delays to ease this morning. ^TP https://t.co/kq6LCt5d9n

— NZ Transport Agency – Auckland & Northland (@nztaaklnth) May 29, 2024

An estimated 700 people took place in the Hamilton hīkoi this morning, which began at Kirikiriroa Marae. A key organiser for the city’s protests Lady Tureiti Moxon told The Spinoff earlier in the week that there were several organisations supporting this morning’s hīkoi including Māori and Pākehā service providers, a number of different schools, and even the Anglican Church.

#MANA
Tihei mauri ora. About to have closing karakia before haka. #ToitūTeTiriti pic.twitter.com/JX2hk19to0

— Te Kōhao Health (@KohaoTe) May 29, 2024

Deputy prime minister Winston Peters has called Te Pāti Māori a “party of radicals” via a Twitter post. He also challenged the party’s mandate to speak on behalf of all Māori.

“They purport to represent Māori even though the vast majority of Māori don’t vote for them. They deliberately attack individual Ministers with childish schoolboy slurs that are only ever designed to stoke racial division,” Peters said via Twitter.

Speaking on Waatea radio this morning, Peters also questioned the validity of the latest census data, which included statistics on people of Māori descent — based on whakapapa — and affiliation to the Māori ethnic group, which was self-determined cultural affiliation. Referring to previous data collection methods on Māori ethnicity, including a requirement for people to “be at least half-Māori”, Peters said people with “one sixty-fourth of Māori descent” shouldn’t count as Māori in census data.

Speaking to The Spinoff on Tuesday about what Māori could expect from the budget, NZ First minister Shane Jones said: “Iwi will still have the chance to engage with the government through the $1.2 bn Regional Investment Fund.”

They are not ‘The Māori Party’ they are a ‘Party of Radicals’.

They don’t want democracy they want anarchy.

They purport to represent Māori even though the vast majority of Māori don’t vote for them. They deliberately attack individual Ministers with childish schoolboy slurs…

— Winston Peters (@winstonpeters) May 29, 2024

Hundreds of people gathered in Gisborne this morning to show their support. The group marched peacefully to the Gisborne District Council office where they performed a haka.

Te Puoho Kātene, who was part of the hīkoi said: “The wairua was very peaceful.”

#MōTeĀpōpō #ToitūTeTiriti pic.twitter.com/S3WKXyI5fS

— Te Puoho Katene (@TP_Katene) May 29, 2024

Three different hīkoi converged on the Rotorua CBD this morning, blocking the intersection of Fenton St and Amohau St. The group then walked down Fenton St.

Police had earlier warned Rotorua residents to expect major traffic disruption from 6.30am to 9am.

Rotorua protest organiser and Te Pāti Māori co-vice president Fallyn Flavell told the Rotorua Daily Post the activation was “beautiful”. However, she took issue with the major police presence, saying she appreciated the police were trying to keep people safe but felt the number of officers present had been “overboard”.

❤️✊🏼 Rotorua #ToitūTeTiriti [📷 @NZStuff live blog] pic.twitter.com/7zEoJKuyKd

— tanya (@tanya_fretz) May 29, 2024

A large crowd has gathered at Aotea Square in Auckland’s CBD. The planned hīkoi was being led by Dave Letele. The crowd was singing and chanting, with pūtātara blowing, before speeches began. A hīkoi down Queen St was expected to begin shortly.

“On behalf of all of Ngāti Pāoa, I want to thank you all for coming from the four corners of Tāmaki Makaurau to here today,” said Auckland councillor Kerrin Leoni.

“We’ve always been good treaty partners and it’s time for that to be reciprocated.”

Aotea Square is FULL today. Māori and people in solidarity with us are fed up with this racist government and their attacks on Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Māori communities. Look at this beautiful sea of flags! pic.twitter.com/8bwKwZGUi9

— kendra! 🇵🇸 (@kendra_c__) May 29, 2024

A large number of protesters participated in hīkoi across Te Hiku o Te Ika this morning.

Waitangi kicked things off at around 5am this morning, with a procession making their way to Whare Rūnanga Marae at the Treaty Grounds. The crowd gathered at the famous flagstaff before raising two flags, a Ngāpuhi flag and Te Kara.

Large crowds also gathered in Whangārei and Kaitāia. Hundreds of people made their way from the top of Commerce St in Kaitāia down the main town strip, carrying flags and banners.

In Whangārei, approximately 1300 people gathered at Laurie Hall Park and then made their way up Dent Street and through the city’s CBD. Local Māori leaders addressed the crowd, including Ngātiwai chair Aperahama Edwards.

The large crowd gathered at Aotea Square have made their way on to Queen St, bringing the CBD to a standstill. There is a mixture of old and young, Māori and non-Māori marching side-by-side. Parts of the group have begun performing haka. Others are chanting the classic protest catchcry “ka whawhai tōnu mātou. Ake ake, ake”. Several signs are being carried, with some reading “RIP our tamariki” and “we are still here”.

Counter-protestors are also present, with one telling protestors through a megaphone they were marching “for a dead cause” and urging them to “come back to Jesus Christ”.

Police have said that so far, protests around the city have been peaceful and incident-free.

Toitū te Tiriti pic.twitter.com/CiguWDvoDR

— TG (@KarenaMatene) May 30, 2024

Thousands of people are preparing to march to parliament in Wellington. At least 1000 protesters have gathered near the Wellington railway station. A video posted to Instagram earlier this morning showed Eru Kapa-Kingi, the social media manager of Toitū Te Tiriti and son of Te Pāti Māori MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi attempting to “infiltrate” parliament. Eru later shared that he was denied access even though he was an employee.

Wellington Railway station. pic.twitter.com/WvGjrb05Pr

— Joanna Kidman (@JoannaKidman) May 30, 2024

Those marching down Queen St have reached Britomart. A haka was performed to mark the end of the hīkoi and protesters were now slowly starting to disperse. There was a small police presence but still no issues reported.

“Police are in attendance and are focussed on maintaining public safety while recognising the right to peaceful protest,” read a release from New Zealand police.

Te Pāti Māori MPs Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke and Tākuta Ferris  were the last MPs to address the Wellington crowd before the hīkoi to parliament began. Hauraki-Waikato MP Maipi-Clarke begun her speech by acknowledging Kingi Tūheitia.

She then moved into spekaing about the māmae she felt as a result of the coalition government’s policies.

“I have never been more triggered or traumatised… This government are trying to create another stolen generation.”

In what was a stirring speech, Maipi-Clarke directly questioned the coalition leaders: “Christopher Luxon, Winston, David can you hear us? Can you feel us?”

Maipi-Clarke questioned why kura kaupapa Māori and kōhanga reo had received such little funding, despite producing some of the best results of all schools in Aotearoa. She then warned that the wave of kōhanga kids had arrived.

“The kōhanga generation is coming in a massive wave. Today, that wave is here… This wave welcomes every generation, every race to be with us.”

Ferris then led the crowd in chants as they set off for Parliament.

Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer have urged the large protest group at parliament to support their call for the formation of a Māori parliament.

Waititi began his speech by saying “this house set out to exterminate us 100 years ago. We are 20% of this nation’s population. We are one million strong”.

The group, estimated to be over 3000 strong, arrived at parliament at approximately 1:20pm.

“When will we start to speak for ourselves? When we will start to lead ourselves to our liberation? The time is now,” Waititi told the crowd.

“It is time for us to step confidently into rangatiratanga… When we fight for our liberation, we are fighting for the liberation of all.”

The duo then left to enter parliament for the budget debate as the crowd performed Ka Mate.

 

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With hīkoi around the country now wrapping up, attention turns to the budget. How far will the tax cuts go? How will the government pay for them? Will the word ‘Māori’ appear anywhere at all? Stay tuned as we break the budget down from 2pm.

Read more: What can we expect from National’s long-promised tax cuts?

It’s 2pm and the budget has finally been released. The Spinoff’s Wellington editor Joel MacManus has been in the lockup at parliament and filed this report breaking down everything you need to know.

In short:

• Budget 2024 delivers most of National’s promised tax cuts, with income bracket adjustments and a new FamilyBoost childcare rebate.
• Tax cuts are being funded by hundreds of cuts across almost all areas of government.
• The Fees Free tertiary education scheme will switch from funding the first year to the final year of study.
• Billions of dollars of new spending in health, police, education.

Keep this live blog open as the reaction floods in.

Budget 2024 has seen the coalition government follow through on its promise of tax cuts – and the Treasury’s official tax calculator is here.

There’s not much more to say, but here are how the tax thresholds will be adjusted.

• 10.5% tax rate: $0-14,000 changes to $0-$15,600
• 17.5% tax rate: $14,001-$48,000 changes to to $15,601-$53,500
• 30% tax rate: $48,000-$70,000 changes to $53,501-$78,100
• 33% tax rate: $70,001-$180,000 changes to $78,101 $180,000
• 39% tax rate:  $180,001+ no change

I’m getting about $35 in tax relief, if anyone has wise suggestions on what to spend that on. A flat white every day of the working week?

The Green Party said Budget 2024 lacks vision and has offered the country “little hope and even less ambition”.

In a statement, co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the government had chosen to “slash and burn funding for climate action and punch down on people who need support”, which will have “serious consequences” for the future.

“Tens of thousands of New Zealanders are already mobilising against the government’s cruel and unusual agenda and they can expect this is just the beginning,” Swarbrick said.

“Positive change does not just happen, it is fought for. The Green Party will continue to fight for the country and the world we all deserve.”

The Greens were first out of the gate with reaction (and, in fact, sent their press release out before the government did). We’re awaiting response from Labour and the other parties and will bring those to you momentarily.

Just a little personal story while I’ve got you here. According to the government:

• A working couple earning a combined $150,000 will keep an extra $40 a week (or $20 each). 

My partner and I (both working) earn exactly $150,000 and the official tax calculator has told me we’ll save $73.04, which is less than $40 a week. Is the tax calculator wrong, or did the government round up?

Joel MacManus at parliament:

This is the smallest budget since 2018, with an operating allowance of $3.2 billion. But Willis has avoided the deep blood-letting seen in previous contractionary budgets. Instead, she’s gone for the mile-wide-and-inch-deep approach.

Across almost every area of government, there are lists of programmes that are cancelled, reduced or not expanded. In total, there are 240 different cuts: $17m from the Kermadec ocean sanctuary, $4m from a wood processing growth fund, $2m from the Laptops for Teachers scheme, $8m for contaminated sites, $20m for youth transitional housing. The list goes on.

Most of the big-money cuts had already been announced, including Auckland Light Rail, Let’s Get Wellington Moving, and a steep reduction in Kāinga Ora spending.

Read Joel’s full report here

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has accused the government of breaking its promises to New Zealand – and the budget isn’t worth “the paper it’s printed on”.

In a statement, the former prime minister took aim at today’s budget for failing to deliver for the majority of the country.

“For months, New Zealand families were promised $250 extra a week – in reality this is going to a tiny percentage of the population,” Hipkins said. “While the minimum wage worker gets their 30 cents an hour in tax cuts, their hopes of buying a home has been ripped away. Saving money has become harder with the loss of half price public transport, free prescriptions, and the first home grant.”

The budget has delivered “piddly” capital investments in areas like health and education, said Hipkins. “In New Zealand we work together for the good of the many – not the few. This budget does not deliver in that spirit. This government has not heard New Zealand’s needs.”

He added: “New Zealanders were promised cost of living help, tax cuts, less inflation, better healthcare and money to the frontlines of the workforce. Instead we see the return of smoking, more gambling, no new cancer drugs, and no new initiatives for Māori. This is a budget of broken promises.”

Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds criticised the government’s claim that it would not be borrowing for its promised tax cuts, nothing that the budget includes $12 billion of borrowing while the tax cuts cost $10 billion.

“Time and time again the finance minister said they are not borrowing for tax cuts, but debt is forecast to rocket up by 43.5% of GDP. This government is borrowing for tax cuts,” said Edmonds.

“Nicola Willis says this budget is fiscally neutral. We know she never read our budgets, but it looks like she has not read her own.”

Nicola Willis is currently speaking in parliament as the typically boisterous budget debate kicks off. You can follow along on parliament TV.

Conspicuous by its absence from Nicola Willis’s triumphant budget speech in the house: any mention of cancer drugs.

During the election campaign, National promised funding for 13 new treatments, funded through the scrapping of free prescriptions.

While the pledge to reintroduce prescription fees has been followed through on, those 13 cancer drugs will go unfunded. The Herald’s Adam Pearse has more on that here, with Willis saying she regretted that the government was unable to fund the medicines. She said the policy would have made a “fundamental change” to how Pharmac operated in that the agency traditionally had control over what drugs it purchased. However, she said she remained committed to the National Party promise.

Budget 2024 has allocated an extra $7.4 billion over four years towards health, and $1.7bn over four years to boost Pharmac’s budget.

In a press release, health minister Shane Reti said the increase to Pharmac’s budget was “far larger than anticipated prior to the election, due to funding cliffs left by the previous government.”

He added: “We have prioritised this essential investment and anticipate that future budgets will help widen medicine access, including to cancer treatments.

Nicola Willis wouldn’t offer a formal name for her first budget, but in comments to the media – and in the house – has referred to it as a “clean-up” budget. It’s not a bad name, if it sticks.

Meawhile, Labour has been slightly less inspired with its choice of moniker. Chris Hipkins called this the “back out budget” and the “budget of broken promises”.

What do you reckon?

A fiery Chris Hipkins is speaking in the house now, accusing the government of borrowing to pay for its promised tax cuts and saying the budget will push inflation up. “This is a budget that is going to leave New Zealanders worse off,” he said.

The Labour Party has, in recent weeks, turned its attention to criticising the government for not delivering on its promised tax cuts, rather than attacking the idea of tax cuts itself. In his speech, Hipkins managed to criticise both: that tax cuts were happening, and that they weren’t as National had advertised.

As part of the budget, the government has released a new tax calculator – and taken its previous tax calculator down. Finance minister Nicola Willis has denied that this is because the savings don’t add up. The original tables are still available here – although they’re much less user-friendly. 

Earlier this year, The Spinoff ran some different scenarios through National’s tax calculator, to figure out how the proposed tax cuts would benefit people when taking into account the end of free public transport for kids and young people. We’ve reproduced those situations here with some additions (to account for what the calculator asks, ie ECE costs) and compared them to the new tax calculator to see if anything has changed. The numbers are very similar, and where there are discrepancies, and it’s not immediately clear why. 

Also, we’ve changed everything from fortnightly to weekly, just for consistency. 

• Public servant in Invercargill, joint income $125,000, two dependent children aged 2 and 8, paying $650 for early childhood education a fortnight

Weekly savings according to original tax calculator” $84.70 

Weekly savings according to new tax calculator: $97.20 

• Single parent living in Christchurch, income $75,000, has an 11-year-old and a 16-year-old 

Weekly savings according to original tax calculator: $43.26

Weekly savings according to new tax calculator: $43.26

• First-year uni student in Auckland, income of $15,000 a year from working over the summer

Weekly savings according to original tax calculator: $1.35

Weekly savings according to new tax calculator: $1.35

• Twenty-three-year-old on minimum wage in Upper Hutt, full-time hospo job ($47,000 a year)

Weekly savings according to original tax calculator: $10.19

Weekly savings according to original tax calculator: $9.66

Prime minister Christopher Luxon has launched into a diatribe against the opposition, labelling Chris Hipkins’ budget response speech “sad, pathetic and embarrassing speech”.

Seemingly attempting to namedrop every Labour MP past and present, Luxon said Kieran McAnulty would soon be writing Chris Hipkins’ valedictory speech, and referenced Carmel Sepuloni’s alleged stint on Celebrity Treasure Island (by saying Hipkins’ political career was more like “Survivor”). He also brought up Helen Clark, David Parker and Michael Wood.

NZ PM Luxon starts his budget speech with a long attack on Chris Hipkins. says Helen Clark is writing foreign policy & Kieran McAnulty is writing his valedictory. seems its hard to quit the habit of being opposition leader, even when PM!

— Ben McKay (@benmackey) May 30, 2024

In something of a greatest hits moment, Luxon repeated his line about Labour being “arsonists” back at the scene of a fire, before finally turning his attention to the “brilliant” budget.

At time of publication we’re into quite an extraordinary call and response moment, giving Luxon a chance to bring up many of his government’s policies.

You can tune in below.

Oranga Tamariki has received $10.4m for its Crown Response Unit, which is tasked with providing advice and co-ordinating redress for survivors of abuse in care. The government has also committed $32.83m in the 2024/25 financial year and $49m in the 2025/26 financial year for resolving historical claims of abuse in care. The funding is expected to allow the Ministry for Social Development to resolve 2,000 further claims of historic abuse.

The Royal Commission inquiring into Abuse in Care has gone around the country, listening to hundreds of survivors accounts. Its’ final report has been delayed three times, with the legal procedures making it complex to operate and deliver on time. Commission chair Coral Shaw has said that “the scale of abuse is beyond what anyone had ever imagined at the start of this inquiry”, with an interim report estimating that 250,000 children were abused in care settings. Survivors have at times questioned the reason for the delays, and said the inquiry has been poorly-run while they wait for justice.

The Spinoff’s Quarter Million project has highlighted some of the experiences of abuse. “First and foremost, the people of New Zealand will get to see the damage that was done to innocent children,” advocate Ken Clearwater said of the yet-to-be-released final report.

Health received a healthy boost in Budget 2024, but the group representing GPs has said it won’t be enough.

GPNZ chair Bryan Betty said in a statement that the budget has failed to deliver relief for general practice pressures.

“Today is little more than a band aid. The reality is significant change to the funding model is long overdue and delays in addressing the needs of general practice and primary care only exacerbate the pressures on our health system,” he said.

“Primary health care cannot afford to wait. When people miss out on care from their general practice their needs don’t just go away.”

Betty said that next year’s budget must deliver “substantial changes and investments” to strengthen general practice.

Meanwhile, the Breast Cancer Foundation has welcomed the extension of free breast screening, but criticised the decision not to fund new cancer drugs. “There are breast cancer drugs that Pharmac has assessed to be necessary and will fund if it has enough money. Without a substantial increase to Pharmac’s budget, women are still denied access to these essential treatments,” said the foundation’s chief executive Ah-Leen Rayner.

New health spending is a key focus of the new budget, with money for responding cost increases in the health sector, training more doctors and ongoing funding for Pharmac to continue subsidizing the range of medicines currently on its books. The Royal College of Midwives has issued a press release, saying they’re hoping for maternity funding as part of the package, with an eye on money intended for “primary, community, public, and population health services”. “As families in some parts of the country face an increasing struggle to access maternity care, we hope that the Government will have money tagged in that pot to address this inequitable access,” says Violet Clapham, an advisor at the midwifery college.

Clapham emphasized that maternity care access is uneven around Aoteaora, with some people needing to pay for ultrasounds and midwives and birthing facilities not available in all areas. ““We hope that details around the health funding announced in the budget today will make a real difference to the support systems around the midwifery workforce. We need more midwives on the ground and there is plenty the government can do to stabilise and bolster the workforce,” she said. There is a 40% shortage of midwives around the country, and many students drop out during training, which requires a minimum 2,400 hours of clinical placements that are unpaid. ““I started off filled with passion and motivation and absolutely loved going to placement… now I don’t know if I want to be a midwife anymore,” a final-year midwifery student told The Spinoff earlier this month.

The government has allocated $48m over three years for Te Matatini and the development of its regional development model.

“This funding will enable a thriving kapa haka sector with strong regional networks and development opportunities for practitioners,” the budget read.

Whānau Ora will receive $600,000 more to spend on non-government commissioning agencies, a 0.33% increase from $181.7 million to $182.3 million for the coming fiscal year. However, $1m will be taken out of the organisations departmental expenses for the same period.

Funding available for Matariki events will decrease by 45% to $3m per annum.

The Secretariat for Te Pae Roa, the independent Ministerial Advisory Group, has been disestablished creating savings of $4m per annum.

The Climate Resilience for Māori initiative has had its funding completely cut.

Funding for both new Māori housing supply and investments in capability and capacity of Māori housing providers has been reduced.

Te Ringa Hāpai Whenua Fund has been cut, ceasing the programme which provided on-going support to whenua Māori landowners. The government says support will instead be provided through other mechanisms such as the Whenua Māori Fund administered by Te Puni Kōkiri.

The Hapori Māori Data Capability programme is being significantly scaled-back.

The two above cuts are part of the baseline savings target for Te Puni Kōkiri.

All uncommitted funding for developing mātauranga Māori-based approaches to accelerate new emissions will be returned to the Crown.

WWF New Zealand CEO Kayla Kingdon-Bebb says its “incredibly short-sighted to be looting ring-fenced money from the Climate Emergency Response Fund – arguably the single most powerful investment New Zealand has ever made into our climate response – to fund tax cuts.”

Search “climate” in the budget document, and almost every single hit is in the savings column, with programmes reduced, folded into baseline spending or eliminated entirely. The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary, announced by John Key in 2015, and long contested due to a lack of recognition of indigenous fishing and Treaty rights, has been formally scrapped, saving $18m. Funding for agricultural emissions pricing and reduction is gone; the Climate Change Commission has $14.9m operating budget per annum from 2025. Other programmes, like mapping the New Zealand coastline (funded by the Climate Emergency Response Fund) and mātauranga Māori approaches to agricultural emissions reduction have been removed too. Particularly notable is returning funding for the Jobs for Nature programme, which will end in 2026. Jobs for Nature provided money for pest control, freshwater and restoration, employing nearly 15,000 people, including in areas were there were few other kinds of work available.

In a piece in Newsroom this morning, climate change minister Simon Watts told Marc Daalder that the scale of the government’s commitment to climate change would be seen in the next Emissions Reduction Plan, due in late June. However, a timing discrepancy means it’s possible that actions outlined in the plan might not be funded until next year’s budget. In addition to Jobs for Nature and the Climate Emergency Response fund, the government has already removed the discount for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles and incentives for industrial decarbonisation.

Vanessa Cole, Campaigner at ActionStation, says that while the budget provides $140 million to community housing providers, it has “given no funding for Kāinga Ora to build the housing we desperately need”. She says that the sate has the borrowing power and coordination to build enough public housing to end the 25,000 household waiting list, but instead “the Government are making a political choice to delay and outright stop the building of public housing which will contribute to a deepening of the housing crisis.”

As a result, “we are likely to see more people living in their cars and experiencing housing stress as private rentals skyrocket and there are not enough public houses being built to meet demand,” says Cole. “In times of economic downturn building public housing not only places people in stable and affordable homes but it creates jobs and certainty for the construction sector.”

With the National Science Challenges ending later this year, scientists are saying that the budget will create further attrition in the science sector. Nicola Gaston, co-director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology said that due to inflation and the fact that funding for the National Science Challenges was reallocated from existing science funding, the budget signals “a funding cut relative to 2013”. She noted that “many of the outcomes that this government would like to see — tech skills development, commercialisation, business investment in R&D and the all important economic contribution that innovation can make — will be severely hampered when so many parts of [the science] system are struggling.”

Lucy Stewart, co-president of the New Zealand Association of Scientists, commented that she expects to see more job losses across the science sector by the end of the year. “Nearly forty years ago a target was set of 2% of GDP spending on research and development as appropriate for the high-skill, innovative economy successive governments have stated they wish to see this country become. With this Budget, we are no closer to achieving that and perhaps even further away.”

However, Stewart did note “one bright spot”: an extension of funding for Geonet and seismic hazard modelling, which predicts for and monitors earthquakes in New Zealand. Elsewhere, the Budget has forecast future cuts to research funding including the Marsden Fund and the Health Research Fund. There have also been savings found in Antarctica New Zealand and The Centre of Research Excellence for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism.

Universities New Zealand has welcomed increases to “delivery and quality” funding for universities and proposed increases to how much fees can increase. “We know universities hold the key to dealing with some of the very challenges this country faces now and in the coming decades,” said Cheryl de la Rey, Universities New Zealand Chair and Vice-Chancellor or the University of Canterbury. “Every dollar invested in New Zealand’s universities unlocks value for the country as a whole,” said Chris Whelan, chief executive of Universities New Zealand.

Early childhood education providers will receive $191m for staff, teaching materials, property maintenance and food costs in the light of rising costs.

A portion of this will go towards a new initiative assisting kōhanga reo property maintenance and upgrade cost pressures. With $3m increase a year, this will increase the yearly funding of kōhanga by 57% to $8.3m.

Mātauranga-a-iwi qualification focussed Te Kawa Matakura has been effectively disestablished. The programme received initial funding $2.8m first ran in Te Tai Tokerau in 2020 but has since had low participation rates.

“The real shift in resources in this budget is from poor and marginalised communities to landlords and the well-off,” says Max Harris, ActionStation and Fairer Future campaigner. Fairer Future, a coalition of anti-poverty organisations, released a report yesterday that found that the average tax cut of $30 per household per week will be entirely swallowed up by increased costs for many families. Many carers will face $60 per week in increased costs, and some sole parents $128 more per week. “This is because of changes the government has committed to – benefit indexation, cuts to public transport subsidies, reintroducing prescription charges, and more,” says Harris.

Recessions should be a time to invest in the economy at scale to keep the economy moving and to support people, says Harris. But in his view the government is doing the opposite by insisting that spending needs to go on a downward track. “This is not a budget for growth or productivity, or for people in need of support,” he says. “It’s a budget of a thousand cuts that will take our country backwards.”

Education union NZEI Te Riu Roa has issued a press release saying that the budget is effectively a cut in frontline funding for schools, with no new initiatives for children needing learning support and a funding cut for teacher aides. They note that the funding that  for teacher aides and other support staff, as well as the running of schools, is being increased by just 2.5%, while inflation sits at 4%.

“Every year we’re being asked to run schools off the smell of an oily rag,” says Liam Rutherford, NZEI Te Riu Roa national executive member and teacher. He says children who need additional learning support will miss out. “Principals will not be able to provide additional teacher aides to their staffing, or any other support staff. Our teachers, principals and whānau have been crying out for dedicated support for ākonga for a long time. More teacher aides and learning support specialists are a proven way to support students to learn and teachers to teach in one hit.”

Rutherford says that the learning support system is severely under resourced, and that the $153 million being spent on the charter school scheme could pay a further 700 full time teacher aides to make “a huge difference in the classroom for ākonga and their teachers.”

He was also disappointed to see no dedicated spending on Māori education initiatives, alongside cuts to programmes for students in Māori medium.“For example, the Mauri Tū Mauri Ora programme was run from 2019 to 2023 has not been renewed under this Government. The programme provided for specific and tailored intervention for ākonga in Kaupapa Māori and Māori Medium settings, who had been identified as not achieving at the expected Te Reo Matatini (literacy) and (pāngarau) levels for Te Tīrewa Marautanga o Aotearoa. There is now a huge gap in provision, from a Government that is literacy and numeracy focused.”

“From what we see today,” says Rutherford, “we can say that the National-led Government’s obsession with tax cuts means that education will suffer.”

One third of the community level component of the Sport NZ budget has been cut in the budget. Community funding supports programmes like active learning programmes and promoting community wellbeing. Recreation New Zealand says that less money for sports will have a negative impact of physical, social and mental wellbeing.

“The downward trend in physical activity is alarming. Central government needs to invest in community sport and recreation so that we can halt this decline and help New Zealanders to lead healthy, active lives,” says Sarah Murray, Recreation Aotearoa’s chief executive. She added that spending money to promote community sport is “incredible value for money” with a social return of investment of $2.12 for every $1 spend on the sector.

The savings in community sport total $12.4m over the next four years. By comparison, High Performance Sport New Zealand, funded by the government, invested $131m in 46 sports for the most recent funding cycle in 2023, lasting for 3 years, to help New Zealand get to the Olympics. Olympic sports are also topped up by commercial funding.