Ryan Bridge: Budget 2025 will be frugal, but will Budget 2026?

You can’t say we weren’t warned Nicola Willis would be taking to government spending like a butcher to a fresh carcass. She’s been saying it for months.  Yesterday she halved the operating allowance to $1.3 billion. All this because she wants to do what she said she’s do, and that’s balance the books by 2029. The recession’s cut her tax take so you either push your surplus out or you trim your spending. Labour, of course, says this is austerity, it’s bad, and we should spending more not less. Well, we know where that got us, waist deep in our own shite. Shite that Willis is now wading her way through trying to clean up. Budgets are just bigger versions of what we all do in our own lives everyday. We make decisions and choices about how much to spend, to borrow, what we spend on and more importantly, what we don’t. And if you asked most Kiwis what they’re doing right now, are you doing a Hipkins.Are you borrowing and splashing the cash? Stacking the pantry? Making nice brand spanking new purchases?  Or are you doing a Willis? Spending on the stuff you need, cutting the stuff you don’t, and trying to balance your budget so you can start paying down your debt?  I reckon most kiwis are doing the latter. So on that score, she’s on the money.  But here’s the thing to worry about, the political calculation for Budget 2025 will be very different to Budget 2026. You can get away with running a tight ship in the off-season but next year we’re going to the polls. Just look across the Tasman for a look at how mad that makes us and by extension our politicians. Albanese's borrowing so much for his election promises that Standard and Poor’s threatening to downgrade their AAA credit rating. There's debt-funded election spending so out the gate it’s pushing government outlays to its highest level since World War Two.  They’re now promising to cut $7 billion plus out of the public service least they push the boat out too far. The coalition’s been dining out in the credit card too. Not just the lefties. And this is the lesson and the warning. Being frugal and thrifty is easy when you’re not trying to buy an election. So yes, Willis is making the right noises for now, but next year, might just be a different story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.