Watch this space ...
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Here we go: Surplus by 2014-15, a year ahead of target. Borrowing will drop over the next year and debt repayment will begin after 2014
Canterbury Earthquakes: Estimated cost $15b in total and cost to the Crown $8.8b. Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Fund to be established with an initial sum of $5.5b.
Deficit: $16.4b (8.8% of GDP) - new spending tightly prioritised to health and education
KiwiSaver: Current balances of $7.9b of which around half has been contributed by the government. Default rate to 3% on 1/4/13 and employer contribution to 3% on 1/4/13. Government subsidy halved from 1/6/2012. Kiwisaver funds will total $60b in 10 years time.
Working for Families: Small adjustments to abatement threshholds and rates, phased in over four steps. Lower income families and beneficiaries will be largely unaffected.
Student loan scheme: Lending criteria tightened for over 55's, part-time students and those already in default on payments.
New initiatives: $1.7b of new spending for health, mainly to DHB's; $1.4b of new spending for education and an additional $550m for Early Childhood Education which has wiped the smug grins off some of the Labour members!
Asset sales: Crown to move to the mixed ownership model with Mighty River Power, Solid Energy, Genesis Energy and Meridian Energy together with a reduced shareholding in Air New Zealand. The Government will retain a majority shareholding in all the SOE's.
NZ Super Fund: Contributions are set to resume from 2016/17, two years earlier than forecast.
English's closing remarks: This is not a typical election-year budget. It is a responsible budget, appropriate to New Zealand's situation. The government has laid the basis for future prosperity.
Phil Goff has started his speech in reply, and early indications are that it will be a typical Goff vein-popper!
5 comments:
Simply cannot reach a verdict on this budget. Seems to have to much political posturing for my liking.
Re the leaders speeches, Key wasn't great but was better than Phil's mouth, which had a severe dose of the blah blah's as per usual......
Ambitious for Australia.
When even leftists at public address call this budget with a 16 BILLION DEFICIT HOLE and say it puts NZ on the road to a FINANCIAL ABYSS you know what the verdict is:
complete and utter crap.
We can only hope Brash will do better with an emergency budget after the election - or else, yep, better get to Australia before the close the borders
Thanks.
You forgot: KiwiSaver: employer contribution will be taxed.
The Nothing Budget
The Freezing Budget
The Empty Budget
The Hollow Budget
The Vacant Budget
The Gutless Budget
The Bill and John (Hollow Men) Budget
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