"Savings"

So, Nicola Willis has presented her nano-budget, which wasn't really a budget after all, just a list of money she is planning to reprioritise. And the headline is that she's found almost $7.5 billion of "savings" to fund tax cuts for landlords. So what are these "savings"?

The mini-Budget outlined the $7.47b in savings, made up of $2.61b from stopping work on initiatives including Let's get Wellington Moving and Fair Pay Agreements, $2.0b from the Emissions Trading Scheme, and $2.8b from tax and benefit changes.

So, cut spending on vital infrastructure, on decarbonisation, and on the poor. Which might make the books look better in the short term, but at the cost of having to pay for it later. That cut infrastructure spending means higher economic costs and greater expense later. That "reprioritisation" of ETS revenue from decarbonisation to landlord tax cuts means higher emissions, which we will pay for in 2030. And cutting benefits and ECE means higher social costs later. In other words, these aren't really "savings" at all, but piling up costs for the future. Its exactly like a shitty council Keeping Rates Low by skimping on road and sewer maintenance. And we all know how that turns out.