Budget 2023: Pattrick Smellie - A bland election year budget

OPINION:

This budget will not win the Government the October 14 general election.

But nor does it contain anything that might cause it to lose.

It is a conservative document with very little new thinking, no big-bang ideas, a relatively benign economic outlook.

But it doesn’t give opposition parties all that much to bite on, beyond general arm-waving about how much more the government spends these days than it used to. Even there, the attack line is not that strong.

If the Treasury’s fiscal and economic forecasts are to be believed, New Zealand dodges a recession, the scarily large balance of payments deficit shrinks quickly in the next two years, house prices haven’t quite finished falling but they are levelling out after plunging 16.4 per cent over the last year.

Click here for Pattrick Smellie’s full column at BusinessDesk.