Barry Soper: Labour's first Budget keeps on giving ...

One thing you can say for Labour's first Budget in a decade is that it keeps on giving - to Winston Peters.

The New Zealand First leader stole the march on Grant Robertson last week by unveiling his Foreign Affairs mini Budget, securing almost a billion dollars for his portfolio, most of it going to aid in the Pacific.

Yesterday Robertson did the job for Peters' other portfolio, racing.

Anyone buying a horse for the first time, a "standout yearling" bought for breeding for a profit, will get a tax break.

It'll be assessed on its bloodline, looks and its racing potential.

And after his gains in this Budget, Peters could be slotted into all three categories himself by those who have him as their minister.

In all seriousness though Robertson, aside from the Peters' packages, delivered all he said he was going to.

In the lead up to his first Budget he was photographed on several occasions with his mentor Michael Cullen, known during his nine years in the job as Mr Scrooge.

He sat on surpluses throughout, resisting constant calls for tax relief, but instead retarded Crown debt and put superannuation on a sound footing with the called Cullen fund.

His protégé has broken National's nine year clenched fist with the fund and has once again started contributing to it.

This was a conservative Budget that Cullen would have been proud of.

It doled out the dosh to the areas of need, health, which can never get enough money, and education and housing which are under ever increasing pressure with the growing population and those who are increasingly finding themselves without a roof over their head.

But even by Labour's own admission it was a boring Budget is lacked pizzazz, even Robertson's tie, bought especially for his outing was a predictable speckled red, far from flashy but in fairness he didn't buy it himself.

Jacinda Ardern, who should have known better given her penchant for high fashion, bought it for him.

There has been criticism that this Budget wasn't transformational, it didn't do what Labour governments have done in the past, give us something we weren't expecting, something that Labour could claim as their own, that they could build on and be remembered for.

Unfortunately with two parties to take into consideration, that's not as easy to do as it once was under the old first past the post system.

If you're looking for transformation these days look to the smaller parties that have all the power.

The closest this Government will come to transformation is in the provinces with the billion dollar a year Provincial Grwoth Fund, a New Zealand First Initiative!