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Home / New Zealand

Claire Trevett: Wellbeing Budget at risk of becoming Mutually Assured Destruction

Claire Trevett
By Claire Trevett
Political Editor, NZ Herald·NZ Herald·
29 May, 2019 05:00 PM4 mins to read

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National Party leader Simon Bridges, flanked by deputy leader Paula Bennett (l) and finance spokeswoman Amy Adams. Photo / Mark Mitchell

National Party leader Simon Bridges, flanked by deputy leader Paula Bennett (l) and finance spokeswoman Amy Adams. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Budget 2019

Every Budget turns into something of a battle on both sides to ensure their preferred nickname for it is the most enduring.

Usually the wittiest wins – or the one that punctures the fluff and gets to the heart of the thing.

That means it is usually one coined by the Opposition or media that wins this contest.

In the past it has resulted in the Chewing Gum Budget (courtesy of Winston Peters' reference to tiny tax cuts in 2005).

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There was the Block of Cheese Budget (courtesy of National and not quite as tiny tax cuts in 2008) and the Paperboy Tax Budget in 2012 (coined by Labour after National cut children's tax credits.)

This year, Labour began the nickname contest very early and with some determination that it would win.

For more than a year, it has made much of this being the "first" Wellbeing Budget.

Lest there be any doubt, it was even written on the cover when Robertson took the media out to the printers to watch it roll off the press.

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The cover sheet was not a partisan red, as was traditional, but pristine white with a happy adult and child on it.

The minister holding it up was a very happy chappy indeed.

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Earlier that day, Robertson had reported that the most persistent question he faced was whether "wellbeing" would mean sausage rolls would be cut from the Budget lock-up lunch table.

The only other looming black cloud was the massive teachers' strike the day before the Budget.

Alas, a mere half hour later Robertson's own wellbeing was being buffeted.

National Party leader Simon Bridges released details of some of the spending in the Budget – details nobody was supposed to have.

Robertson and Ardern at first feigned nonchalance about this, seeming to think efforts to uncover the source of the information breach could wait until after the Budget was delivered.

That was very wishful thinking.

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At 8pm that night, Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf issued a statement saying there had been a concerted and prolonged attempt to get into Treasury's website and referred it to the Police to investigate.

Thus far, National has released relatively innocuous information.

But the shell pages that were already waiting on Treasury's website, albeit not yet publicly accessible, included much more than the brief overviews of spending National released.

They included the shell page for the overall "estimates" – which set out all spending.

If Treasury had uploaded that in preparation for the Budget release there will be concern that that information too is out there somewhere.

That could be used for means more nefarious than simply spoiling Robertson's fun.
Treasury has a lot of questions to answer.

So does Bridges, who has effectively put his job on the line over this issue.

At a press conference on Wednesday morning he unequivocally ruled out getting the information by hacking – however widely that was defined – or getting it from someone else who got it that way.

He issued furious proclamations of "incompetence" and "bungling" by both Robertson and Treasury but would not specify exactly what was incompetent.

He railed against Robertson for appearing to link the information National had with hacking attempts on Treasury's website.

As things stand we have little more than his own word that he stands innocent of wrongdoing.

He could have provided the information that could prove it. But he has not.

He has not provided a reason for withholding that information either.

What will worry Labour is that there is something explosive and Bridges is withholding it to drop it as a bombshell at an inconvenient time.

It would be an effective Budget honeymoon buster.

Bridges has insisted Robertson would be the one on resignation row when the truth came out.

The stakes and cross-accusations have now got so heated it seems almost inevitable that for one of them – whether Robertson or Bridges – this will end up being the Undoing Budget.

It may even turn out to be the Mutually Assured Destruction Budget.

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