Three couples with an average joint income of less than $75,000 a year give their verdicts.
KEY POINTS:
Lauren and Shaun O'Neill reckon they would still be better off in Australia, despite yesterday's tax cuts.
The young Auckland couple, who have just had their first baby, will get a tax cut of $16.50 a week from October 1.
Finance Minister Michael Cullen's office said they could get a further saving of $28.50 a week when Mrs O'Neill goes back to work part-time on an assumed income of $25,000 a year, allowing for losses on the couple's investment in a downtown apartment.
Mrs O'Neill said the cuts would be a help. "We accept every little thing we can save, but I don't know it will make much difference. It's too little, too late."
The couple have researched incomes and living costs in Australia and have worked out that they would be better off across the Tasman.
"We've looked at the tax breaks, and even with this new tax cut now we'd still be better off in Australia. Rent is cheaper. Wages are higher."
Mrs O'Neill's main concern before the Budget was health, but she was not impressed by a health spending increase of $750 million.
"At the end of the day there's still going to be families that can't afford to go to the doctor because they don't have a spare $20 or $40," she said.
"I still think a National Health Service is better where it doesn't come out of the Government's pockets, it comes out of the individual's [in a separate tax], so I can't understand why that's not in place."
The Budget did not announce any change in her other concern, paid parental leave. Dr Cullen's spokesman said that had never been on the agenda for this year, although the Families Commission has proposed an extension from 14 weeks to just over a year.
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Auckland's Johansson family will be $37 a week better off from October as a result of yesterday's Budget.
Finance Minister Michael Cullen's office says Adolf and Martha Johansson and their four children, aged 1 to 13, will get a tax cut of $16.50 a week plus $20.50 a week in higher family tax credits.
Mrs Johansson welcomed the gains, but said they would still not cover the higher costs the family faced, including a $40-a-week rise in their petrol bill alone in the past year.
"Overall I thought it was all right," she said. "I don't know if it exactly keeps up with what we are facing now, but I'll take anything."
With an income of about $60,000 a year before tax, the family get one of the lowest percentage tax cuts in the Budget - in an income bracket well above the cuts in the bottom tax rate, and just too low to gain much from the lift in the threshold for the top 39 per cent tax rate from $60,000 to $80,000.
Dr Cullen's office said the family's total gains would rise to $43 a week in 2010 and $76 a week in 2011.
"The increases are going to help," Mrs Johansson said, "but in 2011 I will have two at high school and I'm sure the costs of everything else will have gone up. They [the Government] said they are still looking at adding that extra on the petrol in the Auckland region.
"The one thing I didn't understand is why does broadband have to be sped up?"
Mrs Johansson said she was still worried that her oldest son James, 13, would be saddled with student debts when he reached tertiary education.
"He will probably have to stay here to do it," she said. "There won't be any flatting or anything."
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"Better than nothing" sums up David and Maud Morris' view of the Budget.
"I don't think it in any way recompenses me for the increase in costs over the past few years, but it's better than nothing," said Mr Morris, 61.
The couple, who are the night custodians at the Ronald McDonald House on a combined income of about $60,000 a year, have worked out that they are $60 a week worse off than they were when Labour took office nine years ago.
Finance Minister Michael Cullen's office has calculated that they will get a tax cut of $24 a week from October 1, rising to $35 a week from 2010 and $43 in 2011.
The couple's main concern before the Budget was for their two young adult children, both married and one with a 1-year-old baby, who now share the family house in Lynfield because they can't afford to buy homes.
Mr Morris said in yesterday's Herald that he was not impressed by a new shared-equity scheme that provides loans for first-home buyers on houses costing up to $305,000 in Auckland. "Even in Otara they are more than that."
Dr Cullen's office said that a search of one real estate website yesterday found 44 houses listed below $300,000 in Otara, and 1060 across the Auckland region.
But Mr Morris suspected many of those properties were apartments.
"I don't think our son wants to live in Otara anyway," he said.
He acknowledged that the tax cuts would help young families.
"For the children it's a step in the right direction, but probably not a big enough step."
