Bob Harvey: Oh dear, Auntie still thinks we're naughty

Auckland, it seems, is again being punished for being Auckland. We're the kid the rest of the country doesn't really like - big, brash, a bit overweight, needy ... eating out the national fridge, a drug-addled, style-obsessed late teenager.

There's one fat slob in every Garden of Eden. Or that is how the Budget addresses us.

At least the Government has in this Budget attacked our bad habits. We have drug teams now to help with our methamphetamine problem, more money for better television programmes and rock videos to keep us entertained, more police on the streets to break up our parties.

More money for childcare for our spawning, sprawling children.

That's all good - but what we really needed was some stern help to tidy up our room and organise our lives. In other words, a bigger injection in infrastructure such as transport was, and still is, needed.

Ruth Richardson gave us the mother of all budgets; I guess this is the auntie.

Kind and loving - but not really that exciting. At least all the middle class aunties of Christchurch are happier now that they can see more ballet.

Budgets under the National Party were like Brazilian wax jobs. You were cleaner and smoother as a result, but it always hurt like hell and wow did they pull it off close.

The Auntie budget prefers to comb our hair and keep our face clean with her hanky.

To get to the content, a couple of complaints from Auckland (every stroppy teenagers' right) and a few thanks you's at the end.

This should have been the infrastructure Budget. Budgets are the opportunity outside an election for a Government to say "here is the plan, here are the rules, here is the money".

They also signal "we have the situation under control".

But on the whole - and for the country as a whole - there are more positives than negatives.

Public broadcasting got some support. While National Radio funding may not get the car moving any faster in a two-hour morning traffic jam, it is good Auntie Weetbix that certainly gets the mental bowels moving.

Auntie has, as mentioned earlier, clearly started to address the drug problem of methamphetamine.

The challenge is not simply getting at the stash under the bed, it is smashing and jailing the producers and dealers.

This will go some way towards stemming the evil tide and and the associated burglaries and crime.

More police on the streets of Auckland. Well, who can argue with that - let's see them visible. Big tick.

Increased hours of subsidised care for young children in daycare. That addresses a growing problem and will make a huge difference to the lives of ordinary families. Another big tick.

This is a social budget with its heart in the right place - good for mothers, good for small business, and with a creative heart and soul.

In a city like Waitakere that won't be lost. Look, we really appreciated the trip to Rendells, Auntie, but could you turn the radio down please - that stuff is going to kill me.

And tidy my room, will you ...

* Bob Harvey is mayor of Waitakere City