Budget 2024: Finance Minister Nicola Willis unveils cover of Budget document

Finance Minister Nicola Willis says her Budget will be about substance and results instead of “snazzy covers”.

The cover of the Budget was often a point of interest - last year, then-Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s Budget featured a photo he took from Bluff Hill in Hawke’s Bay, in recognition of the measures in the Budget to rebuild after Cyclone Gabrielle.

Unveiling her Budget’s cover - sans photos - Willis said she was focussed on “substance” instead of “snazzy covers”.

“We will be judged by results,” she said in a press conference at Blue Star Printers in Petone.

With the Budget set to be revealed tomorrow, Willis didn’t give anything away except to promise a plan for economic recovery that wouldn’t be inflationary, as well as spending on health, education and police.

“I think New Zealanders will do well out of this Budget.”

Finance Minister Nicola Willis showed off the cover at Blue Star Printers in Petone. Photo / Mark Mitchell

On Monday, Willis said the Budget would include a list of 240 programmes that had been cut amid the Government’s drive to reduce public service spending.

Today, she said there would also be a list of the “fiscal cliffs” left by the previous government - programmes and initiatives that hadn’t been fully funded for the coming four years.

Willis said the “few instances” of this “time-limited funding” would be noted within the Budget. She claimed there would be much fewer instances than the previous government.

As Willis spoke, people were gathered outside of Parliament to protest the limitations the Government imposed on funding for the disabled community.

She said disability services were “very important” and promised a “significant funding uplift” for those services.

Asked how she felt about her first Budget, Willis said she didn’t want to focus on herself but accepted she felt “enormous responsibility”.

Willis recalled how she had left work yesterday to watch her children compete in cross country races. Willis said while looking at the other parents, she was confident she would be able to “look them in the eye” and say the Government had delivered for them.

Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.