KEY POINTS:
Michael Cullen has been New Zealand's best finance minister in living memory. Mind you, that's not such a challenge, given his predecessors included Bill Birch, Ruth Richardson, Roger Douglas and Robert Muldoon.
After each was dumped, the country was in worse shape than when they started. Certainly, all
of them helped to dismantle the egalitarian society that the first Labour Government created in 1935.
For 50 years, New Zealand prided itself on having no social classes or hereditary privilege. Every kid from any background got the same high-quality, free public education and opportunities. We also believed that we were our brother's (and sister's) keeper and ensured people who were too old, too sick or otherwise unable to work received a living income so they could have some dignity.
We all paid our taxes to fund this based on the notion that if everyone had equal opportunity and the basics of life we would create a more harmonious society. We proudly called it the welfare society.
Now, welfare is akin to bludging, and no politician would allow the word to pass their lips. So we don't even pretend we are an egalitarian society. For 20 years, the gap between rich and poor has steadily increased.
In 1991, Richardson slashed a billion dollars off the incomes of the poorest and most-vulnerable New Zealanders and, despite its vocal condemnation at the time, Labour has never restored those cuts during its nine years in power.
Every day I walk to work and back along Auckland's Queen St. There are never fewer than a dozen homeless and destitute people begging for coins.
After dark, the cardboard boxes and threadbare blankets come out in shop doorways and as many as 50 people can be sleeping out.
I don't know their circumstances or whether drugs play a role. When I ask them, they tell me they can't work or aren't able to find a job. Those on benefits say they just can't afford accommodation.
As the Budget was being read, a young woman was rifling through rubbish bins outside my office. She opened a crumpled paper bag and ate its contents, before checking any empty cans and bottles for liquid.
A couple a weeks ago, cabinet minister Ruth Dyson admitted beneficiaries were worse off now than when her Government came to power. I wondered if it would be a moral test for Labour, whether its Budget would restore a living income for the most vulnerable in our society.
I readily acknowledge Labour deserves credit for lifting the low and modest incomes of other New Zealanders, such as superannuitants and working families. Low-paid workers have had their minimum wages lifted by nearly $3 an hour. But for the poorest - nothing. Therefore I just assumed that, in what is probably his last Budget, Cullen would include a significant lift for them.
Initially, when I skimmed the Budget news, I thought I had missed the section on beneficiaries. But they got zilch - again. Quite frankly, I was appalled. And so should every New Zealander with a conscience. This means that fellow citizens like cerebral palsy suffer Helen Capel, who have no choice but to live on an invalid benefit of $242 a week, get nothing. Capel says she isn't strong enough to climb on to a bus and now can't afford to put petrol in her car. So she is out of sight and mind, stranded at home worrying about power and food bills.
Meanwhile, healthy New Zealanders on incomes eight times higher will get another $28 a week in the hand, eventually doubling to $56. Poorer workers get a measly $12, and a worker on the average wage gets $16. With the price of food, power, homes and transport rocketing, I had hoped that Cullen would share the tax cuts more equitably. After all, the price of a litre of petrol and the proverbial block of cheese is the same for everyone.
I'm sure most better-off citizens wouldn't have begrudged a flat cut at the bottom tax rate. For less than half the $4 billion Cullen gave away, he could have given every adult an extra $40 a week and still managed to finance his main budget priorities.
Imagine what a difference this money would have made to the hundreds of thousands of low-income citizens who are really struggling. An extra $40 would allow people like Capel to significantly improve their quality of life.
I know the political spin on the Budget will be how clever it was for Cullen to direct his largesse mainly to the middle classes who are tempted to vote National and leave nothing in the coffers for John Key to dish out in election bribes later.
The pundits will tell us the poorest won't vote and if they do, they won't vote National anyway. But that cynicism leaves me cold.
From an orthodox view, the Budget will be seen as a moderate winner. But when, after nine years of economic surpluses, a government won't give our poorest relief, there is something morally bankrupt in our thinking. On October 1, most of us will have a little more money in our pocket. But people like Helen Capel will get nothing. That makes us all poorer.