Christopher Luxon flubbed an opportunity to show us why we should make him Prime Minister. Photo / George Heard
OPINION
I’m beginning to think this Budget, and National’s woeful reaction to it, could be the election-winner for Labour after all.
It wasn’t the big bang that some pundits (me included) were expecting, with every cent poured into tax cuts. Instead, Labour has delivered meaningful cost of living reductions – free prescriptions, free ECE for 2-year-olds, free public transport for kids and half price for young adults, KiwiSaver for people on parental leave, home insulation and heater retrofits.
These are all bread-and-butter policies that will make a difference to many voters, but one group in particular: women. These are the issues that still (unfairly) tend to fall on women’s shoulders in most of our families. Labour knows that the women’s vote will be crucial in the coming election. Christopher Luxon’s conservative views, like that abortion is murder, have already put National offside with many women.
This Budget, not just the cost-of-living package but also things like the $1 billion boost for wages for the predominantly female health workforce, gives women more of a reason to vote for Labour.
And National seems intent on using the Budget to drive away as many voters as possible. Christopher Luxon once again flubbed an opportunity to show us why we should make him Prime Minister, instead offering up visionless, cliched, opposition to everything.
Between me writing this and you reading it, National may well have reversed its mean-hearted policies to reimpose the $5 prescription charge and remove free and discounted public transport – but, even if they do, they have revealed their values.
Free prescriptions are a great policy. We know that 135,000 people didn’t pick up prescriptions last year due to cost, and we know that not getting your meds is linked to worse health and more days in hospital. In fact, Otago University researchers worked out that every dollar spent on prescriptions costs $18 in hospital stays.
Not only is National’s plan to put the $5 charge back on out of touch with ordinary families and the medical profession, but it’s also bad use of money. They would rather spend billions on hospital visits than millions on free medicine. Nuts.
Nicola Willis says it’s a “nice to have”, not a priority. Instead, she wants to use that money, and much more, to cut tax for landlords. As a landlord, let me say: I don’t need a tax cut on my rental. But my whānau who are struggling, they’ll really benefit from the free prescriptions, the cheap public transport, and the rest.
The issue of prescription meds and the rest of the cost-of-living package has the potential to be an election winner for Labour; not just because it’s Chris Hipkins delivering on bread-and-butter issues like he said he would and targeting that help to key voters, but also because it has shown middle New Zealand that they will always be a non-priority to National’s leadership.
That’s not going to do much for National’s polling, which already shows people think its leadership is out of touch.
I expect to see Labour get a bump in the polls on the back of a Budget that shows Chris Hipkins does what he says he’ll do – it’s not frilly, but it’s effective.
National also has a real problem now in balancing its books. They’re promising to fund billions in tax cuts, the cyclone rebuild, and increases for health and education all out of unidentified “waste”, even after Grant Robertson just went through the Budget with a scalpel and cut out $4b. No wonder they are trying to put off releasing their Alternative Budget as long as possible. They’re like the kid with homework due, who deludes themselves that if they ignore it a little longer, it’ll sort itself out.
The Government, on the other hand, can fairly say they’re managing the books well. The cyclone rebuild will delay the return to surplus by only one year. There’s enough money to meet the cost pressures on the public services we rely on. The recession has been cancelled, and inflation is falling faster than expected while wages rise.
This is an election-year Budget, and it’s not just the centre-swing voters Labour has been thinking about. The Labour Māori caucus also knows it must deliver for our people as it faces a reinvigorated Te Pāti Māori. We see that coming through in things like the funding for Te Matatini and 322 more iwi homes but also in that broader cost-of-living focus that will help whānau doing it tough. These are policies you put in place when you are members of the Labour Maori Caucus.
With under 150 days to go, the Budget signals the start of the last stretch heading into the election for political parties. Neck and neck in the polls, National has stumbled badly in its out-of-touch reaction to the Budget, while Chris Hipkins’ Labour has shown it is focused on what matters and seems to be making the running. It’s shaping up to be a photo finish, but Labour now has its nose ahead.
Shane Te Pou (Ngāi Tūhoe) is a commentator, blogger and former Labour Party activist.