Budget 2023: What the politicians have to say

The government has delivered its 'no frills' Budget, delivering wins for some, including families with young children in early childhood education.

But people over 25 without kids have been left in the lurch, and there is disappointment within the social sector that entrenched levels of poverty have not been addressed.

Here is what some politicians told RNZ about how the money has been allocated.

Minister of Finance Grant Robertson

Robertson said the government had put a significant amount of money into supporting those on lower and middle incomes in recent years but the Budget was always a balancing act.

"We've tried to steer a course here where we do help people, whilst also bringing the economy back from those big-spending Covid budgets."

He said Treasury had indicated since its half-yearly update in December that interest rates would be "slightly higher for longer", however he said that was related the recent cyclone and weather events.

"They are unavoidable events that we have to respond to ... if we weren't to respond to that, I think New Zealanders would look pretty dimly on us."

Robertson said that response would have some impact on interest rates but "overall, interest rates come down over the period of this Budget and inflation comes down across the period. That's what people paying mortgages need".

Immigration numbers were rebounding, he said, which alongside the $71 billion allocated for infrastructure spend over the next five years would give the construction sector confidence.

"It is giving a clear signal to New Zealanders and to the construction industry sector of the work that will be around over the next few years."

National Party finance spokesperson Nicola Willis

The National Party says investing in rebuilding cyclone-affected regions is the right thing to do but it requires careful prioritisation of other government spending.

Its finance spokesperson Nicola Willis said big infrastructure projects like the Auckland light rail project no longer looked like as a high a priority given the significant infrastructure needs elsewhere in the country.

"We would have gone through the government books and found things that it was appropriate to pull back on so that we could invest in the priority of the rebuild."

Willis said households were having to meet higher costs for their groceries, rents, rates bills and mortgages.

"You will find that New Zealanders across the board are finding little things they need to pull back on; well I think the same discipline should apply to the government."

She said National would have adjusted tax rates.

"Effectively, average wage earners are paying more tax because they have been pushed into higher tax brackets."

She said governments needed to be careful about which initiatives they embarked on when the country was in difficult economic times.

"The priorities need to be health, education, a social safety net and ensuring that everyday people can keep more of what they earn."

National would not have removed prescription co-payments across the board, she said.

"We support a more targeted approach, so that those with a community services card could in future get zero-fee prescriptions and so superannuitants could too."

Green Party co-leader James Shaw

The Green Party says the government is making a political choice not to move faster on climate change.

It applauded the $1.5 billion allocated in this year's Budget to cutting greenhouse gasses, but said the incrementalist approach to climate change was preventing crucial progress.

Co-leader James Shaw said we did not live in incremental times.

"There was a report out just this week saying that the chances of passing that crucial 1.5 degree threshold in the next two years is about 70 percent, and those odds are way too long for me."

He said the Greens would have liked to see a more targeted "significant investment in directly cutting emissions in the near term".

But there would be a return on investment in upgrading the country's economy, Shaw said.

"That's why we set up Green Investment Finance, that's got an additional $300 million in this year's Budget ... it'll be generating returns over time, so we'll be cutting emissions but we'll also be getting our money back over the long term."

Shaw said investment in renewable electricity infrastructure like solar would not only reduce emissions but would also improve community resilience in the face of extreme weather events.

"When you have a storm that knocks out powerlines if people have got their own power supply it means that they're resilient to those [events]."

The country had more work to do on addressing the pollution it was putting into the atmosphere, he said.

"I do applaud the initiatives that were in the Budget and in particular that infrastructure spend because it will help with climate change adaptation, but the best form of adaptation is to stop causing climate change in the first place."