The Government’s Budget looks set to usher in a new age of austerity. This morning, Minister of Finance Nicola Willis said new spending would be limited to $1.4 billion, cut back from the original intended $2.4 billion, which itself was already $100 million below what Treasury said was needed to keep the lights on.

“New Zealanders looking around at the state of global politics and asking how things got so bad have their answer in the kind of slash and burn economics Nicola Willis has promised the country today,” says Green Party co-leader and spokesperson for Finance Chlöe Swarbrick.

“The Government has decided its job isn’t done growing poverty, climate changing emissions and homelessness. They’ve announced they’re going to go harder shredding the services we all rely on, meaning life is set to get harder and more expensive for regular people.

“This is the austerity play book: defund public services to failure, watch them fail, then privatise; take the so-called ‘cost’ off the Government’s books and watch those costs rise for regular people.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. We can reduce the cost of living and climate changing emissions while increasing our quality of life - if we have a Government that cares to actually do these things.

“It’s not inevitable that people’s lives get worse, as the Government seems intent on telling everyone. In a few weeks' time, the Greens will release our plan for the future entirely within our reach: a Government budget that supports the wellbeing of people and planet, instead of exploiting and exhausting both,” says Chlöe Swarbrick.

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