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It’s Budget Day: for the uninitiated, the day our elected leaders release their line-by-line budget for where your taxpayer dosh is going, and what the government will be funding this year. It’s one of the most important political and financial announcements of the year, but it’s also about a thousand pages of numbers.If you’re looking for the cheat sheet, we’ve broken down for you the biggest winners of the budget, and a glimpse of how those lines on the spreadsheet might actually affect your life.In Short:Labour are dubbing this “the rebuild budget”—claiming that their priority is rebuilding the foundations of a public sector that’s been eaten away by years of underinvestment from successive National government. They’ve been laying the groundwork for that for weeks, with ominous announcements that ‘we had no idea the books were this bad’. The big spends are as you’d expect from Labour’s campaign and promises: healthcare, housing, social services. Despite the fanfare around social spend, it’s a fairly conservative budget, and those hoping for radical spending will be disappointed. Labour has stayed tied to their fiscal responsibility election promises, and delivering a surplus. Commentators have called it a “pale blue” or “National-lite” budget. It’s worth noting, as Stuff political editor Tracy Watkins wrote, that many of the big-ticket items were announced prior to Christmas - including the whopping $5.5b families package, free tertiary study, $2b for the KiwiBuild, and other flagship programmes like the $60 a week first start payment for newborns.Here’s how the big categories are looking.Health
Healthcare is the big winner of the day. The health sector is getting $3.2 billion more in operating funding over the next four years, and $850 million new capital. It also provides funding for free doctors visits for all under-14s. It also expands low-cost GP visits to all community service card holders, and anyone who gets an accommodation supplement or rent subsidy. That will make visits cheaper for around 540,000 people. School-based health services will be expanded to Decile 4 schools.Housing
$634 million for housing! What is that, like one house in Auckland? Ha. No, apparently it’s 6,000 more state homes over the next four years, with a focus on supplying housing for the homeless, and more grants for insulation and heating.Mental Health and Addiction
After dominating headlines in 2017, additional funding for mental health services seems to have, in the short term at least, evaporated. According to Stuff, the previous government's $100m fund for mental health projects has been placed back into the pool of health funding, to be put to other projects. There's an additional $10.5m towards a pilot programme for mental health for young people. There's $54.2 million for Customs for stopping drugs coming in—but no additional funding for drug addiction services. It looks like any boost for those sectors will have to wait until after Labour's inquiry into the state of the mental health system.Schools
Funding for education is going up by $1.6 billion—a figure that may disappoint the sector. A fair chunk of that will go to funding 1,500 more teachers and extra teacher-aide funding. Early childhood education gets a $590.2 million boost over four years. $284 million goes to learning support for children with special education needs.Tax
They’re hoping to raise some of their cash through a crackdown on tax evasion, which treasury has projected will raise $183m. On top of that, there’s the ‘Amazon Tax’ which is currently under consultation, that will charge larger companies GST on items under $400 that are shipped direct to customers. That’s pegged to come in from October next year, and could hit your ASOS deliveries. They’re also ringfencing investors' tax losses on rental properties. All in all, tax experts are saying those measures could bring in up to an extra $1 billion in the next four years.Environment
The Greens will be fairly chuffed with what they’re calling the "greenest Budget in living memory" with the largest boost to conservation funding since 2002. There’s a total $181.6m promised for conservation.Prisons
Ministry of Justice to get $1.2 billion, funding 920 police officers and 240 support staff in 2018. That’s a shrinking from the original promise of 1,800 more police.
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Healthcare is the big winner of the day. The health sector is getting $3.2 billion more in operating funding over the next four years, and $850 million new capital. It also provides funding for free doctors visits for all under-14s. It also expands low-cost GP visits to all community service card holders, and anyone who gets an accommodation supplement or rent subsidy. That will make visits cheaper for around 540,000 people. School-based health services will be expanded to Decile 4 schools.
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$634 million for housing! What is that, like one house in Auckland? Ha. No, apparently it’s 6,000 more state homes over the next four years, with a focus on supplying housing for the homeless, and more grants for insulation and heating.Mental Health and Addiction
After dominating headlines in 2017, additional funding for mental health services seems to have, in the short term at least, evaporated. According to Stuff, the previous government's $100m fund for mental health projects has been placed back into the pool of health funding, to be put to other projects. There's an additional $10.5m towards a pilot programme for mental health for young people. There's $54.2 million for Customs for stopping drugs coming in—but no additional funding for drug addiction services. It looks like any boost for those sectors will have to wait until after Labour's inquiry into the state of the mental health system.Schools
Funding for education is going up by $1.6 billion—a figure that may disappoint the sector. A fair chunk of that will go to funding 1,500 more teachers and extra teacher-aide funding. Early childhood education gets a $590.2 million boost over four years. $284 million goes to learning support for children with special education needs.Tax
They’re hoping to raise some of their cash through a crackdown on tax evasion, which treasury has projected will raise $183m. On top of that, there’s the ‘Amazon Tax’ which is currently under consultation, that will charge larger companies GST on items under $400 that are shipped direct to customers. That’s pegged to come in from October next year, and could hit your ASOS deliveries. They’re also ringfencing investors' tax losses on rental properties. All in all, tax experts are saying those measures could bring in up to an extra $1 billion in the next four years.Environment
The Greens will be fairly chuffed with what they’re calling the "greenest Budget in living memory" with the largest boost to conservation funding since 2002. There’s a total $181.6m promised for conservation.Prisons
Ministry of Justice to get $1.2 billion, funding 920 police officers and 240 support staff in 2018. That’s a shrinking from the original promise of 1,800 more police.