A Budget Day Conspiracy

Insights Newsletter
26 May, 2017

I thought the point of the Budget lock-up was to give everyone adequate time to process and digest complex information, and ensure no media organisation had an exclusive.

Now I’m not so sure.

In fact, I have a theory. Everyone in the room (excluding a few choice journalists*) paid off some chump to write op-eds that would be used as templates for every news organisation.

Approximately one hour is used “personalising” their Budget hot-takes. The rest of the time is spent doing fun and outrageous things that the rest of New Zealand will never hear about.

Social paranoia aside, I have reason to be suspicious.

Proportionate to the number of people who attend the Budget lock-up, only three real angles have emerged.

The first angle is that this is the “Budget for everyone”. The election year Budget. The Budget that spends enough in places where needed, but not enough to enrage fiscal conservatives.

Such an angle should not be confused with Bill’s Boring Budget of 2016. Last year, there were no winners. This year, there are no losers.

The second angle is that the spending is not enough, or is not in the right areas. The third angle is that the changes in income tax did not go far enough, or were not concentrated on the right groups.

And it goes without saying that every piece needs to be written through an election lens. Just in case anyone forgot that come September, National will be wanting more votes than those other parties.

Let’s face it, all three of these angles could have been written before the lock-up. Or any Budget lock-up, for that matter.

Then again, maybe I have it all wrong.

Maybe the reality is an exam-like atmosphere: a mixture of dread and desperation to find an original angle or nugget of information, combined with the fear that the person next to you has written a much better piece.

I totally sympathise with that pressure. The only thing about Budget day that really raised my eyebrows was Finance Minister Steven Joyce’s attire.

How can a Budget be boring when you are wearing such a fabulous purple tie?

 
*For fear of offending anyone, I won’t name my top picks for Budget commentary. But if you are a journalist, feel free to assume I am talking about you and give yourself a pat on the back.

Stay in the loop: Subscribe to updates