Five things to look for in the budget

Five things to look for in the budget
Every year, journalists are locked en masse into the Beehive banquet hall with the budget. (Image: BusinessDesk)
Pattrick Smellie
Unless the government has done a fantastic job of lower expectations ahead of the budget on Thursday, there will be no big surprises.We already know a lot of the detail on infrastructure spending to deal with cyclone damage and one or two other announcements have dribbled out, for example, on defence pay and equipment, and the expansion of the subsidy scheme for electric vehicles.We know that there won’t be tax cuts, the argument being variously that even shifting the personal income tax bands would be inflationary; and that we need to sp...

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