Heather du Plessis-Allan: Can Nicola Willis pull off her no new money budget? - Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

If Nicola Willis can pull this Budget off, it'll be impressive, because she has written a budget, by the looks of things, that is so tight, there is basically no new money.

If you haven’t caught up on this, Nicola Willis gave a speech this morning in which she announced she was cutting back her new spending in this budget hugely.

Her plan originally was to give herself $2.4 billion extra new money to spend. She’s just announced she’s cutting that basically in half to $1.3 billion.

The last time a finance minister had that little to play with was Bill English in 2015 who gave himself only 1 billion in extra money that year.

But it gets even better – because all of that money is already spoken for, last years budget promised this year’s budget would spend an extra $1.4 billion on health. Which basically means her $1.3 billion in new spending is already gone on that $1.4 billion health promise ... and she still has to find $100 million to make up the difference.

AND ... she’s got to find another $150 million for the 26 new cancer drugs that were promised halfway through last year.

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