You can bail out banks, why not bail out a uni?

Favourite Quotes

It wouldn’t be Budget Day without some hot and spicy quotes from our beloved politicians.

The announcement started off strong with Chris Bishop, Lower Hutt’s favourite shitposter, being told to “settle down” by Grant Robertson. National and ACT then fired shots at Labour once Grant finished his big delivery. National Party leader Christopher Luxon called it the “blowout budget,” not that he’s someone who needs money for a blowout anyway. He also said that he goes “everywhere every week”, which is giving big former-CEOof-Air-New-Zealand energy. Wonder if he offset his carbon emissions? ACT Party leader David Seymour called it the “build back broke budget,” which sounds like a Brokeback Mountain joke and honestly it would’ve been better if it was. Show me the Backbroke Budget (uncut version).

Chris Luxon then accused the government of “gaslighting” Kiwis, as if that isn’t what all politicians kinda do anyway. In classic National Party fashion, he then went on a rant about “deficits” and “debt” and threw out some big scary finance bro language and numbers that didn’t make sense to anyone under the age of 26 because we all studied humanities. Oops! Sorry I don’t care about debt, I’m just waiting for the whole thing to collapse.

Chris Hipkins then spat back, saying “the biggest blowout we’ve seen today was the release of hot air from the leader of the opposition.” Oosh! It became difficult to tell the difference between Budget Day and a bunch of twelvies “fighting” behind the school canteen. Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson called this budget “supporting for today, building for tomorrow,” which is an interesting way to phrase “bare minimum today, climate catastrophe tomorrow” but we’ll take it.

Annabelle’s Hot Takes

Annabelle, insufferable politics student and Critic’s bona fide astrologer, thought that Grant Robertson gave us the best leftist striptease since Channing Tatum in Magic Mike. While Grant didn’t come right out with emancipation for the working class or the much-needed wealth tax, he still gave us a few good tidbits.

The $521 million towards Tertiary Funding is a tremendous slay that ought to make any academic or student feel something, but it would have been nice for the Government to come out with some direct and immediate funding for Otago University. You can bail out banks, why not bail out a uni?

Although Grant delivered, on the same day researchers announced that it is more than likely the world will hit 1.5 degrees of warming by 2027. So we’re all kinda fucked anyway; have fun while it lasts, kids. Government Kiwisaver contributions are also to continue being paid to women who go on maternity leave. Huge step for feminists and girlbosses everywhere.