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Source: ONE News -
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From the Black Budget of half a century ago to the mother of all budgets in 1991 many of the annual reviews of the country's books end up with notorious tags.
Labour took office in 1957 with an ailing economy and behind closed doors Finance Minister Arnold Nordmeyer and Prime Minister Walter Nash brewed up a bitter remedy.
They had to take measures which involved particularly putting up taxes, most memorably on beer, tobacco and petrol.
In a political masterstroke National seized on the strategy, dubbing it the black budget -and voters agreed.
"It was a very successful budget economically and there was no substantial rise in unemployment, except three years later a significant rise in unemployment for Labour MPs because they lost the next election," says historian Brian Easton.
In 1976, National Prime Minister Rob Muldoon warned Kiwis it was time take a cut in their standard of living but not surprisingly, the electorate was reluctant. National's majority took a hammering at the next election but they managed to cling to power thanks to the first-past-the post electoral system.
Then came the Rogernomics revolution of the 1980s. The term was used to describe the economic policies followed by Labour's Finance Minister Roger Douglas, including cutting agricultural subsidies and privatising public assets.
In 1991 came the budget designed to halt offshore borrowing. National's Ruth Richardson delivered what became known as the mother-of-all-budgets and slashed public spending.
"As a result, the economy just plunged, unemployment reached a post-war record, we haven't got back to that yet...she shifted the fiscal deficit into a social deficit," says Easton.
Easton says a likely model for today's announcement is Keith Holyoake's 1961, successful, steady-as-she-goes budget.
