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Speaker 1: Just two more sleeps until Budget Day. Brad Olson's favorite

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Speaker 1: day of the year, and he's with us. Now, Hey, Brad,

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Speaker 1: good evening. Is it really your favorite day?

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Speaker 2: It's definitely up there. I mean, you know, birthdays and

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Speaker 2: Christmas are good. But when you sort of get locked

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Speaker 2: in a room with a huge amount of information to

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Speaker 2: go through and put your economic wits to a test,

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Speaker 2: it's always important.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, with the time pressure, I mean, it is just

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Speaker 1: so intense and fun. Okay, what are you going to

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Speaker 1: be looking out for. What's the one thing that you

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Speaker 1: do not know about you want to understand and this

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Speaker 1: is the thing that you go straight to.

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Speaker 2: Look Infrastructure in my mind only because I think it'll

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Speaker 2: be more than one thing. I don't think there'll just

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Speaker 2: be one announcement. And there's already been some right, I mean,

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Speaker 2: there's been a lot of money that's been put towards

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Speaker 2: the likes of defense and similar but government, you know,

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Speaker 2: continues to talk about how much infrastructure it wants to invest,

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Speaker 2: and we can see it around the country that there

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Speaker 2: is a desperate need for that across the likes of

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Speaker 2: you know, hospitals and schools, but also the likes of

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Speaker 2: you know, water pipes, roads, everything else that keep the

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Speaker 2: economy moving. So that's going to be my big focus

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Speaker 2: what stuff is in there, because if the government can

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Speaker 2: unlock a greater level of infrastructure investment, that's the sort

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Speaker 2: of stuff that does get the economy motoring. It creates

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Speaker 2: or keeps more people in construction jobs to start with,

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Speaker 2: and when those facilities, when those assets are up and running,

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Speaker 2: is a whole lot more that they can provide. And

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Speaker 2: I think, particularly looking out at likes of provincial and

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Speaker 2: regional New Zealand, there's some real opportunities to supercharge stuff there.

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Speaker 2: So that's the big one. But of course, as we've

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Speaker 2: talked about, I think for probably the last two weeks

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Speaker 2: on the show now that the key we say a

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Speaker 2: question is still coming up time and time again. So

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Speaker 2: although it seems pretty close that something is going to

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Speaker 2: come out there, just the details will want to get

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Speaker 2: across what they mean for people.

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Speaker 1: Back in you know. One thing that struck me as

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Speaker 1: being slightly different this time around is that last in budgets.

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Speaker 1: Previously we've always looked out for the lollies like who's

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Speaker 1: getting what freeb but this time there is no sense

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Speaker 1: of that, and it is more what's been cut. Would

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Speaker 1: you agree with that?

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Speaker 2: Indeed, And to be fair, that was a part of

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Speaker 2: last year, but we had a pretty good read already

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Speaker 2: for the government at that point because they'd said, you know,

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Speaker 2: government ministries need to take a six and a half

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Speaker 2: percent baseline cap this time around. It's not quite across

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Speaker 2: the board everyone needs to find savings. It's more that

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Speaker 2: there are big, quite chunky projects or sort of proposals

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Speaker 2: that were already there that might now be coming out.

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Speaker 2: So you're definitely right in terms of what's not going

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Speaker 2: to be in there for the future. But I also

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Speaker 2: think slightly different with this budget is there seems to

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Speaker 2: be a few more sort of non financial announcements that

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Speaker 2: the government wants to make as part of it. So

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Speaker 2: they might be funding some new proposal, but they're also saying, look,

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Speaker 2: we're going to make this other change that might not

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Speaker 2: necessarily cost a whole lot of money, but if we

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Speaker 2: can make a financial shift plus a regulatory shift, change

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Speaker 2: some of the rules around this to make things go

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Speaker 2: fast or and not have so many barriers in the way,

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Speaker 2: then that also seems to be a part I think

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Speaker 2: of the government strategy this budget. I mean that the

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Speaker 2: Finance Minister has highlighted that this is all around growth.

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Speaker 2: So again I think there's now a real expectation there.

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Speaker 2: We'll be wanting to see better growth expectations coming from

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Speaker 2: the Treasury now because of the government is getting serious

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Speaker 2: about growing growth and they need to get Treasury over

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Speaker 2: the line. If they can convince the Treasury guys over

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Speaker 2: the line, then we're definitely back in business. Good stuff.

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Speaker 1: Hat's always good to talk to you, Brad. We'll see

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Speaker 1: you there. Brad Olsen, Infametrix Principal principal Economists.

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