Finance Minister Steven Joyce has handed out all of his lollies in his first Budget, but what do you get out of it?
Workers:
Families are the biggest winners from this Budget, with a $2b tax package putting more money in their pockets.
Tax thresholds are changing from $14,000 to $22,000 and from $48,000 to $52,000.
That means those in the $22,000 bracket will get an extra $10.77 a week, or $560.04 a year; those in the new $52,000 bracket will get an extra $20.38 a week or $1059.76 per year.
Families:
The Family Tax Credit under Working for Families will go up for the first child under 16 by $9 each week, or $468 a year. Each child under 16 after that will get bet between $18 and $27.
The maximum Accommodation Supplement for a two-person household will increase between $25 to $75 per weeks, and between $40 and $80 a week for larger families.
The Government says the changes will affect 1,340,000 Kiwi families by, on average, $26 a week.
Students:
Students will be getting up to $20 a week extra with changes to the Accommodation Benefit.
It'll affect 41,000 students across the country, but how much you'll get depends entirely on where you live.
The 26,000 people studying in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch will get the maximum of $20 a week.
But in places with relatively lower accommodation costs such as Hamilton and Palmerston North, it won't be as much.
Students could also benefit from the changes to the tax thresholds.
There's also a $1.5b boost for schools and early education, which will go toward building more infrastructure and property, operational grants, and supporting students with learning needs.
First-home buyers:
Those looking for their first home are out of luck. The Budget didn't have anything specific to help prospective owners get into the property market.
The only thing the Government announced to do with house building is $100m to build more housing on Crown land.
The Government's already announced 34,000 new homes in Auckland over the next decade as part of the Crown Land Development Programme.
But the new money will be used to make land available for 1200 new homes.
Just 20 percent of those homes will be social housing, while 20 percent will need to be priced as "affordable" defined as no higher than the KiwiSaver HomeStart cap.
Drivers:
There'll be a lot of roadworks to deal with over the next few years with the Government announcing a $9.17b funding boost over four years for major projects.
There will be a number of key projects which will be underway in those four years, including:
- Auckland's Western Ring Route
- The Northern and Southern Corridor of SH1 in Auckland
- Huntly and Hamilton sections of the Waikato Expressway
- Motu Bridge replacement in Gisborne
- Mt Messenger-Awakino Gorge corridor in Taranaki
Over that time, that'll equate to 540 new lane kilometres of state highways.
Commuters:
Wellington commuters are in for a good ride, with the capital's metro rail network getting a $98.4m investment.
Meanwhile, $548m of new funding will go to upgrading the rail network, $450m of which will be spent on KiwiRail over two years.
Getting the South Island's main trunk line, destroyed by the Kaikoura earthquake remains a top priority.
The Budget also marks the first lot of funding for Auckland City Rail Link, with $436m of capital funding.
Newshub.
