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Today’s content

Budget: Benefits increase
Bryce Edwards (The Guardian): A ‘righting of wrongs’ as Ardern finally tackles New Zealand’s inequality crisis
Tess McClure (The Guardian): Ardern makes good on child poverty promise, but a long road lies ahead
Audrey Young (Herald): If not now, then when for beneficiaries? (paywalled)
Max Rashbrooke (Stuff): Labour’s years of caution are finally paying off
Stuff: Editorial – Revenge on the ‘mother of all Budgets’
Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): Ruth Richardson calls Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson’s budget attack a ‘cheap shot’
Te Rina Triponel (Herald): Budget 2021: Beneficiary advocacy group slams Govt, says benefit increase is ‘weak’
Claire Trevett (Herald): PM Jacinda Ardern unrepentant about Budget boost for beneficiaries over workers
Tova O’Brien (Newshub): Blockbuster Beneficiary Booster Budget – bold but necessary
Tova O’Brien (Newshub): Budget 2021 benefit bump hailed as ‘wonderful’ but scepticism remains over ending child poverty
1News: Children’s Commissioner: Budget benefit rises a move towards ending child poverty, but more needed now
Lynley Ward (Herald): Solo parents react after Government $3.3billion welfare injection
Henry Cooke (Stuff): Labour to boost benefits by up to $55 a week in explicit push to reverse 1990s cuts
Craig McCulloch (RNZ): Benefits boost in ‘quest to reduce inequality’
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): Government delivering major benefit boost in line with recommendations
Sarah Robson (RNZ): Benefits to increase by up to $55 a week
Jo Moir (Newsroom): Budget prioritises ‘righting inequality wrongs’
Nadine Porter (Stuff): Surprise increase in benefits welcomed by those most in need

Budget: General
Chris Trotter (Daily Blog): Passing the torch
Audrey Young (Herald): This was the easy Budget for Grant Robertson (paywalled)
Bernard Hickey (Spinoff): The missed opportunity in Budget 2021
Tim Watkin (Pundit): Labour gets to be Labour, delivering a step-change budget 30 years in the making
Matthew Hooton (Herald): Lessons from the Budget and the one issue that may derail Jacinda Ardern (paywalled)
Simon Wilson (Herald): Grant Robertson and his Budget Day Holy Grail (paywalled)
Fran O’Sullivan (Herald): Look to the future, don’t dwell on rewriting the past (paywalled)
Michael Andrew (Spinoff): Government ‘could have done more to push the envelope’
Brad Olsen (Stuff): Budget 2021 shows higher spending, but with restraint
Bernard Hickey: Budget 2021 special: Righting some wrongs. A bit.
Danyl Mclauchlan (Spinoff): More ambitious and coherent than anything yet from Ardern and Robertson
Raf Manji (Stuff): Welcome focus on reducing inequality needs to continue
Thomas Manch (Stuff): The winners and losers in a welfare-focused Budget
Richard Harman: A Labour of love (paywalled)
The Spinoff: The great Spinoff hot-take roundtable
Liam Dann (Herald): Budget 2021 geared to keep ‘better-than-expected’ story rolling (paywalled)
Peter Dunne: Grant Robertson’s three factors in the Budget
Herald: Editorial: Budget 2021 – A very Labour Budget in the time of Covid 19 coronavirus (paywalled)
ODT: Editorial – Robertson’s shrewd Budget
Jessica Mutch McKay (1News): The year of the ‘Benefit Budget’ with welfare, Māori getting significant boost
Henry Cooke (Stuff): Grant Robertson’s deep red budget seeks to ‘right a wrong’ from 30 years ago
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Budget gets a ‘B’ for Boring
Brian Fallow (Herald): Grant Robertson plays it down the middle despite opportunity to invest (paywalled)
Jennifer Curtin, David Hall, Michael Fletcher, and Nina Ives (The Conversation): NZ Budget 2021: billions more for benefits, but one eye on the bottom line
Herald: The verdicts from Paula Bennett, Sue Bradford, Neale Jones and Jon Stokes
Herald: Experts and commentators rate Grant Robertson’s Budget
Ben Thomas (Stuff): Blockbuster Budget is Robertson’s answer to the ‘Mother of All Budgets’
Mike Houlahan (ODT): Labour rewards its faithful
No Right Turn: Labour actually does something
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Budget 2021 Winners and Losers: Exorcising the Ghost of National’s Mother of all Budgets
Rod Oram (Newsroom): Budget lip service to economic transformation
Pattrick Smellie (BusinessDesk): On balance, a Labour government (paywalled)
Justin Giovannetti (Spinoff): Benefits boosted by up to $55 a week, ‘righting a wrong’, says Robertson
Henry Cooke (Stuff): Labour spends big on benefits, health in its first unleashed Budget
Rosie Collins (Spinoff): A balanced budget. But ‘balance’ today is a political word, not an economic one
Felippe Rodrigues and Kate Newton (Stuff): Hey big spending: The Budget in five charts
Derek Cheng (Herald): The 10 things you need to know
Jo Moir (Newsroom): PM banking on middle NZ putting kids first
Hannah Kronast (Newshub): ACT leader David Seymour slams ‘la-la Budget’, compares it to an episode of That ’70s Show
Brigitte Morten (RNZ): Budget 21 is a ‘cheugy’, living in the past budget
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): Business ‘overlooked’ as Government focus turns to benefits and health sector
Jason Walls (Herald): The ‘La La Budget’ vs ‘Broken Compass Budget’ – Opposition battles for unofficial Budget name
Bryce Edwards: Cartoons about Budget 2021

Budget: Housing
Hamish Rutherford (Herald): Treasury sees housing market going from raging bull to Goldilocks zone (paywalled)
Anne Gibson (Herald): Budget 2021: From 19.1% to 0.9% – could house price growth collapse by that much? (paywalled)
Melanie Carroll (Stuff): Sharp house price adjustment coming, says Finance Minister
John Minto (Daily Blog): State housing – it’s time to eyeball the government
Brent Melville (BusinessDesk): Not enough emphasis on housing (paywalled)
Priscilla Dickinson (Newshub): Slower house price growth could inhibit spending despite bigger benefits – economist

Budget: Māori
Amelia Wade (Newshub): Housing spend big win for Labour’s Māori caucus after crossfire
Katarina Williams (Stuff): Moving the dial on Māori housing
Jade Kake (Stuff): Budget 2021 gives welcome boost to Māori housing

Budget: Social insurance proposal
Henry Cooke (Stuff): Government announces plan to create ‘unemployment insurance’: but isn’t funding it yet
Justin Giovannetti (Spinoff): One of the biggest ideas is ‘social unemployment insurance’. What’s that then?
Anuja Nadkarni (Newsroom): ACC-style redundancy insurance scheme announced

Budget: Health
Emma Russell (Herald): Cystic fibrosis fighter livid at Pharmac’s budget
Bridie Witton (Stuff): Pharmac boost of $200m ‘nothing short of disgraceful’
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): Anger, f-bomb thrown around as advocates react to Pharmac’s Budget 2021 boost
Mandy Te (Stuff): Hundreds more people to get publicly funded cochlear implants

Budget: Climate change
Hamish Cardwell (RNZ): Climate groups say Budget 2021 doesn’t go far enough to reach goals
Jamie Morton (Herald): Shaw responds to ‘loose change’ charges over climate spend
Mike Burrell (Stuff): Accounting for our climate future with the money spent today
Hamish Cardwell (RNZ): The environmental investments
Olivia Wannan and Eloise Gibson (Stuff): EV-buying subsidies resurrected by $300m boost

Budget: Education
Lee Kenny (Stuff): More classrooms welcomed but not enough cash for staff, unions say
Dubby Henry (Herald): Schools welcome focus on child poverty, struggling students
Newstalk ZB: Education – small increases for schools, early childhood, more for school buildings

Economy and work
John Bishop (Stuff): ‘Exceptional circumstances’ proved anything but with 70s pay freeze
Herald: Editorial: Dare we dream of a higher-wage economy? (paywalled)
Rob Stock (Stuff): Your MPs’ KiwiSaver choices laid bare

Budget: Other
Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): Let’s Get Wellington Moving over-budget, may not get finished, Treasury warns
Adam Pearse (Herald): Where has the Covid fund gone – $5b left in $62b recovery fund (paywalled)
Jamie Gray (Herald): Credit rating agencies Moody’s, S&P Global’s take on New Zealand’s fiscal position (paywalled)

International relations
Chris Trotter (Daily Blog): “Between the motion and the act, falls the shadow”
Robert Ayson (The Interpreter): Imprisoning narratives: Morrison, Ardern and China
John Minto: Time for NZ to speak up clearly for Palestinian rights and international law

Covid
Adam Pearse (Herald): University of Waikato study warns of inequitable vaccine rollout
Charlie Mitchell (Stuff): The scientist and the rabbit hole: How epidemiologist Simon Thornley became an outcast of his profession

Other
Chris Trotter: Getting our politics sorted