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The Soap Box: Anti-climatic Budget

Author
Barry Soper,
Publish Date
Fri, 27 May 2016, 5:30AM
Bill English presenting 2016 Budget (Getty Images).
Bill English presenting 2016 Budget (Getty Images).

The Soap Box: Anti-climatic Budget

Author
Barry Soper,
Publish Date
Fri, 27 May 2016, 5:30AM

It was akin to a Burley pot being thrown into a sea of eager, nosey parkers, and on this occasion they weren't fish, they were journalists.

It was the annual Budget day lock-up, where politicians finally have the media where they want them, muzzled and under lock and key for four hours while they pore over thousands of well-meaning words.

The expectation had been building for the arrival of the Dipton Drawler Bill English, to spin the words into the music he hoped would resonate with the great unwashed, music he'd spent the past several months creating.

A Treasury official stepped up, tapped the microphone and announced that English had been delayed due to a security scare. Our ears pricked up, it was the highlight of the Budget so far.

The mandarin went on to increase the excitement, asking the audience to stay away from the windows, an irresistible bait. We rose in unison and clamoured to the windows which given what we saw was, like the Budget, a bit of an anti climax.

Cop cars had blocked off the streets around the Parliamentary complex, we were now truly isolated. A fire engine was on Parliament's forecourt and out of our sight was a ute that had been driven up to the building by a man, thought to be in his fifties, who was threatening to blow it up and ignite the 600 litres of petrol he claimed was in the container on the deck.

Parliamentary security, lovingly referred to in some quarters as Dad's Army, was on the case. They'd been watching the ute as it came through the gates and as the man was trying to ignite something in the cab, they pounced, or more like opened the door and blew out the match.

Turns out the man, who's now spent the night cooling his heels in the Wellington lock-up, wasn't even hosed off at the Government or the Budget that was about to be delivered. He was upset at the treatment he'd received at the hands of the banking system and decided on his weird protest to draw attention to it.

Well, he certainly did that and now he's having to contend with the long arm of the law and will appear before the beak at some stage today.

And that was about as exciting as it got, the Budget that is!

 

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