# Budgets, Basics and Bilaterals

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106/budgets-basics-and-bilaterals
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106/budgets-basics-and-bilaterals.md
Podcast: [Cross Party Lines](https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106)
Published: 2026-05-18T21:37:28+00:00
Episode link: https://crosspartylines.substack.com/p/budgets-basics-and-bilaterals
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/198327303/e64f797167c252938be0bd7a0c9b26d4.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/cross-party-lines-7562106/episodes/budgets-basics-and-bilaterals
Duration seconds: 2233

## Resource

Hosted by Phil Goff and Chris Finlayson , Cross Party Lines returns — fresh off the stage at Featherston — for an episode that opens with a tribute to one of New Zealand’s greatest legal minds and moves through a week of elections, populist tremors and an education debate that has been going around in circles since the 1990s. Thanks to Frank Risk Management , the 100% Kiwi owned insurance brokerage. In this episode: * The Trump-Xi summit — pomp, ceremony and a ridiculous mouse — Chris reaches for the Latin poet Horace to deliver his verdict: all the hype, all the ceremony, and nothing of substance emerged. No breakthrough on Taiwan, 200 Boeings ordered instead of the promised 500, and none of the Nixonian moment that a genuine Sino-American summit could have been. * The pre-budget squeeze — $300 million less and nowhere to hide — The government has cut its operational allowance from $2.4 billion to $2.1 billion, meaning $300 million less new spending in a budget that already has to find money for defence, health, education and law and order. Phil is blunt: there will be cuts, the lolly scramble is off, and Labour faces the same fiscal straitjacket as the government it hopes to replace. * NCEA — a debate going around in circles since the 1990s — Phil and Chris both remember this argument from when they were on opposite sides of the House. The OECD’s early 2000s push toward skills over knowledge went too far; the pendulum is swinging back; but the question is whether it’s swinging with the evidence or against it. Phil is particularly troubled by a cabinet paper that acknowledges the reforms will likely reduce achievement rates for Māori, Pasifika and low-income students — a problem New Zealand already has and cannot afford to worsen. Along the way: a tribute to Sir Ken K…

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## Transcript

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