Brian, what about you? Do you think this has been an austerity government?

Yes, for sure.

And, you know, Nicola Willis, who's not my favourite Minister of Finance, has nonetheless come out with some great quotes like, the emissions trading scheme will do the heavy lifting of the government's response to climate change.

National is the party of the worker.

And with respect to austerity, I think this was in an interview in relation to the 2025 budget, that this was not an austerity budget.

It's what you do to avoid an austerity budget, which is pretty close to a quote.

And so, you know, what I would, you know, I recommend to my students that they do is go to Treasury's economic... update attached to economic and fiscal update attached to each budget, go to the core Crown expense tables, look at projected expenditure for the forecast period, and then factor in inflation.

Brian, what do you make of that kind of way of looking at it? Is it a helpful way of looking at it? And what insights does that give us about the current government?