Today Finance Minister Nicola Willis is touting this year’s Pre-Election Fiscal Update (PREFU? Prefoo? Really?), after Treasury said government books were looking “much better than expected” due to a fresh new coating of holographic neon yellow Duraseal from Warehouse Stationery.
Willis showed off the books to media for the first time today, enthusiastically tilting them back and forth so everyone could see “the effect.”
“No, no, you’ve got to come over here,” she instructed one photographer. “Because, see, look, the way, yeah, there you go, the rainbow colours. They move.”
A series of “ooohs” emerged from the gaggle of assembled press.
“Pretty neat, huh?” said Willis, beaming. “Didn’t look like this under Labour, did they?”
But opposition leader Chris Hipkins said the government books were “really not that impressive”, and that Labour’s fiscal plan looked much better.
“Labour’s books are looking much, much cooler than the Government’s,” he said. “Ours have dinosaurs and stuff.”
Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds passed Hipkins the party’s costings, which had a black cover littered with cartoon dinosaurs.
“Not sure what geologic period this is,” said Hipkins. “But there you’ve got a brachiosaurus, and there’s a triceratops, little velociraptor down here. It’s not just dinosaurs, it’s got all kinds of extinct things, like a volcano here.”
Edmonds handed Hipkins another book.
“Oh look!” said Hipkins, holding it aloft. “This one’s got aliens.”
The competing displays have raised questions about what other parties’ books look like, and it appeared no one was shy about showing them off.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters was particularly eager, decrying what he called the “emasculation” of school book covers by weak and wayward generations
“Kids and your bright colours, I tell you what, this is what we were saddled with, and I’ll tell you it’s done a lot more good for us than that nonsense,” he said, displaying a book covered entirely in old newspaper clippings. JAPAN INVADES MANCHURIA! it read across the front.
For their own part, the Green Party covered their books in beeswax cloth, naturally sourced from the Beehive, which as a result is now shuttered for asbestos removal.
Qiulae Wong, of O, bought holographic Duraseal of her own, using it to cover her iPad. She is still trying to figure out how to remove it.
ACT’s David Seymour ordered cuts to the Duraseal, so theirs is more of a sticker, and Te Pāti Māori’s Rawiri Waititi has put a little cowboy hat on his party’s books, saying it represents mana motuhake, but also “yeehaw!”
Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s has downgraded New Zealand’s credit rating to C.