SATIRE
Gordon Lightfoot
FACT OR FICTION
A copy of the government’s newly published budget has somehow already made its way into Upper Hutt Library.
The book – which apparently needed to be printed with taxpayer money and could not simply exist as a PDF – was not part of the finance or economics section, however. For some reason, it had instead been put in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi part of the library, near the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Reading enthusiast Caitlin Meadows was curious about the classification. “Well the budget isn’t fictional, it’s more just like a list of things to spend public money on,” she said as she flicked through the pages of the well-produced paperweight.
“Although when you think about what it’s actually saying, there are a few fantastical ideas in there that could never happen in reality.
“The idea that government spending on things that have zero return on investment will somehow reduce inflation instead of causing more of it is a total fantasy. I don’t think even Gandalf the Grey has the magic to make that happen,” said Ms Meadows while cross-referencing Tolkien.
Meadows said the underlying premise of the cost of living crisis is that it was caused by Covid and Putin. “This is a largely made-up story, as most of it was inflation caused by the Reserve Bank degrading the value of our hard-earned savings by creating new money out of thin air.”
The nerdy 24-year-old appeared to be racking her brain to find a reason not to keep the budget in the fiction section.
“Well, it will make a good historic resource in 20 years’ time when people are trying to find out where it all went wrong for New Zealand.”
More to come.