If it can get worse . . .

The face of Budget 2019 has given up on New Zealand and joined the exodus to Australia:

.Freeman, who features on the Wellbeing Budget with her 9-year-old daughter Ruby-Jean, said she moved to Auckland at the start of 2018 to pursue her dream.

While they both got good work – featuring on Shortland Street, Jono and Ben and advertisements including Harvey Norman – she couldn’t afford the financial sacrifice, a brutal realisation after discovering she was paying her 15-year-old babysitter more than she was earning.

She admitted she had given up on New Zealand. . .

As for the photo on the cover of today’s Budget, she said she initially felt it was out of context but then she saw that the Budget was all about happiness and wellbeing which both she and her daughter had now found in Queensland.

“It was very out of context but I kind of get it after they’ve been talking about happiness and wellbeing. Obviously it doesn’t matter that I’m not even in NZ anymore.”

It might not matter to her but someone who can’t afford to live in New Zealand is not a good advertisement for the government however good its intentions for wellbeing might be.

Murphy’s Law states that if it can get worse it will.

This is supposed to be the Wellbeing Budget but it’s much more likely to be recalled as a shambles.