Narrating history: New Zealand’s “Black Budget” of 1958

Abstract

Government taxation measures are rarely recalled for long; yet the New Zealand Labour Government’s 1958 budget remains proverbial more than half a century after it was delivered. Commonly referred to as the “Black Budget”, this narrative is still used by politicians, advertisers, the media, and the general public. Although the Black Budget is grounded in historical events, the events themselves are largely forgotten by most New Zealanders. Rather, the story of the Black Budget may be theorised as a type of landmark narrative, where putative conditions are constructed as a problem, and the effectiveness of that narrative no longer depends on the factual base upon which it was constructed. This article revisits the Black Budget, and highlights the role of claimsmakers in perpetuating the narrative. The Black Budget illustrates the tension between historical events and how (and by whom) they are related.