The current issue of Policy Quarterly, published by Victoria University of Wellington, has a special focus on Budget 2015. It kicks off with an article by New Zealand Children's Commissioner, Richard Wills.

Its title presumptively asks "Has Budget 2015 solved child poverty"? Given Wills’ position as Children’s Commissioner, his answer "not yet" was a no brainer. But did anyone really claim the budget did solve child poverty?

Wills’ thoughtful article considered that what was missing was a plan to reduce child poverty over time: "That is what we need," he writes.

Really? Do 'we' need a plan or a strategy? Does the government not have one? What if academics, voluntary organisations and whanau have different plans, and there is no agreed plan?

I wrote the second article on welfare. It somewhat supportively put Budget 2015 into the broader context of government's overall strategy for improving longer-run outcomes for welfare recipients. But I considered that Budget 2015 was 'lame' on measures to lift real incomes through greater productivity growth and job creation.

Further articles were more critical of Budget 2015 for not doing more to alleviate welfare problems immediately through greater government regulation (e.g. of rental housing) or greater government spending on social assistance. One of these argued that hardship due to inadequate social assistance was "unacceptable".

Unacceptable to whom? Politicians face a multitude of voices diversely demanding more money for health, education, transport, the environment, workplace safety and much else. Interest groups and government bureaucracies are not known for volunteering to set aside their own 'silo' priorities.

At a deeper level, voters' willingness to spend on social assistance surely depends on their perceptions of the causes of hardship. That question needs to be explored more than was done in this issue of Policy Quarterly, which still makes a worthwhile contribution to the debate.

Victoria University has to be commended for providing such a forum for high-quality and passionate policy debates.