* COST OF LIVING: A new temporary $27 a week payment for people who earned less than $70,000 last year in a $1 billion cost of living package. Fuel tax cuts and half-price public transport extended for another two months to the end of August. 

* HEALTH: $11 billion over four years to clear DHB deficits and catch up with cost pressures ahead of the rollout of the health reforms, $188m for the Maori Health Authority. $1.3b to upgrade hospitals, including Whangarei, Nelson and Hillmorton and $1.1 b more funding for measures such as more ambulances and helicopters, GPs and Maori providers. 

Health was the big ticket item in the Budget. Photo / Sylvie Whinray 

* TRANSPORT: $200m towards first stages of light rail project in Auckland, feasibility studies for a new port in Manukau Harbour and for a dry dock at Northland's Northport. $349m for new trains and wagons. 

* MEDICINE: Pharmac's budget topped up by another $191m over two years – taking total funding to $1.2 billion. Expected to focus on cancer treatment. 

* WHAT ABOUT COVID-19: The Covid Fund has been closed and the left-over money put into health and the cost-of-living package. The Covid response will now be funded out of government department budgets. 

* EDUCATION: $2b including $300m to set up the replacement to the decile system (the Equity Index). $777m for new classrooms and schools. 

* INFLATION: Forecast to peak around 6.9 per cent in the middle of this year before easing to 5.2 per cent in 2023 and dropping to below 3 per cent by 2026. 

* HOUSING: Changes to caps for first-home buyer grants and loans and Kainga Whenua loans. $1.8b for public and transitional housing programme. 

* THE FUTURE: The books are forecast to return to surplus in 2025 ($2.6b), wage growth forecast to be higher than 6 per cent over the next two years. 

* AN ELECTION YEAR SPEND-UP? Government sets itself another healthy operating allowance for next year's Budget of $4.5b after this year's $6b. It drops back down to $3b in 2024 and 2025.