GOOD Party says mid-term budget is "not as gloomy as expected"

PARLIAMENT - The GOOD Party is seeing the bright side of Godongwana's budget - they say it could have been worse.

The party's Brett Herron says the minister has largely avoided austerity while spending more in the right places.

READ: Mid-term budget speech | Godongwana reveals worsening budget deficit

Herron said, "the short form revenue is much lower than in the last two financial years and is in line with shortfalls that we've experienced four, five years ago."

"So I think that the overall picture wasn't as gloomy as I was expecting, especially when it comes to the cuts because we were expecting austerity measures, there's a lot of talk about austerity measures and austerity measures means cutting education, health and social services and we didn't get that."

"And we got a firm commitment to maintain the investment and infrastructure and as long as the investment and infrastructure is in the freight logistics space and the energy space and in the water space as the minister highlighted, then I think that we can spend our way out of the stagnation that we're currently in."