 Richardson's first budget, delivered in 1991 and named by the media as 'the mother of all budgets', introduced major cuts in social welfare spending.Unemployment and other benefits were substantially cut, and 'market rents' were introduced for state houses, in some cases tripling the rents of low-income people.In combination with the high unemployment resulting from some of the 1980s reforms, this caused poverty to increase, and foodbanks and soup kitchens appeared in New Zealand for the first time since the Great Depression of the 1930s.