Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Grant Robertson raised his decibel level to drown out the heckling from Opposition benches while defending the Labour government’s fiscal policy in Parliament on Tuesday.
New Zealand’s public debt remained under 20 per cent of GDP, Robertson claimed.
“Our level of national debt is lower than what National left us,” Grant added, while forecasting a surplus in the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Robertson told the house he was hugely optimistic about the NZ economy that had been resilient through Covid.
He claimed the prospects were strong with borders reopening and tourists and international students returning. Exporters were continuing to earn.
However, National Party finance spokesperson Nicola Willis hotly contested those claims.
Referring to the Appropriation (2022/23 Estimates) Bill, which had its third reading in Parliament, Willis said: “We see the biggest spending Budget in NZ’s history.”
She said real wages had declined by 3.7 per cent in the past year. Prices were rising in NZ at the fastest rate they have in 32 years, while wages were not keeping up.
Willis claimed the government’s budget failed to address the drivers behind the cost-of-living crisis.
She drew attention to the bungling over the recent cost- of-living payments of $350 made to more than 6000 New Zealanders living overseas.
Willis listed a litany of government failures, including the Three Waters Reforms, the long waiting times for emergency treatment, fewer elective surgeries, fewer children attending school, declining numeracy and literacy rates, state housing waiting lists quadrupling, “and 4000 families putting their children to sleep in a motel room.”
Willis concluded that government spending was out of control with plans to spend $51 billion more this year than the National Party did in its last year of government.
This represented a 70 per cent increase in spending, she said.
It was left to David Parker, Minister of Revenue, to fend off National’s onslaught.
He disputed Willis’ figures, saying government spending stood at 31.6 per cent of GDP.
Parker added in 2013 government spending was 32 per cent of GDP under the National government after five years.
“Vaccine and mask mandates have gone and the trees are blooming.”
Parker highlighted the low unemployment rate of 3.3 per cent while admitting inflation was high. “But in Europe it’s higher.”
He cited Stats NZ figures to show median weekly earnings from wages and salaries grew 8.8 per cent in the year 2022.
Parker said the country’s net debt was lower than Australia, the US, Japan, the UK and Europe, and peaked on a net debt basis at less than 20 per cent of GDP, a “stunning result for NZ that shows prudent fiscal management.”
Parker touted figures to show exports were up.
Notwithstanding Covid, merchandise exports rose while primary sector exports have for the first time crossed $ 15 billion. “We enabled productivity and supply lines to be maintained.”
With claims, counter claims and disputed figures bandied about in the House, it was clear the last word had not been said on the state of the economy.
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