Stephen Joyce should hang his head in shame and no longer pollute the public discourse with his views. Because what he claimed was going to be an $11.7 billion deficit turned out this year to be a $7.5 billion surplus. Not to mention the $5.5 billion surplus from last year. The combined surplus for the two years at least is greater than Joyce’s claimed deficit.
Remember this from October 2017 from Radio New Zealand?
National’s finance spokesman Steven Joyce is sticking to his guns about Labour not having enough money to carry out its promised programme.
Before the election, Mr Joyce claimed Labour had an $11 billion hole in its budget after it had mistakenly not accounted for rolling out operational allowances year on year, despite a series of economists saying he was wrong.
Speaking to Morning Report today, Mr Joyce said he hoped he was wrong about the $11 billion calculation, but he feared time would prove him right.
He said the new government was already promising more money than it had.
“Grant Robertson has a major problem – he’s like that guy who is going away on holiday and trying to fit three suitcases worth of stuff into one suitcase. That’s his problem.
“It’s not just that, it’s really important for New Zealand. It’s not about a ‘he said/she said’, I don’t care if I’m proven right or wrong. In fact, I’d rather be proven wrong, because then New Zealand’s expenditure would be under control. But sadly, I have a sneaking suspicion I will be proven right over time.”
Joyce’s preference has occurred.
Someone should tell Joyce and National that his and their fears were wrong and their scaremongering while politically effective was the worst sort of politicking.
Reed Fleming has tried.
In an ideal world what should National do now? How about praise the Government for paying down debt while at the same time starting the rebuild work on our crumbling infrastructure?
But Bridges is trying the same sort of tactic that Joyce engaged in. Blow smoke and throw around excrement and see how much of it sticks.
Of course the situation is not as simple as it seems. A lot of the surplus has to do with the revaluation of Kiwirail. I wonder if there is a link to Auckland’s light rail proposal.
And there are a number of areas that require investment. Benefit levels, crumbling infrastructure, getting New Zealand ready to become carbon neutral to mention a few.
But the incident should, in a perfect world, end for ever the claim that National is somehow a better manager of the economy than Labour is.
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