Of course it could be that John Key announced the election yesterday to divert attention from the press release from Treasury today.
The deficit was $637 million dollars bigger than expected. In fact it was more than double the expected size. Why? Well mostly because of much smaller tax revenues than previously estimated. So much for the mythic recovery that National’s spinners have been pushing over xmas.
Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the Seven Months Ended 31 January 2014
The operating balance before gains and losses (OBEGAL) was in deficit by $1.1 billion, which was $637 million more than expected, mainly due to lower core Crown tax revenue across most tax types. This result was partially offset by lower core Crown expenses and higher returns from Crown Entities.
And of course it just gets better. Bill English, the master controller of debt, has failed once more. Who’d like to bet against actually achieving the surplus in 2014/5 that he has been promising since 2009. My bet is that it will recede at the horizon into – umm when is the next election year? 2017/8. After all he has to put in election bribes this year.
Net debt was $631 million higher than forecast at $59.9 billion or 27.7% of GDP. This was primarily due to a higher than forecast residual cash deficit driven by lower than expected core Crown tax receipts and higher than expected operating payments. Delays in insurance proceeds being returned to the core Crown also contributed to the higher than forecast residual cash deficit.
Quite simply this government’s economic abilities appear to rival those of Muldoon. They keep raising debt and praying that the world will help them out. While they’re being helped by the sustained drag of Chin’s demand for milk powder, but even so they still can’t stop putting us further into debt. We just finished paying off the mountain of debt that National gave me back in the 1970’s and early 80s. Now the shifty party of crony business morons are trying to do it to another generation.
Being a typical National government, they’re dead lazy. Rather than going out and helping the companies who’d sustain us when the commodity boom to China dries up (as it will sooner rather than later), they prefer pissing debt against a wall waiting for “the market” to help them out. Where a Labour government would be trying to provide and environment for out young businesses to flourish and produce jobs, National does nothing.
About the only bright news is that the governments financial portfolio, things like the ACC and the Cullen fund are doing better than expected. Probably because they aren’t highly exposed to this governments dead hand on the economy.
Full release with chart and Financial Statements: mediareleasefsgnz7mthsjan14.pdf]
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress