The PREFU reveals an approaching Nicola Willis surplus based on inflation and fiscal drag. It has nothing to do with economic growth. Meanwhile our young adults are experiencing the joys of very high and sustained unemployment. The same kind of environment that stunted the generation in National’s recession of the 1990s. This time we have a rapidly ageing population. And Nicola Willis in fantasy land.
The merger of many functions of the central public sector concerned with cities, the environment, housing and urban development, and transport, was announced in the week before Christmas and is now underway. There’s plenty of good on the face of it.
It appears to be more and more inevitable that National will welch on the country’s Paris Accord obligations.
Everyone on the left can agree that we must change the government. Elliot Crossan argues that if Labour wins in 2026 and refuses […]
Over the last year, the Coalition has unleashed a series of cuts which have been devastating for the disabled community. These cuts are part of a class war — and it’s time to organise and fight back, writes Elliot Crossan.
The HYEFU has been released and the results are pretty ugly suggesting that National’s austerity measures are having a negative effect on the economy.
The economy is tanking and Treasury has downgraded the forecasts again after “the government inherited finances in better shape than expected” in January. So who is Nicola Willis blaming, and Winston Peters too?
Early comments on the budget. Basically tax cuts are being paid by more borrowing. There is no way this can be described as being fiscally neutral.
Liz Truss’s short reign as UK Prime Minister foundered after her budget requiring borrowing to fund tax cuts was released. The budget tanked the UK economy and caused Truss’s resignation. This week amongst announcements of massive cuts it has emerged that the Government is also planning borrowing for tax cuts.
Despite repeated analysis that its policies do not add up National is refusing to release the costings behind its policies.
National has reached new levels of excessive hyperbole in response to the PREFU release which was better than expected.
National’s latest policy brainstorm is to print out and mail to every taxpayer information they could obtain by using Google and MyIRD.
There has been this carefully crafted illusion that conservative politicians are somehow better with the finances than progressive politicians. Recent events in the United Kingdom suggest that this illusion is terribly misplaced.
How was the 2022 budget? Was it the worst since Ruth Richardson’s mother of all budgets or the best since the first Labour Government gave everyone a Christmas bonus in 1935?
Act has publicly released its proposal to decimate the state should it have a say in the next Government. Its Real Change Alternative Budget may be wet dream inducing for Ayn Rand acolytes but for the rest of us the proposals should instill a deep sense of dread.
As the country rebounds out of partial lockdown the Treasury’s recently released half yearly Economic and Fiscal update suggests that the Country’s accounts are in remarkably good shape.
National presented a particularly glum picture in Parliament yesterday. And it was not only the realisation that Judith Collins is out of her depth. It was because this budget spells the end of Ruthenasia.
The New Zealand government has just increased its loan to Air New Zealand to a $1.5 billion total, and there’s a catch.
While Australia is rightly branded The Lucky Country, it looks like we can reasonably be called the Very, Very Lucky Country.
Without much fanfare, Minister Robertson has used 2020’s crisis to bury the historic scourge of monetarism and within it the excuses of the governments that used it as a pretext to sell off our key government income generators.
Despite downbeat economic predictions and an imminent global recession, the New Zealand recovery offers opportunities for entrepreneurial success that exceed anything we’ve seen for decades.
We put in guest posts occasionally. These days I’m the person who runs the email account and sees the general ones. Mostly I don’t give any feedback as much as anything else because a lack of time. But I should. This is the first to get that editorial attention. The topic itself is worth discussing. What is the process of raising debt for the cobid-19 economic response.
The Herald has reported that National in its first two years of Government created *more* working groups than Labour.
Is the Government commitment to the budget responsibility rules weakening? Because at the Labour Party Conference Grant Robertson has indicated that the Government will shortly announce a big capital spend on infrastructure.
Advantage is testing an idea out. What will a common accountability framework for the government look like?
With yesterday’s announcement by the Reserve Bank to cut interest rates by 1%, some are suggesting that the government should embark on a massive public works spree to stimulate the economy while increasing national debt at low interest rates. But Kiwisaver reform may be more effective.
Gabriel Makhlouf will be remembered because of events surrounding the unauthorised access of Treasury information by National. History should result in him being remembered for more positive things, like the creation of a new framework that has restructured how the government spends public money from the ground up.
National is playing the innocent victim of Budgetgate whilst being the aggressive attacker all along.
The Government is planning changes to the Reserve Bank Act to require it to seek full employment. Maybe it is time for a dramatic change to its powers so that it has the regulatory powers to properly deal with the Australian banks.
For a country the size of Melbourne, we have a ridiculously complex state, and this layer of accountablility is largely a complete waste of our taxpayer money and degrades our agency as citizens. Can we do better?
Isn’t it time we at least synchronized the New Zealand budget with the Australian budget?
I’m sure all revealed at Budget 2018, but the financial management of this government is not surefooted.
Today thousands of IRD workers face the prospect of losing their jobs while two MOT workers who lost their jobs for whistle blowing are vindicated. Who would be a public servant?
The possible introduction of debt to income lending ratios will potentially have an enormous effect on New Zealand’s housing market.
So Key’s lawyer reckons the PM directly requested that trust industry leaders lobby the Revenue Minister. On the other hand, PM DunnoKeyo reckons he did no such thing. That leaves some really big questions …
People talk of excessive borrowing in the dairy sector. Of course, the real problem is that of excessive lending.
