In election season tradition, the fight over policy mathematics has begun, though National stops short of accusing Labour of a “fiscal hole”, writes Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.
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The ‘hidden bill’ that may become a ‘fiscal hole’
Yesterday, Stuff’s Jenna Lynch reported on a Sunday press conference where National’s finance minister Nicola Willis released what she called a “carefully referenced document” alleging that the opposition party was $18.2bn short in the funding necessary to fund its “intentions” should it be in government next term. Not yet ready to escalate the accusations to a “fiscal hole”, she called it a “hidden bill” – probably not coincidentally linking the accusation to voters’ cost-of-living concerns.
The press conference and related document weren’t primarily attacking official Labour policy (of which there has been little), but rather the things Labour has said it will do during its time in opposition. The largest number in National’s accounting ($11bn) is the estimated cost of reinstating the pay equity scheme, cut in the government’s 2025 budget. Chris Hipkins has indeed previously said that Labour would bring back pay equity but has not confirmed any further detail on what that reversal would look like or cost.
When it was pointed out that Labour had been “dialling back the rhetoric on that policy” and had not confirmed it would fund it to the previous level, Willis said she wanted a “yes or no answer” from Labour on funding pay equity. “If he is not reinstating the pay equity regime, I dare him to say it on the news tonight.”
Labour strikes back
“This is about as desperate as it gets,” Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said as quickly as possible in a statement to the media, comprehensively reported by Justin Hu on 1News. “If Nicola Willis was truly worried, she should investigate her Government’s own $56bn hole in its roads of national significance and also explain why Government debt is higher now than it was forecast to be pre-election to the tune of $4.4bn.”
She added that it was “disappointing to see Nicola Willis continue to politicise paying women properly, when she was one of the loudest in support of the Bill passing under Labour, when it was politically convenient.” Labour, she said, “will release a fully costed fiscal plan later this year so New Zealanders can see exactly how our priorities stack up and how they will be paid for.”
Are Labour’s public transport numbers adding up?
On Q+A yesterday, Jack Tame interviewed Labour’s transport spokesperson Tangi Utikere about, among other transport matters, the party’s newly released public transport policy, which would cap what New Zealander’s pay for public transport at $20 a week in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and $10 everywhere else.
Labour has costed the policy at $65 m a year, claiming it would save the average New Zealander $25 a week (or over $1,200 a year) and benefit hundreds of thousands of people. But, as Tame points out, those three things can’t all be true at the same time: “It can’t cost $65m a year, saving people $25 a week, and be hundreds of thousands of people benefiting.”
According to Tame’s accounting, $25 a week, on average, for $65m a year means, it’s only 50,000 people, not hundreds of thousands of people. So, Tame presses, it’s of significant benefit to less than 1% of the population. Hundreds of thousands might benefit, he said, but not every week, and certainly not at $25 a week.
Utikere somewhat conceded the point, saying that hundreds of thousands of people would benefit every week, but that the numbers were averages only and “actual savings will vary by route and how often someone travels”.
