A referee in the fiscal fight

Bridges is essentially asking the public to see the Government as unethical. This is a risky game, and it signals that we may be in for an ugly and contentious election.

The 2017 election almost disappeared down a hole. To be precise, a $11.7 billion fiscal hole. Former finance minister Steven Joyce’s confident assertions that Labour’s budget was out by nearly $12b came very close to sinking the election for the Jacinda Ardern team. All other political messages were obscured by the white noise of claim and counter-claim and, even as one economist after another disputed Joyce’s calculations, the voting public remained confused.

As political strategy it was canny. Voters have long had the perception that the Left of politics is less competent on economic matters than the Right, even if that perception clashes with reality. A little doubt goes a long way.

Had a Parliamentary Budget Office

(PBO) existed in 2017, the public would have been more enlightened. The PBO could have acted as an independent assessor, free of the taint of political tribalism.

The Green Party had actually proposed a PBO before the fiscal hole appeared in Joyce’s imagination, but the hole is symptomatic of why it seems necessary. There is some political benefit for the Greens as well – if the Left is generally believed to be harder to trust with the finances, that applies doubly for the Greens. Again, that is at odds with the sober reality of a party that even signed up to restrictive budget responsibility rules.

If the Government’s proposed PBO happens, it will be similar to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office in the US. That has been criticised by both sides of politics but praised as a credible ‘‘fiscal referee’’ by independent economists. Most OECD countries have an equivalent. Australia has had a PBO since 2012, and the Office for Budget

Responsibility was founded in the UK in 2010. Canada has a parliamentary budget officer.

In New Zealand, the PBO would be separate from both Treasury and the Government, having a similar status to the auditor-general, the ombudsman and the parliamentary commissioner for the environment. Hopefully, this independence would assure Opposition politicians that budget information and planning would be secure.

However, the PBO is a good idea whose time has not yet come, as it would need National’s support. National leader Simon Bridges has argued that the Government will use the PBO to ‘‘illegitimately, undemocratically, screw the scrum on the Opposition’’. It is a colourful phrase, and one can almost admire Bridges for finding a feisty tone that he has mostly been lacking, while also having serious concerns about what he is actually implying. It appears to be part of a wider strategy to encourage ever deeper distrust of the Government that goes far beyond ideological disagreements.

Bridges’ claim that the Government might use an independent PBO to undermine the Opposition follows National’s plan to dispute the 2020 electoral boundaries after the census botchup. Both narratives depend on a Government benefiting from its control of information. In both cases, Bridges is essentially asking the public to see the Government as unethical.

This is a risky game, and it signals that we may be in for an ugly and contentious election. If National does end up scuppering a PBO that most Right-wing commentators support, then it is clear that the rights of voters to be fully informed will have been sacrificed for short-term political gain.