Labour zips lips over cost of keeping promises

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is remaining tight-lipped on the cost of her Government’s plans.

However, she has assured Kiwis all the policies promised by the Government, including new promises that came about through coalition agreements with NZ First and the Green Party, are within the Government’s budget.

Ardern said yesterday that the Government had done its own costings of the policies and it was confident it could deliver everything promised.

When asked by Radio NZ how much the Government’s agenda, including the 70 new policies, would cost, she refused to answer, saying the numbers would be released before the end of the year.

While Labour had access to Treasury data during post-election negotiations, Ardern said some of the information was not ‘‘timely enough’’ for the party to access it, and the new Government wanted to be certain of the numbers before releasing them publicly.

Last week, Ardern said a miniBudget could be released before the end of the year.

Yesterday, she said the Government had to release a half-year fiscal update, and a Budget policy statement by the end of the year.

National finance spokesman Steven Joyce had been critical of the new government’s fiscal competence.

On Sunday, he said Finance Minister Grant Robertson ‘‘should front up on coalition costings’’.

‘‘New Zealanders are still none the wiser about the cost of the coalition’s programme and the impact on their back pockets,’’ Joyce said. This was despite Robertson doing two long-form interviews during the weekend.

Robertson had appeared on current affairs programmes The Nation and Q&A.

‘‘Saying that he won’t reveal the numbers because he didn’t have access to the public service to prepare them ... is just not good enough,’’ Joyce said.

All parties in post-election coalition negotiations were given access to the public service ‘‘so that excuse just doesn’t wash’’.