Promise of surplus

fees that came to light in recent days.

The Government’s ‘‘budget responsibility rules’’ have come under a lot of criticism in recent months. The set of five rules put several fiscal constraints on the Government, including a commitment to get net core crown debt to 20 per cent of GDP by 2022.

In the face of infrastructure deficits and low interest rates worldwide budge some have criticised the rules as a ‘‘fiscal straitjacket,’’ – including economists Shamubeel Eaqub and Cameron Bagrie.

Even S&P’s analyst Anthony Walker has indicated a few points more of debt would be unlikely to change the country’s A-1+ rating.

The rules were also signed up to by the Green Party, but Marama Davidson expressed serious worry about them during the leadership election, and has said she isn’t sure if the party should run on them again in 2020.

Robertson took care to continue a narrative that saw National leaving the country in a mess he would not be able to fix in one budget.

‘‘We’ve come in after nine years of a government that demanded public services do more with less. This might sound great in theory, but in reality, as we have seen in many cases, the result was underfunded critical public services doing less with less,’’ Robertson said.

‘‘I don’t want to dwell on the past today, but you can all see the scale of the challenge in the examples of the urgent capital needs in our hospitals. The same can be found in our ageing school classrooms, and the failure of the previous government to plan for population growth in the education system.’’

‘‘Or, in the failure to address the growing multi-billion dollar funding gap in Auckland’s transport problems, or make the decisions necessary to complete Christchurch’s rebuild on time and on budget.’’

‘‘Health and Education will get long overdue boosts to their capital and operating funding to deal with cost pressures and ensure that our hospitals and schools are fit for purpose.’’

He said every commitment from the coalition negotiations and speech from the throne stood – but these would come in over three years, not all at once.