PM keeps lid on costs of policies
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 Labour-led Government, including the new promises that came about through coalition agreements with NZ First and the Green Party, are within the Government’s budget.
Speaking to media yesterday morning, Ardern said the Government had done its own costings of the policies and it was confident it could deliver everything promised.
When asked by RNZ 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 told RNZ the Government had to release a halfyear fiscal update, and a Budget policy statement by the end of the year.
It was still unclear whether a mini-Budget would also be released.
Former Finance Minister – now National’s finance spokesman – Steven Joyce had been critical of the Government’s fiscal competence.
On Sunday, he
said new Finance Minister Grant Robertson ‘‘should front up on coalition costings’’.
Joyce said ‘‘New Zealanders are still none the wiser about the cost of the coalition’s programme and the impact on their back pockets’’, despite Robertson doing two longform interviews during the weekend.
Robertson had appeared on current affairs programmes
and
He told ‘‘days of a hands-off, laissez-faire Government hoping for the best for New Zealand are over’’, and discussed the potential impact of minimum wage rises.
‘‘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 to cost their commitments ‘‘so that excuse just doesn’t wash’’.
‘‘That sounds like someone who simply doesn’t want to reveal the numbers.’’
Ardern said the Labour-led Government had estimates of the costings, and was confident they were within budget.
However, she wanted to make sure the numbers were exact and iron-clad before releasing them to the public.