Robert MacCulloch
Robert MacCulloch is a native of New Zealand and worked at the Reserve Bank of NZ before travelling to the UK to complete a PhD in Economics at Oxford University.
National Party Finance (should be English Language Debating) Minister Willis is exceeding Jacinda Ardern’s inventive use of words to cover up her gaping budgetary holes.
Willis gave a pre-Budget Speech this past week in which she said it “remained her intention to return to surplus” a year earlier than 2029, “if possible”, which is when the NZ Treasury last forecast a small surplus. Below is a graph you won’t find, for good reason, in the finance minister’s Beehive press releases, nor in a Treasury document. It combines both current and long term-forecast budget balances from now up to 2029 and from 2029 onward.
The New Zealand Government Budgetary Balance from 2023 to 2040
Willis pretends her “return to surplus” in 2029 will bring everything back into balance. Aside from the fact she probably won’t be finance minister then, and her actual time as minister has been characterized by record deficits, by the time NZ does reach 2029, the very next year the budget will become increasingly swamped by health and pensions outgoings due to the ageing population.
Our finance minister pretends she is fiscally conservative and is balancing the books, but is picking out one year in the above graph when there is a tiny forecast chance (likely never to materialize) of briefly dipping into surplus, and is making it the cornerstone of her speeches. The two biggest government outlays are health and pensions, yet National has no plan and has not delivered on providing Kiwis with quality affordable healthcare, let alone a high standard of living in retirement.
Election 2026 will be close, because National is not delivering on lowering the cost of living, not delivering on providing a world-class sustainable healthcare system and not delivering on enabling Kiwis to build savings even just 10 per cent as large as Australians now have in their retirement accounts.
This article was originally published by Down to Earth Kiwi.
