Labour has left loads of economic landmines for the incoming Government to step on. Fortunately, they are being discovered but each one presents its own unique set of circumstances to defuse.
Labour is the political equivalent of a Hamas IED factory, crafting landmines and other fiscal explosions for the unwary and inattentive to injure themselves with. The latest is the Three Waters debacle:
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says big cheques will have to be written to pay out the many contracts canned as a result of repealing Three Waters.
It was revealed just over a week ago that the Government’s 100-day plan included the dismantling of the contentious centralising Three Waters regime, opting to replace it with the Local Water Done Well policy from the National Party manifesto.
Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking, Luxon said a lot of money was spent to implement the scheme, and it is going to take a lot of money doing the opposite.
“I think there’ll be massive overruns,” Luxon said.
Luxon admitted there were employees under the scheme who were only one year into five-year contracts who would have to be paid out.
While not sure of the exact numbers of staff who would fall into the bigger payouts around 400 staff were currently working on Three Waters.
He said the Government would have to pay some out of their contracts when the programme was scrapped.
“We’re discovering that Labour has left what we call a whole bunch of fiscal cliffs, fiscal holes, unfunded commitments or time-limited funding,” Luxon said.
“You’ve seen it with respect to transport projects.
“Nicola [Willis] has alluded to it with a ferry project that’s taking place.”
However, Luxon said the cost was worth it.
“There are also hundreds of millions of dollars worth of extra costs if you don’t stop the activity.
“So this is a situation where it’s a bit like gardening and you can keep trimming bits of leaves in the garden where you actually rip the trees out and actually stop the activity.
“That’s what we have to do in many cases to focus the organisation and to focus the public service on the things that matter most.”
NZ Herald
This is economic vandalism and sabotage. Yes, it will cost us millions, to add to the millions the previous government wasted on feasibility studies for a cycle bridge across Auckland harbour, millions spent on the planning of the light rail line to the airport, and millions more in multiple ministries that were either wasteful or ineffectual.
National should call these multi-million dollar screw-ups ‘Robertsons’ and keep and publish regular updates on just how much this profligate spendthrift wasted.
He will go down in history as our worst Finance Minister, eclipsing the damage that Robert Muldoon did to the New Zealand economy.
National likes to call these fiscal cliffs, but the reality is that they are fiscal landmines: much more dangerous, especially if left in place.
The new Government needs to sheet home the blame for these to Chris Hipkins, Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson who need to own the economic vandalism they’ve perpetrated on the New Zealand economy.
In brighter news, it appears that National is trying to shed its well-earned image as the party of the status quo, showing Labour, like many others, has misjudged them.
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