Quick Hit: Back to the Dual Mandate
Barbara Edmonds wants unemployment back in the Reserve Bank’s mandate. Labour added it in 2018 and the coalition took it out. Last time, cheap money came with an inflation bill.
Barbara Edmonds
If the Plan Matches National’s, the Bill Is What Labour Is Hiding
Labour kept Willis’s $2.4b allowance, hit surplus in the same year, costed one pay equity claim, and parked the rest in $10.5b of “headroom”. Luxon v Hipkins is Tuesday. Ask who signed the IOU.
Quick Hit: The Number Chippy Won’t Name
Greens put about $1.1 billion a year, roughly $4.48 billion over four years, on care-worker pay equity. Hipkins called the 2025 change the most reprehensible thing he has seen and still will not cost the reverse. Moral fury without a price tag is not a budget.
Quick Hit: We Have Room
Day after PREFU, Hipkins tells Hosking there is room for pay equity in Labour's fiscal plan but will not put a line item on it. The costing is a vibe. The spend is a promise.
Quick Hit: Willis’s Better Books Came Partly Out of Your Trolley
Treasury has the deficit at $6.8 billion and next year within $0.8 billion of surplus. It says that is partly inflation lifting the tax take while spending allowances stay fixed, which is how Willis got there with no new taxes.
Labour Is in Free Fall
In economic speak, nothing is free. This is a lesson the left appear incapable of learning. Barbara Edmonds’ economic baking will be a recipe for economic pain not economic gain.