Labour has developed a habit of making grandiose election promises with almost no ability to deliver on any of them. Think Kiwibuild and Light Rail to the Airport as examples. During the election Labour attacked National over their transport policies while they were sitting on a Treasury report that lambasted their own promised transport initiatives.
When a government changes, the skeletons come tumbling out of the closet and this is the first big news, which shows that David Parker, Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson were lying to us all about how they were going to be able to pay for their grandiose promises.
At the same time the former Labour Government was laying into the National party for announcing a poorly costed Transport plan on the campaign trail, its own officials were warning that Labour’s transport plan was substantially unfunded and undeliverable.
Treasury was so concerned that it recommended the ministers drop all new projects from one of the most significant parts of the plan.
Nevertheless, the former government proceeded.
Officials warned that the then government’s “Strategic Investment Programme” – a list of projects the government wanted built in the next ten years as part of its transport budget – would “add to the already considerable list of unfunded investment proposals” the government had embarked upon like Auckland light rail. The combined list of new and old projects would require the Government to find $43 billion in funding over the next decade, officials said.
They also warned that an additional 100,000 workers would need to be found to deliver the new projects – a number roughly equivalent to the number of soldiers New Zealand sent to fight in the First World War. The current workforce is just 180,000 strong.
NZ Herald
Economic vandalism is what that is. Their promised projects were “unfunded” and “undeliverable”… just like everything else they promised.
The advice is a Treasury commentary for then Transport Minister David Parker on the former Government’s draft transport plan, known as a Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS) – a direction from the Beehive to how Waka Kotahi should spend the billions of dollars it raises from fuel taxes and road user charges.
Treasury also warned the costings for the projects in Labour’s package had “limited or no business case information” which could be used to cost the projects accurately.
Treasury said the package contained “very preliminary cost estimates, not ordinarily suitable for final investment decisions, with a high likelihood of underestimation”, meaning the package had a high risk of going over budget.
NZ Herald
So not just unfunded and undeliverable, but there was almost no business case to justify any of it.
These guys should be run out of town on a rail. They are unfit to grace the treasury benches for quite some considerable time.
They were economic vandals with no self-control. I expect we will see many more reports like this one from Treasury come tumbling out of the closet.
Grant Robertson’s plaintive wittering about Nicola Willis as Finance Minister should fall on deaf ears as these reports show his economic incompetence for all to see.
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