McCully’s Claims Nonsense

Finance Minister Michael Cullen today dismissed as complete tosh claims by Murray McCully that the government had behaved in any way inappropriately regarding the release of the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Update.

“The government is fully complying with the Fiscal Responsibility Act. This provides that the Prefu must be released within 20 to 30 working days of polling day but leaves the actual date of publication to the Minister of Finance.

“Treasury was not informed of the election date until it was announced by the Prime Minister and had to begin work on the updated forecasts well in advance of this announcement.

“The 11 August date was used by Treasury as an indicative date for planning purposes and their advice was that 11 August would mean a tight timetable and would preclude the inclusion of potentially significant labour market data coming out this week.

“As to the venue, the practice now of holding a joint lock-up for media and analysts means that space has to be found outside Treasury,” Dr Cullen said.

ENDS

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