Hon. Steven Joyce
National Party Campaign Chair

27 October 2011
Media Statement
Labour must fill $9 billion hole over four years

The Labour Party is so far promising to borrow at least $9 billion more over the next four years than is laid out in the PREFU statements, according to conservative estimates released by National's Campaign Chair Steven Joyce today.

"Too much spending, borrowing and taxing is the recipe that got New Zealand into trouble in the first place. Reheating this approach is not going to deliver the brighter future that Kiwi families deserve."

Mr Joyce says the figures do not include the Labour Party savings announcement being made later today.

"The spending Labour has announced in the past weeks, when put alongside their proposed tax policy, adds up to about $9 billion in extra borrowing over the next four years and that means that Labour would not get back in to surplus until 2015/16 - a year later than National.

"New Zealand simply can't afford Labour's borrow, spend, and tax agenda in 2011. Around the world everyone understands that too much debt is toxic. The Opposition is writing cheques with their election commitments that Kiwi families can't afford to cash.

"Labour has made a lot of promises since the Party announced its tax policy in July. They've never said how they can pay for them all."

Mr Joyce says National's figures have been calculated using the publicly-available Treasury models and take an optimistic view of the new tax collection proposals that Labour's been promoting.

"Our estimates do not include a large number of 'off the cuff' smaller promises that Labour MPs have made over the past three years.
“We’ll be updating this list as further promises are made.”

Attached: National Party calculations of Labour's extra borrowing over the next four years.

Ends

Costs_of_Labours_promises.pdf

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