Hon Steven Joyce
Minister for Economic Development

15 October 2013

Media Statement

Labour caught making stuff up – again

Results from the 2013 Census shows Labour and its leader have been caught making stuff up with population growth spread right across the country, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce says.

“Population growth occurred in 15 of the country’s 16 regions between 2006 and 2013 – hardly the widespread exodus from the regions as claimed by the Leader of the Opposition,” Mr Joyce says.

“Mr Cunliffe claimed people were leaving regions such as Taranaki in droves. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Taranaki grew by 5.3 per cent between 2006 and 2013 and has 5484 extra people now living in the region.

“He is also way off beam with his claims that incomes in the regions have fallen.

“Mr Cunliffe stated that real median weekly incomes have dropped by $24 in Taranaki. Wrong again. Since the 2006 income survey, real after tax weekly incomes in Taranaki have increased by $85. And the other examples he used for Southland and Waikato are also totally incorrect.

“This is a stunt that has backfired. There will be red faces all round in Labour following David Cunliffe’s embarrassing exaggerations and made up statistics.

“Labour will clearly stop at nothing to talk down the good progress being made across our regional economies.

“It confirms a bad start in the integrity stakes for the new Labour leader. He’ll have to do a lot better than this if he wants the public to trust him.”

ENDS

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