Winston Peters - the charred pot who calls the kettle black

14 AUGUST 2017

Winston Peters’ bemoaning of policy costings and a lack of detail in Labour’s 'water tax' would be credible if Mr Peters’ own party had any idea how it will pay for the $23 billion lolly scramble exposed by the Taxpayers’ Union Bribe-O-Meter.

“Labour does need to be more transparent about the water tax – but they need not fear criticism for vague policy platforms from Winston,” says Jordan Williams, Executive Director of the Taxpayers’ Union.

“Our economic team estimate the cost of New Zealand First's policies amounts to $23 billion over the next electoral term. That is almost ten times more than the National Party and $13,291 per household.”

“Over the weekend Mr Peters attacked Labour for not providing transparency with regard to their proposed water tax. Our economic team have spent weeks trawling through NZ First’s gibberish list of policies. The few policies that are actually decipherable have no detail of cost, timing or any form of an implementation strategy.”

“Take Northland Rail for example. KiwiRail has estimated the cost of a proposed rail service to range from $700 million to $1 billion. In a media statement over the weekend, Mr Peters attacked our economic team's mid-range figure of $850 million. But he provides no detail as to what the ‘true’ cost will be, how he came up with a more informed estimate than KiwiRail, and how his policy will be funded.”

“Mr Peters is calling in to question not only our economic advisors but also KiwiRail for its costing figures. What would they know about the cost of building a railway line he says.”

“The sooner Winston fronts up about how he will pay for his long list of policies, the better.”

ENDS

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