A new Taxpayers’ Union – Curia poll has revealed that most New Zealanders think that the level of spending in Grant Robertson’s 2019 Wellbeing Budget was about right or too high. Tomorrow’s budget from Nicola Willis should be compared against this as a pre-Covid baseline.

Voters were asked: “Grant Robertson’s 2019 Wellbeing Budget proposed that government spending should be 29% of GDP – in other words, 29% of New Zealand’s total economy. Do you think this level was too low, about right, or too high.”

34% of respondents said they thought spending was about right, 29% said too high, while just 9% thought it was too low. The remaining 29% were unsure.

The full polling report can be found here: www.taxpayers.org.nz/wellbeingbudgetpoll

Commenting on the poll, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said:

“After criticising Labour for six years over their big spending budgets, Nicola Willis’s first real opportunity to make her mark as Finance Minister looks set to make Grant Robertson look like a fiscal hawk.

“In the much-hyped Wellbeing Budget of 2019, Grant Robertson set a target of Government spending being 28.8% by 2023. While this obviously shot up during the pandemic, it seems National is happy for this emergency extra spending to become the norm by only seeking to get spending back down to 30%.

“This poll makes it clear that New Zealanders want the size of government to be brought back into line. If Nicola Willis is setting a higher spending target than Grant Robertson, there must be something wrong.”

© Scoop Media