Hon Steven Joyce
National Party Campaign Chair
Associate Finance Spokesman
MEDIA STATEMENT
1 November 2011

What promises will Labour drop?

Phil Goff and David Cunliffe need to come clean on which policies they will try to drop to avoid borrowing an extra $17 billion over the next four years, says National Party Associate Finance spokesman and Campaign Chair Steven Joyce.

"National has released a simple spreadsheet that tallies up the costs of Labour's spending promises. But so far, Labour has refused to say how it will pay for its $17 billion spend up with borrowed money. In the absence of solid evidence to the contrary National stands by its estimates.

"If Labour wants to make its numbers add up, it will have to abandon many of its big spending promises. Which will they be?"

Labour's spending promises include; first $5,000 tax free, GST off bananas, R&D tax credit/ETS agriculture policy, paid parental leave to 18 weeks, women's policies, youth employment and skills, pay parity for caregivers, increased ECE funding, tertiary education policies, extra KiwiSaver costs of compulsion, extra police and the resumption of payments into the super fund.

"On top of these, there are a string of other promises that the Labour Leader and Labour MPs have made in the past three years. At his party's 2009 conference, Mr Goff also pledged to forgo dividends from power companies*. If this promise is real then Labour's borrowing binge would be even bigger."

“National is making responsible choices that will ensure New Zealand balances the books sooner and keeps debt and interest rates down. Labour’s only idea is to borrow massive amounts more from foreign banks over the next four years. Under Labour New Zealand would owe our future”

*http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0909/S00179.htm
We will not demand excessive dividends coming back into state coffers above what is needed for investment in new generation.

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