ACT Leader David Seymour has today challenged all other political parties to show New Zealanders their path to get back to surplus.

“By the time students currently at intermediate and high school start paying tax, we’ll be spending more on interest repayments than education. Treasury forecasts the interest on the debt will be $13 billion by 2030, or $13,000 every year for a family of five.

“They will ask, ‘what they hell were you thinking,’ when the Prime Minister went to Queenstown to get her photo taken with a bungee jump operator for $10 million, and the Green Party gave $12 million to a school where students learned about the healing power of crystals.

“Only ACT has a fully costed plan for economic recovery, which keeps the debt low, cuts taxes, and gets the country back to surplus, while keeping Kiwis in work.

“It’s astonishing that no other party has any kind of plan to get on top of debt:

“Labour? The current Government has set a course where we will not even begin to pay down debt until 2028.

“National? Every National policy announcement is to spend billions more.

“The Greens? The Greens want to introduce a $12 billion per year benefit, whether people need it or not.

“It’s time for all political parties to step up and be transparent about their plans. ACT is the party that will keep the others honest.

“The Government has committed to borrowing $140 billion on top of the $60 billion debt it had pre-Covid. For many families, their biggest debt will be the one the Government took on for them. The Government has left New Zealanders with a debt equivalent to having every family max out their credit cards.

“Only ACT has a fully costed plan to get back to surplus and start repaying the debt now.”

ACT’s fully costed plan can be found here:

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