Bribe-O-Meter Update

Costs of Labour, Green policies: $10,153 and $4,689 per household

25 JULY 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The cost of the Labour Party’s election policies has doubled in only a week to $17.5 billion over the next three years according to the Taxpayers’ Union Bribe-O-Meter, which tracks the costs of election policies as they are announced. $17.5 billion is equivalent to $10,153 per household.

This week’s update also adds the Green Party and shows that as of today, the Green's have pledged $8.1 billion in new spending initiatives, or $4,689 per household, predominantly on social welfare.

The National Party has remained relatively tight-fisted offering just $1.3 billion in new spending, equivalent to $780 per household.

Mac Mckenna, an economist at the Taxpayers’ Union, comments, “Labour’s 'Alternative Budget' saw new spending promises on health and education totalling $2.9 billion and $2.5 billion respectively, with little detail as of yet where that money will go and what it is expected to achieve. This is on top of the $6.7 billion in additional welfare spending Labour has promised over the next parliamentary term.”

The Bribe-O-Meter does not include amounts tagged for future policy announcements as the costs of those policies will be reviewed once they are announced.

Mr Mckenna says “The inclusion of the Green Party will assist voters in understanding what a Labour-led coalition might look like. To date, the sum of Labour-Green election promises amounts to more than $27 billion over the next parliamentary term. Of course, this does not account for an inevitable crossover in policy and post-election compromises."

“On the other hand, National's only major policy announcements over the last 7 days were a $231 million infrastructure investment in Kaikoura and a $600 million investment through the repurposed and renamed Crown Infrastructure Partners – an entity aimed at assisting infrastructure funding for new housing areas. Although this investment is eventually intended to be recouped through targeted rates on the new properties that benefit, this is not expected to occur in the next parliamentary term hence the full upfront cost to taxpayers has been included in our figures.”

“Next week we will release policy costing’s for all other parties currently in Parliament. This, of course, relies on parties providing the necessary details of their policies. We are still waiting on NZ First to come back to us to answer a number of questions we have of their policies so that we can come to a reasonable estimate of their cost.”

Key Findings

• National has promised $1.3 billion in new spending over the next parliamentary term. This equates to $780 per household.

• Labour has promised $17.5 billion in new spending over the next parliamentary term. This equates to $10,152 per household.

• The Green Party has promised $8.1 billion in new spending over the next parliamentary term. This equates to $4,689 per household.

For a full breakdown of individual policies refer to http://www.taxpayers.org.nz/bribe_o_meter.

For each party's main policy announcements see:

• Labour Party at http://www.taxpayers.org.nz/bribe_o_meter_labour

• Green Party at http://www.taxpayers.org.nz/bribe_o_meter_green

• National Party at http://www.taxpayers.org.nz/bribe_o_meter_national.

Media organisatons are welcome to use the image above (downloadable from here) however, we ask that it is attributed to the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union.

ENDS

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