Outburst fuels rumours over tax

A furious National attack on Labour for putting off releasing an important report on the Government's books until late next week has fed speculation that it intersects with National's tax cut plan.

National has already said its long-expected plan would be unveiled in the middle of this month, giving voters four weeks to absorb the policy.

Yesterday Finance Minister Michael Cullen announced that the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Update (Prefu) would be released next Thursday, August 18, not tomorrow as earlier indicated.

National state services spokesman Murray McCully leapt on the change, claiming it showed Labour was politically interfering in the release of what was supposed to be dispassionate data on the Government's books.

"If the date has been moved to suit the political convenience of the Government, that would amount to serious political interference in a process which forms a key part of the public finance legislation," he said.

"If the date for its release has been moved to suit the minister, what is to stop the text being changed to suit the minister?"

But Mr McCully denied Labour had hit on the date National had intended to release its tax cuts package.

The release date was tightly-held information and the release of the Prefu next week changed nothing, he said.

National's finance spokesman, John Key, said the suspicion was that Dr Cullen had put the release off a week because that was when National had previously indicated it would release the tax cut plan.

"I think they just deliberately pushed it back a week because they thought that would be more likely to line up with when they think we'll announce it. So they are just trying to muddy the waters."

But Mr Key said the date of the unveiling had not yet been decided, and the Prefu figures were not needed anyway as the plan used the Budget figures.