Council of Trade Unions economist Craig Renney blocked from Treasury event

Council of Trade Unions economist Craig Renney has been barred from a key Treasury briefing on the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) and the Budget Policy Statement (BPS).

The restricted briefing, colloquially known as a “lock-up” allows media, economists and others to read both documents for two hours before they are made public. The Treasury Secretary and the Finance Minister give a speech on the documents as well.

Economists from the CTU and other organisations have attended the briefing in years past, but on Monday Renney was told by Treasury that his application had been declined, with Treasury saying the purpose of the briefing was to “provide journalists and analysts from media, economic, and financial organisations with sufficient time so that the complex information presented can be analysed and reported accurately when embargo is lifted, assisting in transparency and accountability to the public”.

Treasury said that Renney did not meet these criteria. Renney worked for former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and is currently a member of the Labour Party’s Policy Council, which is part of the party’s policy development process. He has been one of the most vehement critics of the current Government and its fiscal and economic policy,

Renney said he was disappointed at the decision, saying it set a “really dangerous precedent” to allow financial institutions like banks to attend but not unions.

“We represent more than 320,000 workers around the country. We have a keen interest in the state of governments books and forecasts and unemployment forecast,” he said.

Renney was not the only one barred from attending the lock-up. Treasury told the Herald that four organisations who had previously attended lock-ups had their applications declined.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis outed the Taxpayers’ Union as another one of the organisations. She said she backed Treasury’s decision.

A Treasury spokesman said that it had been “been reviewing its criteria for journalists and analysts attending restricted briefings since September”.

“Previous ‘lock-ups’ as they are informally known, had drawn complaints from some attendees who were declined, and questions as to the rationale behind who was and who was not accepted previously,” he said.

They said those not invited to the lock-up would be able to get the HYEFU and BPS just two hours later when it was released publicly.

Treasury said analysts were “accepted from economic and financial organisations who provide information to financial markets. This is limited to banks and regulators, and to financial markets advisory services, being economic and tax, accountancy, legal, professional and investment consultancies”.

“Again, the Treasury use external criteria such as a company’s own recorded industry classification or their incorporated society purpose statement to determine what category they fall within where that is unclear,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman said that past attendees “included representatives from organisations including peak bodies, professional bodies, unions, universities, industry bodies and industry information services, as well as advocacy groups, charities, and large corporates amongst others”, however the new criteria would exclude people from these organisations.

Willis said that Renney had “made up” a quote from her after a previous lock-up. Treasury said that while it was aware of Willis’ concerns, it had commenced the review of attendance criteria prior to Willis’ raising concerns.

Renney confirmed that the CTU had misquoted Willis in a press release, but that this was an accident and that a corrected press release was swiftly sent out once the error was realised.

There was little union-to-union solidarity from Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Jordan Williams who said his organisation was being penalised because of Renney.

“It appears the Taxpayers’ Union is being singled out to try and ‘balance’ the decision to bar Craig Renney from attending. But his bad behaviour is totally irrelevant in terms of whether our economist and staffers should be allowed to attend,” Williams said.

”Grant Robertson once tried this trick and attempted to bar the Taxpayers’ Union from attending a Budget lock-up. Wiser heads eventually prevailed. Indeed, we can recall an Opposition finance spokesperson commenting that Robertson should ensure we can attend and report on these very matters,” he said.

Treasury said it will “continue to accept applications from journalists representing organisations who are registered with the Parliamentary Press Gallery or the NZ Media Council”.

“Using these external criteria ensures the Treasury is not making subjective decisions about who is or is not a journalist,” the spokesman said.

Thomas Coughlan is deputy political editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the Press Gallery since 2018.