Hours after the announcement, it was clarified that the complete highway wouldn’t be built for several years. A few sections of the road would be built, over several years. Labour claimed the cost of the plan would be billions higher.
They also said National’s $24b nationwide transport plan was billions under budget. It includes $10b in “private funding”. That would mean overseas equity firms and PPP (Public Private Partnerships). It comes at a higher cost and loss of control compared to the Government building roads itself.
The Council of Trade Unions added up all the promises in National’s policy platform and claimed National had already promised to spend $2 for every dollar that’s in the kitty over the next three years. Basically, promising tax cuts for landlords and the top end has left them with a multibillion-dollar gap, that can only be filled with public service cuts, the council said.
This isn’t money you find down the back of the couch. The $3.2b-5.3b gap the council claimed is two years of the entire police budget. That’s not even counting policies they haven’t put a cost on - like their plans to lock up more people. And it also doesn’t include money for the policies ACT and New Zealand First would want as part of a Chris Luxon government.
National’s response was telling. You would think they would be eager to show they can afford their promises without cutting public services. They don’t want a repeat of the debacle last election that shot away their credibility.
On Twitter, Nicola Willis said the document was “ludicrous and hypothetical”.
She said it was “trumped up PR” for Grant Robertson, delivered by “a convenient proxy” who spends his weekends doorknocking for Labour. She was referring to CTU’s economist Craig Renney, a former adviser to Robertson.
National has defended its estimates as it is accused of having a budget that doesn’t add up.
As I see it, the party has developed a nasty habit of playing the man, not the ball under Luxon. It’s unbecoming of a party that wants to be Government.
If they think they don’t have a gap that will need public service cuts to fill - then they should show us their full alternative budget.
Maybe they’re still hoha because last year Renney claimed National’s tax plan would give $10 to the top 5 per cent of earners for every dollar it gives to the bottom 50 per cent.
The anger, after accusations that the Nats’ policies seem to advantage the rich and can’t be paid for without big cuts to public services, I suspect comes from being exposed.
In my opinion, National would love to get through to the election with no one looking too closely at what they’re promising. That way, they can promise everyone what they want to hear and pretend there’s a magic money tree.
But there isn’t a magic money tree.
In government, every choice comes with costs. Cut taxes for landlords, and you can’t afford to hire more nurses. Lock yourself into paying a private company to build and maintain a road for 25 years and that’s fewer new classrooms you can build.
The challenge for a would-be government, as John Key famously put it, is “Show me the money.”
Right now, National looks in serious danger of repeating their fiscal disaster of 2020. If they want tax cuts, it comes at the expense of public service cuts they haven’t named.
If they don’t fix this problem with solid numbers, then every time they announce a new policy, their credibility will erode, just as it did under Judith Collins and Paul Goldsmith.
It’s about time National ponied up.
Shane Te Pou (Ngāi Tūhoe) is a commentator, blogger and former Labour Party activist.
