Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: You'd have to be naïve or foolish to believe National's promise this time around

How weird was National's re-announcement of its Budget Responsibility Rules? It was very weird. Essentially, National made exactly the same announcement that it made three years ago before the 2023 election.

First, it would strive for a surplus. Second, it would reduce debt. Third, it would cut Government spending.

Here's the question: has National achieved any of those things?

Not really, has it?

We don't have a surplus, even though National promised we'd have one worth $2.9 billion this year. In fact, we're still years away from any kind of surplus.

Has it reduced debt? No. If anything, debt has increased by roughly another $41 billion.

And when it comes to Government spending, we basically have the same number of public servants now as we did when Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins left office. So National hasn't even made much of a dent there.

In that case, I'm sorry to say it, but you'd have to be either naive or foolish to believe National's promise this time around.

In fact, I'm probably being too generous by even calling it a promise. Last time, National explicitly promised a surplus. It didn't deliver one, which makes that a broken promise. This time, however, it's merely "prioritising" a surplus.

That change in language says everything you need to know about how confident Nicola Willis herself is about the chances of getting New Zealand back into surplus.

I reckon Thomas Coughlan in the Herald absolutely nailed it with one line in his analysis:

"Why has National drawn attention to its own failure?"

Because that's really all it did.

It simply reminded those of us who are concerned about the Government's finances that the National Party has failed to get the books back in order.

I think the answer to Thomas' question is that National believes voters will still trust it and that it's trying to force Labour to make the same commitments, commitments National knows Labour may struggle to make.

If Labour can't make those same promises, National hopes voters will see it as the more fiscally responsible option.

And maybe that's true. Labour may not be able to make the same commitments, given its spending plans and the even more ambitious spending proposals of some of its potential coalition partners.

So strategically, this may well work for National with some voters.

But for many others, all the announcement did was underscore how little difference there is, in practice, between the way Labour and National manage the Government's books.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Heather Dupe.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
How weird was National's reannouncement of its budget responsibility rules yesterday?
It was so weird. It basically made exactly the same
announcement yesterday that it had made three years ago before
the twenty twenty three election. One that it would strive
for surplus, two that it would reduce debt, and three
that it would cut government expenses. Question, has National done
any of the above?

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Not?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Really, is it. We haven't got surplus. Even though National
promise we would have a surplus of two point nine
billion dollars this year, we are still years away from
any kind of surplus. Have they cut debt? No, they haven't.
They've racked up probably another forty one billion dollars in debt,
and we basically have the same number of public servants
now as we had when Jacinda and Hipkins left the building.
So not even making much of a dent there. In

(00:43):
which case, I'm sorry to say it, you would be
either stupid or naive to believe Nationals promise this town
time around. In fact, I'm going slightly overboard even calling
it a promise this time instead of promising surplus, which
at least they did last time, which they didn't get
by the way, it's a broken ROMs this time they're
only prioritizing surplus, which is a change in language that

(01:04):
I think says everything that you need to know about
how confident Nichola Willis herself was about the chances of
her getting us back into surplus. I reckon Thomas Coglin
and The Herald absolutely nailed as analysis with this one
line yesterday. Why has National drawn attention to its own failure,
because that is really all it did yesterday. It only
reminded those of us who are very worried about the
government's finances that they, the National Party, have failed terribly

(01:28):
in getting the books back in order. I think the
answer to Thomas's question actually is that National did this
because National think voters will believe them, and they are
trying to force Labor to make the same promises which
they know Labour can't make. So if Labour can't make
the same promises, then National will prefer National, then voters
will prefer National. And it may be true because Labor
may not be able to make the same promises because

(01:48):
they have huge spending plans and their coalitions partners have
even bigger spending plans. So maybe, maybe strategically, this may
work for National for some voters, but for a lot
of other voters, all yesterday did was to underscore that
there is actually very little difference between the way Labor
and National run the government's books in reality.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
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