Steven Joyce: Former Finance Minister on the proposed election policy-costing unit being shot down

A nine-year fight to create a publicly funded election policy-costing unit has come to an end. 

Act and New Zealand First have shot down Finance Minister Nicola Willis's proposal to create one. 

Metiria Turei, then-Green Party co-leader, first proposed the idea in 2016. 

Former Finance Minister Steven Joyce told Mike Hosking Willis's proposal was different from those that have come before. 

He says to cost individual policies at the request of parties would have dealt with a problem that happens when you're in Opposition. 

Joyce says that's when you don't have access to the information. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And so interesting development within the coalition years even First
and Act have rejected a cabinet proposal for an independent
costing agency. The idea was you wrap numbers around your
promises in an election. That's increased transparency and therefore the
fiscal whole drama of the past year or so doesn't happen.
Stephen Joyce has been there, done that form of Finance
minister is with this morning to you Monnie, Mike, call
you very well. And so back to twenty sixteen, this

(00:21):
was a Labour Green's idea that Simon Bridges rejected. So
you know of it. Would you have backed it? Is
it a good idea or not?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
It could be helpful in someway. It's important to note
I think that this idea is a bit different to that.
I mean, it's the same bucket. But what the Finance
Minister's proposing is to cost individual policies at the request
of the parties involved, which I think does deal with
a problem that happens when you're in opposition is that
you don't have access to the information, so you have

(00:51):
to go chasing around oias and parliamentary questions to try
and get enough information to build a policy where which
stands scrutiny when it gets out in the public, and
it's a lot of fun for the government of the
day to try and withhold all that information and then
go ah, which ridiculously costed policy, and so that would
help with that. But it's a bit different to what

(01:13):
was being proposed by Laboring the Greens back then, because
they wanted to cost the party's fiscal policies. Of course,
we had an experience about that in twenty seventeen which
I was involved in with that fiscal whole, and Labor
came out with some numbers and I bagged them for

(01:33):
being about twelve billion short. I got bagged in turn.
But that's politics. I think.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
I think it turned out to be right, though, didn't
you Stephen?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
It turned out to be too conservative, Mike. It was
like you know, in hindsight, it was about twenty billion
months that actually spent all the money. But the difficulty
was the thing that was proposed back then is it
just brings whatever it is of Parliamentary Budget Office or
whatever you want to call it into the debate and

(02:03):
nobody internationally when it happens, nobody still accept it. It's
just a different stage of the argument, and ultimately the
public just has to form a view whether they trust
individuals to spend more or less. But this particular proposal,
as I say, it was a lot smaller, about a
million dollars. The Public Service Commission was going to supervise

(02:23):
it. It was literally at the party's request for them to
be able to get some information. But yeah, obviously coalition
politics the other two didn't want to do it.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, they don't. And do they look dodgy and not
wanting to do it or are their arguments around you
can get the numbers anyway, We've had alternative budgets and
we don't have the money to spend on this sort
of stuff. Plus we don't trust public service all the time.
I mean, do they stack.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Up Well, I think they're they're entitled to those sort
of party positions, and you know they're just positioning with it.
Act says, oh, you know, we know about to do
numbers anyway, so we don't need that. And I think
New Zealand first just take a traditional approach to it,
and they just say, oh, we didn't have it the
last forty years, why do we need it now? So
all that sort of stuff, I think, Yeah, there is

(03:07):
some truth to that is that is it ultimately our
public servants don't get it right all the time, but
I tend to get it a little bit more right
than a lot of political parties. I mean, you just
sort of green stuff recently, and you know that's pretty
high in the sky and so it's a it would
be a contribution to the baby. But don't forget the
party that we've got. The costing would control whether it

(03:28):
was released, so they'd probably only release it if they
actually liked it. Otherwise they'd probably just come up with
their own numbers. Good stuff.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Always pleasure to have you on the program. Stephen Joyce,
former Finance Minister. And I don't say that because he's
the chym of the board. I say it because he's
a nice guy anyway. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
listen live to news talks they'd be from six am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.