Barbara Edmonds: Labour's Finance Spokesperson on the Government's increasing deficit

Labour says the current state of Government books shows it went too hard and too fast with public service cuts.  

Treasury documents show the Crown's deficit has grown $3.4 billion dollars in the year to June, to $12.9 billion.  

Spending is outpacing income, despite revenue increasing by $14 billion. 

Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds told Ryan Bridge the Government could have kept public sector jobs if it ditched tax cuts.  

She says public funding flows through the economy to help during a cost of living crisis.  

Edmonds says the Government's decisions have made the annual deficit worse than at the height of COVID. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Government's books have sunk further into the red in the
year to June, partly thanks to high personnel costs at
Health New Zealand and soaring acc claims. Treasury revealed the
deficit on the Crown books deepened by three point four billion.
It was also one point eight billion worse than Treasury
forecast that was only back in May, the total twelve
point nine billion. Barbara Edmonds as Labour's finance spokesperson, she's

(00:21):
with me this morning. Good morning, Good morning, Ryan, Good
to have you on the show. Is this a bad result?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, it's a really grim read of the government accounts
to anyone has the actual look at them. This is
the largest annual deficit since the pandemic in twenty twenty.
And if you go back to the GSC, what's a
nominal term, as in the percentage of the economy. So
it's not a great read. The fact that they've had
to be revised a bit really shows that the economic

(00:51):
management is very dubious.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Okay, are you talking about Grant Robertson's So.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
No, this is Nichol Willison, So this is good last
and your deficit since COVID. And then if you look
at Grant at the GUS.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
But the numbers tell us Grant Robertson added five point
six billion from budget twenty three. Nicola Willis took off
one point one billion since her mini budget.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Also, what you see is that the majority of this
is during the month's time. And if you've read on
page ten of the Fiscal Accounts, as you noted before,
part of the spending of it is because of the
higher cost of borrowing during obviously high inflation.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
And who did the borrough.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Majority of its space?

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Who did the borrow? Who did the borough.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Borough twelve point twelve billion for income sex cups? Yeah?
But which lords?

Speaker 1 (01:44):
But which minister did the borring before that in budget
twenty three? And see what I'm saying. So the numbers
tell us that Grant added five point six billion from
budget twenty three, Nicola Willis took off one point one
billion since her mini budget. Do you disagree with that?

Speaker 2 (01:59):
But what I don't agree with is that borrowing for
text cuts have made this worse.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yeah, I didn't need.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
To be as bad as it did. That those were
the choices that this government have made, Okay, And the
borrowing that right Robinson had done again that in your
Giffert not this is higher than it was in twenty
twenty at the height of COVID.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
All right, let's talk about because you said this is
a bad result, right, it's too high. Should we be
making more cuts to the public service?

Speaker 2 (02:28):
No, okay, it should have reason being is that should
we be.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Increased should we be increasing additional funding for cost pressures
for our frontline services and our government departments.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Will you ask the people who are struggling to see
their GP because their GP costs have gone up, they
would say that they would prefer that their TEXT cuts
have gone to help with that capitation fund. Then that
would say for their GP fees to the inflation has
been pushed out to everybody that user pay system. That's
what I mean by public service cut? How do you

(03:03):
have gone too hard to fast?

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Too hard to fast? It's only been apparently three point
three percent cut in the last six months, two thousand jobs.
There's still sixty four thousand working there. But how can
you have how can you keep the public servants increase
the budgets in line with inflation, but also at the
same time say the deficit's too big.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
So Ryan, And that's the point. It's not just public
servants as in account of the people. It is the
cut through the funding that flows to the very the
different agencies that gets distributed to people to help them
during the cost of living crisis.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah, but how do you.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Fund mean by public services.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
You can't have your cake and eat it too. You
can't say, well, keep all the public servants, We'll increase
all the budgets, but we'll also reduce the deficit.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Can you. Well, that's because you don't need to borrow. Well,
Labor could say that because you don't need to borrow
for text cuts, the land lords coome text cuts or
for text cuts with the better companies be the choices.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
All right, Barbara, we have to leave it there. Thank
you very much for your time, Labour's finance spokesperson Barbara Edmunds.
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