Nicola Willis Misleading On Job Numbers
'In today's Finance and Expenditure Committee hearing, Nicola Willis said that their policies will create 240,000 jobs, but those jobs are because of population growth, not because of her Budget,' Labour finance and economy spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said.
'In fact, there are 30,000 fewer jobs now than when they took office, and Treasury says 20,000 more people will be unemployed at the end of the forecast period.
'She acts like there is a surge in opportunity, but really she's spinning her terrible economic mismanagement to suit her.
'Just like her story on the cost of living, which is falling to pieces before her eyes as she can't find a single family who has received her campaign promise of $250 a fortnight.
'Today will also come as a shock to those who were expecting a Working for Families top up of $7 a week, as promised in the recent Budget – because that won't come in for another year.
'It was the only cost of living relief Nicola Willis could name on Budget Day and it isn't actually going to help anyone until April 2026.
'This Government is misleading on jobs, outlandishly overstating their tax cuts, and have failed to deliver on key cost of living promises. At the same time, they're cutting women's pay in favour of big tax breaks for tobacco, fossil fuel, and big tech companies,' Barbara Edmonds said.
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The Spinoff
3 hours ago
- The Spinoff
The prime minister we almost had: Grant Robertson's memoir, reviewed
Henry Cooke reviews Anything Could Happen by former deputy prime minister Grant Robertson. He was almost elected Labour leader in 2014. He almost became the prime minister when Jacinda Ardern resigned in 2023. And he almost got a wealth tax over the line that same year. But not quite. In his new memoir Anything Could Happen, we naturally learn much about what Grant Robertson did do, from his days designing election-winning policy for Helen Clark's Labour government (interest-free student loans) to the frantic opening of the fiscal taps during the pandemic. But the book is haunted by all the stuff that Robertson didn't quite achieve. We hear about the achingly close Labour leadership loss to Andrew Little in 2014, and the genuine agonising over whether he should step up when Ardern resigned in 2023. Robertson openly expresses frustration about missed chances and lost arguments, even as he generally gives the other side a fair hearing. By 'the other side', I am talking about fights within the Labour Party – not politics itself. If you've come to this book believing that Robertson spent far too much while finance minister, and hoping for some kind of lightbulb moment of regret, you will be disappointed. Robertson does not argue that he and Labour got all the calls right. But he does make it clear that he still believes that a huge dose of spending was needed to combat the pandemic, and that while some level of cuts was needed by the time he left office, the state of the books was far from as dire as his critics now constantly claim. (Unsurprisingly for a committed sports minister, he calls in the international referee for this issue – noting that New Zealand's credit rating survived the pandemic intact, leaving it as one of 12 national economies with the top triple-A rating from two of the big global credit rating agencies by Budget 2022.) 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Unlike Ardern's recent memoir, this is a book squarely aimed at New Zealanders, meaning Robertson can actually get into the meat of some issues rather than just briefly explain them for foreigners. Tax, monetary policy and the difficulty of hosting international sporting competitions are all dealt with at some length. Robertson embeds into this policy and political history a lot of personal detail. We learn about his somewhat troubled upbringing as a gay teenager in 1980s Dunedin, how he met his partner Alf, his brief career as a diplomat, and a lot about a back problem in recent years that contributed both to mental health issues and his decision not to take over from Ardern. Yet Robertson the policy strategist is never that far away – he explains his father's imprisonment for stealing company money in part by noting that the fraud put his family above the student allowance income cap. 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Indeed, the enmity between Robertson and Peters emerges as one of the clearest throughlines in the book. The relationship between Labour and NZ First in government sounds like it was far worse offstage than on it. Where Robertson does admit fault with the Covid cash infusion is with the so-called 'shovel ready' programme of spending announced in Budget 2020, which deeply involved NZ First's Shane Jones and therefore became 'politicised', in Robertson's viewing. The base-level bitterness Robertson feels for a man and party who stymied so much of his programme has likely been increased by Peters' embrace of the Covid fringe. After all it is hard to imagine Ardern stepping down without that Covid backlash spilling onto parliament's lawn – and Robertson is clear that he thought Ardern stepping down would greatly harm the party's chance of re-election. If Ardern hadn't stepped down, Robertson might still be in the Beehive, or at least able to properly run on a wealth tax in 2023 as he had long planned. He might not have time to write a book, busy instead with the cut and thrust of politics he was addicted to for so long, trying to get the books back in order himself. In fairness, all political memoirs are tales of chances not taken and battles not won. They are almost always written once the protagonist has lost an election or somehow been turfed from office. Robertson just has a few more sliding doors moments than most. Anything Could Happen by Grant Robertson ($40, Allen & Unwin) is available from Unity Books.
NZ Herald
4 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Nation of Debt: Higher taxes, deeper spending cuts inevitable as economy suffers from long Covid
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Thursday: Student debt: How big? How bad? Jenée Tibshraeny is the Herald's Wellington business editor, based in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. She specialises in Government and Reserve Bank policymaking, economics and banking.
Otago Daily Times
5 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
The govt's capacity for opacity
The Beehive is urgently in need of some metaphorical window cleaning. The literal window cleaners have no doubt already been sacked by the government to save a few thousand dollars. But the cry for the metaphorical ones is stronger — every week another layer of political grime seems to affix itself to any surface which may once have let light through and allowed those outside to see what might be happening within. It is upsetting to see — or, perhaps not see — how much this government is doing behind closed doors. Far too much is being done secretively and, when details are finally liberated to the public, efforts are made to ensure that that is done in the most inconvenient way at the worst possible time — as happened with the release of documents around its approval of a third medical school at the University of Waikato. There is nothing new, of course, in ministers and officials playing these games and tinkering with the public and the media, but there appears to be a degree more cynicism in recent behaviour. Unfortunately, the previous government can hardly be held up to the current administration as a shining example of how to be transparent. Despite Labour making Chris Hipkins the minister responsible for open government, the amount of obfuscation and spin which it generated has not faded from memory. Anyone who voted for the current government in the hope of greater transparency and a breather from such tactics must be very disenchanted with the efforts of the coalition partners to date. Concerning details have now come to light of how the government deliberately hid what it was up to regarding the provocative changes to pay equity, which saved the coalition's bacon by freeing up billions of dollars to make this year's Budget figures appear more sanguine. Thirty-three active claims were immediately cancelled by the Bill, which was passed under urgency in May. RNZ and Newsroom have been delving into the government's management and manipulation of pay equity changes to ensure the public remained in the dark until it was too late for them to be able to make any difference. Documents released under the Official Information Act show the assiduous stage management included even Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who attended one of the ministerial meetings at which instructions were issued to withhold the proactive release of their diaries. Photo: RNZ An email from Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden said officials should remove digital access to Cabinet papers on the topic, with hard copies instead hand-delivered to ministers. The whole strategy was given a name, Project 10. There were recommendations that nothing be said publicly until the Bill had been introduced to the House — the reason being there could be a raft of new claims if the public knew beforehand. However, as Newsroom points out, that is fallacious, given the existing pending claims were cancelled anyway by the new legislation. Despite warnings that the furtive approach potentially breached people's human rights, the government carried on regardless. Sometimes there are valid reasons for keeping matters confidential. But more often, secrecy is a way of keeping knowledge and power close to the chests of one group to deliberately disadvantage others. Hiding matters can also suggest lack of confidence in one's decision-making abilities and the desire to avoid scrutiny of such. The documents reveal a government more concerned with meeting its mantra of economic prudence than it is with looking after the public. This is all very disappointing, from a government which continues to disappoint and blame others for its own lack of progress. At least we now know the kind of thinking which has gone on behind those murky Beehive windows and can keep on the government's case for greater transparency — transparency which New Zealanders have a right to. Use some judgement We support the vigilant policing of mobility parks to ensure people with disabilities can stop as close as possible to their destinations. However, the $750 fine a Dunedin City Council parking officer handed to injured 78-year-old Swava Pociecha for her husband's momentary stop to pick her up outside Moana Pool after a physiotherapy session seems unfair. The council clearly needs to hold some lessons on using discretion.
