Dear John --

I have spent the past 24 hours trawling Grant Robertson’s fifth Budget for any sign of meaningful investment into Canterbury and there’s nothing. Not a brass farthing.

Since 2017, the powerhouse of the New Zealand economy has been overlooked and ignored by this Government. And yesterday, despite announcing the biggest Budget blow-out in New Zealand’s history, Grant Robertson has delivered nothing to the regions.

Not content with a $6 billion per year spending spree (by far the largest ever), he’s also raided future budgets – spending $2 billion from Budget 2023 and $0.4 billion from Budget 2024. That’s before you count climate spending and the cost of living payment – which are on top, taking the total spend-up to more than $9 billion per year of government spending.

Read more about Labour's Backwards Budget here.

Wasteful Spending

We say Labour’s spending is wasteful – here are just a few examples of what we’ve seen in the past year:

• Health reforms – at least $680 million for the new bureaucracy (across this Budget and last year)
• Cash for corporates to reduce emissions - $650 million
• Working groups to develop future climate plans - $85 million
• $250 million on Light Rail in Auckland before construction even starts (and then $15 to $30 billion once it does!)
• $50 million on planning the (now shelved) Auckland harbour cycle bridge
• $24 million for Kainga Ora’s office renovations
• $1.8 billion a year more on public service salaries

For that sort of spending, New Zealanders have a right to expect better outcomes – but this simply isn’t happening. Outcomes are going backwards. Labour is all spin, no delivery. All spend, no results.

• Education – spending is up $5 billion per year under Labour but literacy is going backwards – and more and more kids aren’t even turning up to school.
• Welfare – where despite low unemployment there are 40,000 more people on a job-seeker benefit under Labour.
• Kiwibuild – where barely 1% of the 100,000 homes have been delivered
• Immigration – where 500 additional bureaucrats have been hired but waiting times for a visa have got way worse.

The fallout, so far..

It has come to light that Treasury has recommended against Labour’s short-term cost of living payment of $27 per week for three months, advising that it would be a poor mechanism for supporting Kiwi families with what is a long-term problem.

This is band-aid economics made up on the fly, with Finance Minister Grant Robertson only developing the payment in the past few weeks. Treasury said the advice was prepared with such urgency that it may not have identified all of the problems it will create.

The payment also places considerable pressure on Inland Revenue, with 750 frontline staff required to administer the payment. As well as needing to bring in more staff, Inland Revenue has acknowledged that the customer experience for Kiwis interacting with the department will be degraded. The public sector is already becoming bloated under Labour and measures like this will only make it worse.

Read more about the fallout so far here.

Budget overlooks Women

For the second year in a row, the Labour Government has proven the value it places on New Zealand women by virtually ignoring them in its 2022 Budget.

At a time when outcomes for women have been severely impacted by the pandemic, Labour apparently can think of nothing more to do than spend $12.8 million on ‘policy advice’ to the Minister.

In 2020, 11,000 women lost their jobs, last year 50,000 women missed their mammograms and a further 50,000 missed their cervical smear tests. New mums are being denied post-natal maternity care, mid-wifery services are in crisis, there is no treatment pathway for the 130,000 women and girls who suffer from endometriosis, gynaecological cancer drugs are largely unfunded and there is still a nine per cent pay gap in New Zealand workplaces.

Labour talks a big game about inclusion and diversity and empowering women but, in actual fact, it has done absolutely nothing to improve our equity or our equality.

Ag Budget needs scrutiny

The Government’s claim it is investing over $1 billion of new money into the primary sector is a masterclass in smoke and mirrors.

A close inspection of Treasury’s Appropriations document shows this announcement conflates a number of initiatives to make the figures look bigger.

The Government has been very crafty in blending the four year spend of a bunch of portfolios together, as well as existing funds like the SFFF, and $68 million in collective agreements for some MPI staff, to come up with the announcement that they’re putting $1 billion into primary industries.

The real clanger is the announcement of $4.8 million for adverse events like floods and fires – but this was actually for last year’s Budget.

New Zealand’s agriculture exports are rapidly climbing towards $50 billion but the cost of doing business on-farm is sky-rocketing. For this sector to continue to carry the New Zealand economy during these turbulent times, the Government needs to rein in spending on compliance and ‘advice’ and, instead, cut costs for the most productive sector of this country.

Standing up for Canterbury

Earlier in the week I challenged the Government to make some meaningful investment into the Canterbury region - sadly, it fell on deaf ears. I will be relentless on this for the next 18 months - we deserve better.

You can watch my General Debate speech here.

Public Meeting with Nicola Willis

I invite you to come and hear from National's Deputy Leader and Finance Spokesperson Nicola Willis about how the Government's spending plans will affect you, your business, and your family.

Join us on Friday 27 May from 4:00pm-5:00pm at Te Ara Ātea - Rolleston Library, 56 Tennyson Street.

Please RSVP to [email protected]. For more information, click here.

Kind regards,

Nicola Grigg
http://nicolagrigg.national.org.nz/