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Tuesday, September 26, 2023

The Deficit Diaries - Six years of red



The New Zealand Initiative’s latest research note, written by Dr Bryce Wilkinson and Dr Oliver Hartwich, analyses Labour’s six-year fiscal record.

The report shows that:
  • Labour's fiscal projections before the 2017 election were too optimistic, resulting in a $18 billion discrepancy between intended and actual expenditure by the end of 2019.
  • Jobseeker Support recipients rose by 27,000 in January 2020. Treasury predicts a minimum of 189,000 recipients through 2027, nearly 70,000 more than 2017 levels.
  • The Government has not reduced spending to pre-Covid levels. PREFU 2023 forecasts show spending through 2024-2027 will match 2020, the first Covid year in NZ.
Click to read or download

Dr Oliver Hartwich is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative think tank.
Dr Bryce Wilkinson is a Senior Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative, Director of Capital Economics, and former Director of the New Zealand Treasury.
This article was first published HERE.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

And yet the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, is still accorded some respect as being competent? He might be accomplished at talking it up, but the numbers don't lie. His record matches that of this Government - simply appalling!