When a government changes, the skeletons come tumbling out of the closet and this is the first big news, which shows that David Parker, Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson were lying to us all about how they were going to be able to pay for their grandiose promises.
At the same time the former Labour Government was laying into the National party for announcing a poorly costed Transport plan on the campaign trail, its own officials were warning that Labour’s transport plan was substantially unfunded and undeliverable.
Treasury was so concerned that it recommended the ministers drop all new projects from one of the most significant parts of the plan.
Nevertheless, the former government proceeded.
Officials warned that the then government’s “Strategic Investment Programme” – a list of projects the government wanted built in the next ten years as part of its transport budget – would “add to the already considerable list of unfunded investment proposals” the government had embarked upon like Auckland light rail. The combined list of new and old projects would require the Government to find $43 billion in funding over the next decade, officials said.
They also warned that an additional 100,000 workers would need to be found to deliver the new projects – a number roughly equivalent to the number of soldiers New Zealand sent to fight in the First World War. The current workforce is just 180,000 strong.
NZ Herald
Economic vandalism is what that is. Their promised projects were “unfunded” and “undeliverable”… just like everything else they promised.
The advice is a Treasury commentary for then Transport Minister David Parker on the former Government’s draft transport plan, known as a Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS) – a direction from the Beehive to how Waka Kotahi should spend the billions of dollars it raises from fuel taxes and road user charges.
Treasury also warned the costings for the projects in Labour’s package had “limited or no business case information” which could be used to cost the projects accurately.
Treasury said the package contained “very preliminary cost estimates, not ordinarily suitable for final investment decisions, with a high likelihood of underestimation”, meaning the package had a high risk of going over budget.
NZ Herald
So not just unfunded and undeliverable, but there was almost no business case to justify any of it.
These guys should be run out of town on a rail. They are unfit to grace the treasury benches for quite some considerable time.
They were economic vandals with no self-control. I expect we will see many more reports like this one from Treasury come tumbling out of the closet.
Grant Robertson’s plaintive wittering about Nicola Willis as Finance Minister should fall on deaf ears as these reports show his economic incompetence for all to see.
Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.
3 comments:
Something that never fails to astonish and dismay me is how the Labour lot pretended, while in government, that they were unaware of public opposition to their hare-brained schemes (too many to list here).
Then came the election results, and even then Labour seemed to be on some faraway planet, navel-gazing.
They had perverted the old (abbr) saying: all some - some all, to convince themselves they were re-electable. Thank goodness they were not given the chance to be the nations' weather forecasters!!
Much of the media will ignore such stories and the public will largely be unaware of this stuff. I actually thought I was going to less focused on politics with a new Government but clearly the media have a plan and it is deeply sinister.
Did they care? Of course not. They knew they were out on their ear, so could promise anything they wanted. Now, from the opposition benches, they can point out what they would have done if only re-elected and how National are falling short.
Post a Comment