The Government is amending the Public Finance Act to prevent future governments concealing the extent of fiscal risks in government accounts, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says.
The change is included in legislation introduced to Parliament on Saturday evening to enhance the transparency and accountability of the public finance system.
“The Public Finance Act requires that fiscal forecasts, which are prepared by the Treasury, include a statement of specific fiscal risks.
“But, when I became Finance Minister I was alerted to a number of risks that were not clear in the statements I had read previously.
“I found that the statement of fiscal risks could be somewhat opaque. That did not support public understanding of risks that have the potential to impact the government’s books or the provision of public services.
“Since then, the Treasury has done a good job of categorising and transparently describing fiscal risks. This includes explicitly identifying time-limited funding and capital cost escalations.
“The Public Finance Amendment Bill makes such categorisation a requirement.”
This is a good move. The fiscal risks should be as explicit as possible, so that we know if a projected surplus is genuine or realistic.
The bill also dispenses with the requirement for governments to articulate the wellbeing objectives that guide Budget decisions and for the Treasury to produce a Wellbeing Report every four years.
“The previous government thought it was the first government ever to consider the wellbeing of its citizens. And that it was the first government to realise that people’s wellbeing was the ultimate purpose of the Budget.
“That is not the case. The purpose of building a stronger economy and delivering better public services is to improve the long-term social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of people
Labour’s so called unique focus on wellbeing was a PR con. Every budget is about wellbeing. Every dollar spent on the health and education systems is about increasing people’s wellbeing. This wasn’t just invented in 2019.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
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