Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: You'd have to be naïve or foolish to believe National's promise this time around

How weird was National's re-announcement of its Budget Responsibility Rules? It was very weird. Essentially, National made exactly the same announcement that it made three years ago before the 2023 election.

First, it would strive for a surplus. Second, it would reduce debt. Third, it would cut Government spending.

Here's the question: has National achieved any of those things?

Not really, has it?

We don't have a surplus, even though National promised we'd have one worth $2.9 billion this year. In fact, we're still years away from any kind of surplus.

Has it reduced debt? No. If anything, debt has increased by roughly another $41 billion.

And when it comes to Government spending, we basically have the same number of public servants now as we did when Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins left office. So National hasn't even made much of a dent there.

In that case, I'm sorry to say it, but you'd have to be either naive or foolish to believe National's promise this time around.

In fact, I'm probably being too generous by even calling it a promise. Last time, National explicitly promised a surplus. It didn't deliver one, which makes that a broken promise. This time, however, it's merely "prioritising" a surplus.

That change in language says everything you need to know about how confident Nicola Willis herself is about the chances of getting New Zealand back into surplus.

I reckon Thomas Coughlan in the Herald absolutely nailed it with one line in his analysis:

"Why has National drawn attention to its own failure?"

Because that's really all it did.

It simply reminded those of us who are concerned about the Government's finances that the National Party has failed to get the books back in order.

I think the answer to Thomas' question is that National believes voters will still trust it and that it's trying to force Labour to make the same commitments, commitments National knows Labour may struggle to make.

If Labour can't make those same promises, National hopes voters will see it as the more fiscally responsible option.

And maybe that's true. Labour may not be able to make the same commitments, given its spending plans and the even more ambitious spending proposals of some of its potential coalition partners.

So strategically, this may well work for National with some voters.

But for many others, all the announcement did was underscore how little difference there is, in practice, between the way Labour and National manage the Government's books.

Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and radio broadcaster who hosts Newstalk ZB's weekday Drive-Time Show – where this article was sourced.