Hon Steven Joyce
National Party Campaign Chair
Associate Finance Spokesman
MEDIA STATEMENT
1 November 2011
What promises will Labour drop?
Phil Goff and David Cunliffe need to come clean on which policies they will try to drop to avoid borrowing an extra $17
billion over the next four years, says National Party Associate Finance spokesman and Campaign Chair Steven Joyce.
"National has released a simple spreadsheet that tallies up the costs of Labour's spending promises. But so far, Labour
has refused to say how it will pay for its $17 billion spend up with borrowed money. In the absence of solid evidence to
the contrary National stands by its estimates.
"If Labour wants to make its numbers add up, it will have to abandon many of its big spending promises. Which will they
be?"
Labour's spending promises include; first $5,000 tax free, GST off bananas, R tax credit/ETS agriculture policy, paid parental leave to 18 weeks, women's policies, youth employment and skills, pay
parity for caregivers, increased ECE funding, tertiary education policies, extra KiwiSaver costs of compulsion, extra
police and the resumption of payments into the super fund.
"On top of these, there are a string of other promises that the Labour Leader and Labour MPs have made in the past three
years. At his party's 2009 conference, Mr Goff also pledged to forgo dividends from power companies*. If this promise is
real then Labour's borrowing binge would be even bigger."
“National is making responsible choices that will ensure New Zealand balances the books sooner and keeps debt and
interest rates down. Labour’s only idea is to borrow massive amounts more from foreign banks over the next four years.
Under Labour New Zealand would owe our future”
We will not demand excessive dividends coming back into state coffers above what is needed for investment in new
generation.
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