2020 Election: Collins Talks About Nats’ Long-awaited Fiscal Policy Amid Grim Recession

National today received the last piece of the economic puzzle it needed before presenting its long-awaited fiscal and economic policy tomorrow.

Leader Judith Collins has been quiet about what will be in the package, but she had spent the past two days talking about the fact that National’s has a “solid” plan for economic growth.

“No country has taxed its way out of a recession,” Collins told a news conference in Parliament this afternoon.

He was referring to the news that the economy had seen a second quarter of negative growth, meaning that New Zealand was officially in recession.

Statistics from New Zealand revealed that GDP had fallen 12.2 percent in the second quarter of this year.

Collins called this “the deepest economic recession on record,” given the magnitude of the economic downturn.

Shortly after Collins’ comments, Labor finance spokesman Grant Robertson took a more optimistic spin on the figures.

He said the figures were retrospective and that a re-elected Labor government would oversee an economic recovery.

Robertson said the GDP figure was actually better than the Treasury expected yesterday, when it forecast a 16 percent economic hit.

But Collins said the economic effects of Covid-19 will be felt for “many, many years to come.”

“This is a devastating time for many families,” Collins said.

He criticized the government for not allowing construction companies to operate during the Level 4 lockdown, something that he said National would not have let happen.

But he did not say how much impact he thought this would have had on the GDP figures.

Like Robertson, Collins said National is now looking toward economic recovery and New Zealand needs National at the helm.

This is something that Robertson disagreed with, telling reporters that the government has a proven track record of guiding the economy through Covid-19.

A recent survey by BusinessNZ reported that 71 percent of entrepreneurs thought the government had done a good / excellent job in handling Covid-19.

Robertson also said that today’s GDP figures show the “limitations of GDP as a measure of a country’s well-being.”

When asked about this comment, Collins dismissed it: “oh, for crying out loud.”

“What a failed comment from the Finance Minister,” he said.

“The Finance Minister must understand that people feel much happier when they have more money in their pockets, they have a job and they have a way to go.”

National’s fiscal and economic plan is likely to be the centerpiece of his campaign; his MPs have been talking about politics for weeks.

Tax cuts are expected, as is National’s new plan to significantly grow the economy.
However, it is also highly anticipated given Robertson’s criticism of National’s spending plans.

“It seems to me that the National Party is stuck in a Bermuda Triangle-style situation where they want to increase spending, reduce revenue, and slash debt.

“You can’t do all those things at once, I think his plan gets lost somewhere in that triangle.”