2020 election: Labor Jacinda Ardern criticizes National’s tax cut plans as ‘totally irresponsible’

Labor leader Jacinda Ardern has continued her party’s attacks on National’s tax cut plans, saying now is not the time to “storm” the Covid-19 recovery fund.

Ardern, his finance spokesman Grant Robertson and economic development spokesman Phil Twyford delivered a mix of rebuttals to the plans of their political enemies this afternoon.

“I think it’s been done on the fly,” Robertson said, adding that the numbers “just don’t add up.”

“I think it’s totally irresponsible,” Ardern continued.

But the overwhelming message from the Labor Party was that New Zealand simply cannot afford National’s flagship policy.

Earlier today, National said that the campaign promise of $ 10 billion, among other things, would cause the national government to raise the lower, middle and upper tax thresholds.

National leader Judith Collins said this would save a middle-income person about $ 3,000 a year, or $ 50 a week.

Ardern said voters would consider both National and Labor’s tax policies and could make a decision on what was right at this time.

The government has set aside $ 14 billion in a Covid-19 recovery contingency fund – National indicated that $ 4 billion would be used in its $ 10 billion plan.

The rest would be financed by spending less money than Labor would have otherwise spent over the next 14 years.

National’s planned operating allocation (how much new money the government will spend each year) is $ 51 billion lower than Prefu’s estimates over the next 14 years.

National finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith promised this morning that despite the expected lower level of spending, his party would not cut health, education or social spending.

But Ardern was unconvinced and called the party’s plans “totally unaffordable.”

He said he had seen nothing in National’s plan to suggest that the party could make tax cuts without cutting key services.

Meanwhile, Twyford provided more details on Labor’s plan to create a $ 200 million Regional Strategic Partnership Fund, a fund that would focus on financing regional development.

It appears to be a scaled-down version of the Provincial Growth Fund, the $ 3 billion crown jewel in New Zealand First’s coalition agreement with Labor.

Labor’s proposed project would spell the end of the PGF, but Twyford said the fund was “innovative.”

The policy would be linked to the policy of Labor industry; This would help to grow sectors such as agritech and the digital area.

Twyford spoke about the provincial development unit, which would be “fine-tuned.”

In terms of what is left in the PGF, Robertson said there was not much left and most of it had been spent or already allocated.

“This is the next stage,” Robertson said.