[ad_1]
The hole in National’s alternative budget may have skyrocketed by another $ 3.9 billion after the party appears to have double-counted part of its transportation program.
The error came after National twice counted $ 3.9 billion remaining from New Zealand’s upgrade package, an infrastructure plan announced by the government in late January.
In fact, the excess money was placed in the Treasury’s multi-year capital reserve in May. In National costs, the party had counted the two sums of money separately, when, in fact, the money from the NZ Upgrade program now only exists in capital allocations.
The upshot is that National needs to find $ 3.9 billion elsewhere.
READ MORE:
* 2020 Election: ‘Fair Police’ – National’s Paul Goldsmith admits to accounting error as Labor points to $ 4 billion hole
* National plots huge debt reduction with commission-free superfund set to ax
* How to build a road (or bike path) and who pays for it
Robert Kitchin / Things
Paul Goldsmith acknowledging National’s first financial mistake.
It comes after two previous embarrassing mistakes in which Goldsmith miscalculated $ 4.3 billion in New Zealand Superfund contributions and $ 88 million in capital expenditures that came from an earlier set of forecasts.
But National finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith has denied the mistake this time, saying he dropped the line on National’s Fiscal and Economic Plan for “consistency” with an earlier National plan.
Goldsmith said Stuff the remaining billions will come from the reallocation of money raised in fuel taxes and road user charges to the National Land Transportation Fund (NLTF).
But this seems to distance Goldsmith from his own budget, which explicitly states that the money comes from the Crown’s balance sheet. The NLTF is not part of the Crown balance sheet, but rather a fund into which all revenue from fuel and highway taxes flows.
Goldsmith’s claim also contradicts the National Party costs examined by the economic agency NZIER. The document it published alongside Goldsmith’s alternative budget lists New Zealand’s upgrade program as a separate funding line.
Alphabet soup: NZTA, NLTF and NZU
When he approached him StuffGoldsmith said the publication of the government’s final transportation plan earlier this month had prompted it to change the way it would finance its transportation package.
Goldsmith said the $ 3.9 billion would come from the NLTF, which is the amount of money NZTA uses to maintain roads and build new ones.
However, Goldsmith’s alternate budget also has a line for NLTF reallocations, which is different from the line for unallocated NZ upgrade expenses.
Goldsmith says this was deliberate.
“We retained the ‘Unassigned New Zealand Upgrade Program’ label in our fiscal plan for consistency, although it could easily be added to the NLTF reprioritization line,” he said.
The potential error stems from changes National made to its transportation policy between when it was announced in July and when transportation costs finally appeared in Goldsmith’s alternate budget last Friday.
July National Transportation Plan
In National’s original plan, the party’s transportation spokesman Chris Bishop said he would spend $ 3.9 billion of the money the government had left from its $ 12 billion upgrade plan to New Zealand announced in January.
The government had spent $ 8 billion of this at the time, keeping $ 4 billion hidden for projects to be announced in the 2020-2023 budgets.
But there was a problem with National changing the priorities of this money: the Government had already placed it in another line of budget financing.
In the 2020 budget, that $ 4 billion was included in the multi-year capital allocation. This is the budget line where most of the government’s capital investment comes from.
National’s budget lines appear to have counted twice are the New Zealand Upgrade Program and capital allocations.
National has counted New Zealand Improvement Program funding as a separate funding source, separate from capital allocations when, in fact, they are one and the same.
The party’s transportation policy has the two funds listed separately: $ 3.9 billion of the $ 31.5 billion package would come from the NZ Upgrade package, with $ 4.3 billion coming from capital allocations.
National was aware of the problem in July.
ROBERT KITCHEN / Things
National leader Judith Collins will participate in her first televised debate against Jacinda Ardern on Tuesday.
The main 2020 Budget document stated that: “The New Zealand Upgrade Program added $ 4 billion to the multi-year capital allocation” and includes a bar chart to illustrate the funding shift.
Stuff reported this in a story about National’s previous policy costs in July.
When Goldsmith says that the money will come from the NLTF, it means that it will not come from the general loan that financed the NZ Upgrade program; instead, it will fund it with the money NZTA uses to build and maintain our roads and public transportation, the NLTF.
“We have decided that it is more appropriate to use funding equivalent to the unallocated New Zealand Upgrade Program ($ 3.9 billion) within the NLTF, which is what that line of funding represents in our Fiscal Plan,” said Goldsmith.
But this contradicts Goldsmith’s own alternative budget, which does not say that National will spend “matching funds” on the New Zealand Upgrade Program from within the NLTF.
The written notes that accompany the national tax document actually say otherwise.
“National will increase infrastructure funding by drawing from future capital allocations, allowing NZTA to borrow from its own balance sheet, reprioritize existing funds within the National Ground Transportation Program, and use unallocated funds within the Transportation Program. New Zealand Update, “the budget program says, explicitly mentioning that National will use unallocated money from the New Zealand Update Program, and noting that this is separate from the NLTF reallocation.
It also increases credibility. National could reallocate these funds even if it wanted to. NZTA only taxes about $ 4,000 a year for the NLTF. It would be difficult to find money within your spending program.
Changing priorities
The draft budget says New Zealand’s upgrade appropriations would be worth $ 1.3 billion a year for three years. National is already reallocating between $ 0.6 billion and $ 0.7 billion in each of those years, meaning that NZTA would have to reallocate roughly half of its budget each year under the scheme.
But Goldsmith said it was possible.
“Most of the additional funding taken from the NLTF comes from the NLTF State Highway Improvement, Public Transportation and Highway Safety classes of activities,” he said.
“It is more appropriate to use the NLTF for projects within our Transportation Package that are related to public transportation (ie the Northwest busway, Mt Reskills busway, the electrification of the railway to Pōkeno, the Puhinui, etc.) or related to road safety (i.e. Roads of National Importance).
“The equivalent of the unassigned New Zealand upgrade program identified when we launched our transportation package is now being funded by the appropriate flows within the NLTF.”
He also said that the timing of the reassignments could be extended throughout the decade, although the fiscal plan has them planned to occur during specific years.
“The exact timing of the funding changes differs from the original unallocated New Zealand upgrade schedule, but, as stated in our Fiscal Plan, this is irrelevant due to the fact that multi-year capital allocations act as a function of smoothing of variations, ”said Goldsmith.
