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Collins defends the decision, describing the COVID-19 fund as nothing more than money that needs to be paid back, and that Labor has tagged it to make it look special.
“I think what people should understand about this is that what has been called the COVID fund and that the current government has given it that label, is just borrowed money,” Collins told reporters in Northland on Thursday.
“There is nothing special about it, other than that my son’s generation and their children will have to give it back,” Collins added. “Below us we would not let COVID rampant in the country.”
National’s finance spokesperson has admitted that National would need to “adjust” its spending plan if there were another major coronavirus outbreak.
“We have around $ 9 billion available in the COVID fund as is. Obviously, if we enter another strong lockdown, we may have to adjust, but we will do everything we can to avoid it,” he said last month.
Labor finance spokesman Grant Robertson said it is “not believed” that in the midst of a pandemic, the National Party is planning to “gut” the money set aside in the event of a major COVID-19 outbreak.
Collins is confident the economy will grow thanks to National’s tax cuts, and defended having less than Labor reserved to spend, as National intends to reduce debt faster.
“We also have the fact that we could make the economy grow thanks to our policies in this regard. When you look at fiscal plans, it is always important that you can only work with what you really have,” Collins said.
“You can’t work with the fact that growing an economy will actually end up with more people buying things, more GST and more taxes. You can’t count things that you don’t actually have.
“We are absolutely confident in our ability to ensure that companies start growing the economy again because they will have confidence in having a government that understands that every dollar we borrow must be repaid.”
ASB Bank’s latest analysis shows that business confidence is now the highest since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March.
The Labor Party has been attacking National’s economic plan since Goldsmith admitted that he miscalculated how much it would save by cutting New Zealand Superfund contributions, resulting in a $ 4 billion fiscal hole.
Newshub revealed that National made the same mistake with its capital allocation, resulting in another $ 88 million shortfall. National is also accused of double counting $ 4 billion in transportation funding, which Collins and Goldsmith deny.
Goldsmith has admitted that it did not take into account the loss of taxes paid by the Super Fund and, although it is worth close to $ 2 billion, has insisted that there is no more tax hole.
Labor is now grappling with its own mistake, after it published its economic plan Thursday with a $ 140 billion typographical error, due to an error in a graph that should have shown debt as a percentage of GDP instead. of in dollar terms.
Before Labor released a fixed version, the plan showed about $ 56 billion of debt in 2025-26, despite the government starting the COVID-19 crisis with that same amount of debt. In reality, the debt is expected to reach more than $ 200 billion by 2024.
Collins laughed when he heard about the typo and said, “I’d just say always be careful when throwing rocks at those things as they might come back.”
Goldsmith asks who signed the $ 140 billion typo.
“Jacinda Ardern needs to tell Grant Robertson to tear up his pamphlet and present New Zealanders with a credible plan.”
Ardern said Thursday that he would not tell Robertson to do that, and said it was “ridiculous” to suggest that the Labor Party had lost its economic credibility due to the typo.
Robertson agreed.
“We have a typo on the axis of a graph. Our numbers add up. We don’t have an $ 8 billion hole in our budget. Our budget balances, National’s doesn’t,” he said.
“The difference here is that the mistakes made by National leave us with service cuts or additional debt. That is a very big difference,” Ardern said.
The latest Newshub-Reid Research poll found that the majority of voters (55.1 percent) trust a Labor-led government under Ardern compared to 34.9 percent who trust a government under Collins, while the 10 percent were undecided or did not know.
