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In recent reports, National and the economic fact-checkers it used have provided different versions of the alternative budget, each with different figures.
Robertson twisted the knife Saturday with a statement asking Collins to “stop avoiding questions about his finance spokesman.”
“Paul Goldsmith and the independent agency National who used to check their numbers now say two different things about where the money is coming from, while another error was revealed yesterday,” he says.
“Paul Goldsmith is now making mistakes about the mistakes he made in his budget. These mistakes are ruining National’s credibility. It’s a disaster, and Judith Collings needs to fix it. She needs to tell Paul Goldsmith to break his budget and start over. . “
Last Sunday it was revealed that National used figures from the May Budget instead of the updated Pre-Election Fiscal Update (PREFU) to calculate how much it would save by stopping contributions from the New Zealand Superfund, resulting in a $ 4 billion fiscal hole. .
Collins dismissed this as “completely inconsequential,” adding that the error “means very little,” as the calculations spanned 10 years.
National made the same mistake with its capital allocation: the money set aside to build things like schools and hospitals. This left National with another $ 88 million deficit.
And on Friday Goldsmith admitted that he did not take into account the tax loss paid by the Super Fund and, even though it is worth close to $ 2 billion, he insisted that there is no hole.
“Our plan has been independently calculated and it all adds up.”
Goldsmith leader Judith Collins still believes she has a future.
“Oh yeah,” he said when asked about him. “The fact is, there is a number, so what?”
Robertson says New Zealand “cannot afford National and its bug-ridden budget.”
“It is not good enough that Judith Collins calls Paul Goldsmith’s multi-million dollar mistakes ‘inconsequential’ and downplays the missing money,” she says in her statement.
“It’s time for you to stop avoiding questions about your finance spokesperson and give some serious answers.”
