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The National Party and the economic agency that used to examine their figures now use different numbers to explain how the alternative National Party budgets compare.
Both National and NZIER support the alternative budget, but support alternative versions of it, each of which contains different numbers.
In the space of just eight hours, Paul Goldsmith and NZIER have given two different versions of how the numbers add up; both have issued type fixes following queries from Stuff.
National has been fighting allegations that its numbers don’t add up after its alternative budget was discovered to include $ 3.9 billion from the NZ Upgrade program fund.
That fund no longer exists, and what was left of it was transferred to the government’s main capital account in May.
The party has since said it will find the money by raiding the NZTA’s National Land Transportation Fund (NLTF) for another $ 3.9 billion, slashing spending on some transportation projects to make the numbers work.
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This is the version of the budget that has existed since Tuesday.
But Goldsmith changed his tune at RNZ this morning, stating that it would fund the $ 3.9 billion through an increase in the capital allocation – that’s the amount of money allocated in each new budget.
“We have also changed, because the Government allocated the additional money from that upgrade fund to capital allocations, we have increased our capital allocations,” Goldsmith said.
But Stuff He later clarified with Goldsmith that the $ 3.9 billion would still come from the NLTF, not from the capital allocation as he told RNZ.
“It is no different than what has been said in recent days. We’ll take it from the NLTF, “Goldsmith said. Stuff.
Robert Kitchin / Things
Paul Goldsmith stands to acknowledge the first of National’s budget mistakes
Stuff confirmed with Goldsmith that this would mean a little over $ 10 billion would be cut from some transportation projects in the $ 48 billion NLTF and turned over to others.
This clearly had not been communicated to NZIER, the agency that examined National’s numbers to make sure they matched.
Stuff It has been trying for two days to get the agency to stick to its figures, only receiving a response in the late afternoon from Peter Wilson, the NZIER economist who reviewed the national plan.
Wilson’s response supported the original budget: $ 6.3 billion would come from the NLTF, not the $ 10.2 that National now claims.
The difference between those two numbers is $ 3.9 billion.
Wilson was also asked whether it was correct that $ 3.9 billion would come from the New Zealand Upgrade Program, as stated in the report he released a week ago.
I would not explicitly answer this question, but instead wrote the following answer to Stuff – using bold font to highlight your message.
“The current government has reallocated this money from the New Zealand upgrade program to the existing capital allocation.
“As the National Party had announced that it would use this money to finance its program before the Government made this move, decided to continue using this terminology.
“Therefore, he said that $ 3.9 billion would come from this source. In essence, this is correct “
The comment Wilson made in bold is incorrect, and Wilson corrected it when he alerted him to his error by Stuff.
Stuff
The NZIER examines the national budget, including budget lines that National insists have changed, but that the NZIER remains.
The Government announced that it would put the remaining $ 4 billion from its Program Improvement into capital allocations in December. This has been reiterated several times since then, but it seems to have been overlooked at both National and NZIER.
National and NZIER say they both left the $ 4 billion NZ update line in the budget for “consistency,” although it is not consistent with published government accounts.
Wilson corrected his statement in bold to the following, discarding the consistency claim.
“The current government announced in December 2019 that it would increase its capital allocation by $ 4 billion as part of the New Zealand Upgrade Program.
“The National Party has consistently said that it would fund part of its capital plan by changing the priorities of the New Zealand Upgrade Program.
“In essence, this is the same as saying that funding in the equity allocation will be one of the sources of your equity program.”
This is correct, although it is not what the National Party is currently saying, but will use additional funds from the NLTF, not the capital allocation, to pay for its program.
NZIER CEO Laurence Kubiak, who provided quality assurance for the report, has so far declined to comment, with questions referred to Wilson.
Today’s developments mean that the budget presented by the National Party and the version of its plan presented by NZIER are now markedly different.
Because National is raiding the NLTF, it means you won’t have to borrow or tax more to fund your commitments. On the other hand, because the NLTF is already included in a project portfolio, it will mean an additional $ 3.9 billion of transportation projects would face the ax, on top of the $ 6.3 billion in cuts National has already promised.
One budget version has up to $ 10.2 billion in transportation cuts, the other $ 6.3 billion. Both National and NZIER point out that this will not increase overall debt, which is correct, but it will mean $ 3.9 billion or cuts that the party did not telegraph in its transportation plan in June, or in its budget last Friday. .
