Speaking to MPs at a rare appearance at a select committee, the Finance Minister defends his Government’s debt track as Amy Adams goes on a familiar offensive

National’s Finance Spokeswoman Amy Adams’ attack playbook appeared to be mostly unchanged at a select committee briefing, again criticising the Government over its debt track.  

But Finance Minister Grant Robertson has been quick to hit back, questioning if Adams has become confused around what her party’s fiscal stance even is.

Robertson appeared before the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee to brief MPs on the Budget outcomes and matters of economic and financial significance on Wednesday.

Ministers don’t usually attend select committees but do on occasion to discuss certain areas, such as the Budget.

Without the watchful eye of the Speaker of the House, Opposition MPs have more freedom and time to probe Ministers for answers.

Adams wasted no time getting stuck into Robertson on Wednesday and, much like many of her questions in the House, decided to focus on debt.

She pointed out that over the next 15 years, as a nominal figure the Government’s debt was going to increase in every year, bar two.

But Robertson warned against looking too closely at the dollar amount of debt when looking that far in the future, as “a number of significant policy works that will impact on that.”

One such area is the outcome of the Tax Working Group and its recommendation to Government, he says.

Robertson admits that debt, as a dollar amount, is forecast to increase by roughly 14% over that 15-year period while GDP is expected to increase by 28%.

“The goal the Government has set itself is getting debt below 20% [of GDP]– that’s the focus,” he says, adding that National also measured debt as a percentage of GDP when it was in Government.

Speaking to reporters after the briefing, Robertson said he would be interested to know if Adams had abandoned National’s approach around debt, given her line of questioning during the select committee.

“In fact, I would be interested to know what National’s fiscal stance overall is, because it seems to criticise us for borrowing but also for not spending enough.”

Oil and gas attack

Meanwhile, Robertson revealed that the Treasury had done no analysis of the future economic impact of the Government’s decision to ban oil and gas exploration.

“The advice I have received from Treasury is that the uncertain nature of revenue associated with oil and gas exploration means they don’t include that in forecast revenue, they never have, and they don’t know, because it is such an uncertain sector.”

Adams says it is “staggering” that the Government has commissioned no analysis on such an important economic issue.

“It appears Robertson simply doesn’t want to know how his Government’s political decision will impact on workers and Kiwi families.”

But Robertson says it’s impossible to factor in something where you simply don’t know the outcome of the exploration – “Treasury would never do that.”

“They don’t know the fiscal implications of not developing an unknown oil and gas reserve.

“If you think about that, it’s actually a pretty difficult piece of work to be able to do, looking out across a long period of time.”