In a somewhat rare move, the Prime Minister has issued a statement slamming the Opposition for its criticism of Government working groups.
On Thursday morning, National Leader Simon Bridges released yet another statement attacking the Government’s numerous working groups.
He says the cost of the 122 groups the Government has formed have so far come at a cost of $114 million to the taxpayer.
For that amount of money, Bridges says the Government could have hired 2100 extra teachers or paid for an extra 20,000 elective surgeries.
“Instead, the Government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars for others to do the work for it.”
This is not the first time National has taken aim at the Government over its many working groups and appears to be a key part of its Opposition strategy.
In the past, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has addressed the issue when asked about it by media.
But Thursday’s statement is one of the first times the Prime Minister has directly issued a statement calling out the Opposition on its argument.
She says Bridges is making “false claims” about the extent of the Government’s work and how much it is costing.
The cost of the reviews, of which she says the Government has only begun 38 she says, is roughly $34.5 million – or 4c in every $100 the Government spends.
“Where we are doing review work, it’s because the public has called for it or there are genuine issues that need to be fixed – be it bowel screening, mental health or insurance claimed in Canterbury.”
In her statement, she pointed the finger at National for wasting taxpayers’ money.
“The $100 million National wasted on decontaminating houses could have built 300 more state homes – instead perfectly good ones sat empty. Now we are reopening those homes.”
Parliament is coming to the end of a two-week recess and will be back on Tuesday next week where this issue is likely to dominate the political discussion.
25 Comments
He said it was 75 in the first 6 months the other day didn’t he?
Here’s a list of Nationals working groups in their first 6 months of being elected for comparison.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f6wGvy1KkR08oFeNx97VKfOmHSHL-Ze…
True but you have to admit Labour was a pretty wan parliamentary opposition & that didn’t help any of us either. Having said that National don’t look much better. Bridges is about as ineffectual and inarticulate as Shearer, but I believe the latter was rather a nice man underneath it all.
Matthew Hooten’s statement today, “it suggests a government that already appears as arrogant, dishonest, cynical and lacking transparency as any before it”.
He forgot about totally incompetent!!!
“The Man” has previously stated many times that this government will become the most despised government of all time, and we have Winston due to step in as PM!
We are in for a shocking ride and they are on the way to stuffing the lives of the average New Zealander but some of you still have your blinkers on!
What have they done to the benefit of NZ so far?
Nothing!
What? 4c out of every $100 the government spends is being spent on these external reviews? Surely that's a miscalculation - 4% of all government expenditure?
https://insights.nzherald.co.nz/article/budget-treemap-2018/
It doesn't compute.
Blah Blah Blah .......the truth is that National, in less than a decade and with the GFC and 3 terrible and devastating earthquakes ( 2 in Chch and 1 in Kaikoura ), ran the economy exceptionally well .
We were the only economy in the OECD with real positive GDP growth during the GFC .
We saw employment rates reach a generational high
Our currency was exceptionally strong and we still ran trade surpluses
We had a construction boom .
Our trade surplus with China grew
Our schools functioned exceptionally well
Our Police force got new members
Our major hospitals like North Shore and Auckland got huge capex
There was a massive amount spend on roads including 2 tunnels and the dualization of SH1 to Hamilton
National ran a stable Parliament
They did not arbitrarily BAN any major industries without any consultation whatsoever
There was a decade of almost zero industrial action or strikes
Personal Income Tax came down significantly
ACC levies came down
The interest on our mortgage halved from 10% to 4,95% so we could pay off our mortgage in just 60 months thus enabling us to invest and save for our retirement
It was a time of milk and honey all round .......... wonderful , and I will be telling my Grandchildren how wonderful it was .
Now its gone , all we hear about is a lefty idealistic Government full of hare -brained schemes , hell-bent on taking money from its productive sector and spending it until it runs out of other peoples money to spend
Interesting how long the narrative of GFC survival and earthquake action has lasted, now consider this - the GFC barely touched NZ - we were sheltered by AU and China.
The earthquake response has been a disaster, ask the people still trying to gain recompense their thoughts on Brownlee et al.
Schools haven't been performing, we are at crisis levels in teacher numbers - https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11981812
DHBs haven't been resourced properly, they've been driven to provide a surplus over service.
Interest rates were driven by global forces not National, this also drove up property prices, knock on effects of which have been teachers, nurses, police have been unable to afford houses, further leading to the depleting numbers.
We had a construction boom and yet apparently we're facing a housing shortage according to some.
We've had house prices de-couple from incomes, rampant speculation and money laundering
Exposed in the Panama papers, as a haven for tax evaders and lord knows what else.
income tax came down and GST went up - that hurt the poor more as they spend proportionately more of their disposable income than do the wealthy.
We have record homelessness, the worst in the OECD - https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/07/nz-s-homelessness-the-w…
In the midst of the GFC there was the bailout of SFC and others. In hindsight with a view to the shonky lending that was being allowed, those collapses were inevitable anyway but probably wouldn’t have been in such rapid order. There has never been a satisfactory explanation as to why those bail outs were exactly necessary and nor has there been one either, as to why all those “Cayman” type trusts had to flee the nest seeing as how, NZ was not a tax haven.
re your 2nd para ; certainly ask the people but the enquiry must go much further than that. The EQC Act was put in place to protect the good citizens of our country. Instead elements of it have been used to do the opposite. The application and operation by EQC has been in many many cases nothing short of punitive going on unlawful. This government must bring all of this to the surface, subjected to public scrutiny. If you have lived through it, or still are, then you will know that It must not be allowed to happen again, anywhere in our country.
Point counterpoint Boatman.
Blah Blah Blah ….. the truth is that National, in less that a decade and with the benefit of GDP stimulatory earthquakes, ran the economy into the ground, reduced living standards, increased poverty, diminished trust in government and the media, and enacted the greatest wealth transfer since European colonization.
We are the only economy in the OECD without any form of foreign buyer restrictions for housing.
We saw wages fall as 3rd world immigration broke all historical records.
Our currency was disproportionately high weakening the export economy
We had a foreign buyer boom
The Chinese, and others, purchased billions of dollars of real estate
Our Schools became underfunded, and teachers left Auckland due to rising housing prices
Our hospitals were underfunded, and interfered with at a board of director level.
National ran a stable media
They did not reform anything as suggested by the productivity commission.
There was a decade of low real wage growth, corporate bailouts, and employment law meddling.
Personal income tax came down, GST and tobacco tax were raised, adversely affecting the poor.
It was a time of milk and honey for some Auckland land owners and utter misery for others ……… The rentiers like John Key will look back and tell their grandchildren how their family made millions of dollars of capital gains year on year, while others will lament the fact that they missed out on home ownership.
Now National is gone, and we have to deal with the aftermath. In a weakening global economy the structural reform that could have been easy a decade ago will be painful to enact now. Many of the problems that National created (such as cratering home ownership rates in Auckland) will have ugly consequences and will take decades to manifest.
Well we could be Canada!
https://youtu.be/TnCJlPfpufE
Slippy slope went the ideology predicts the next policy announcement or review outcome.
Complex problems need effort and ability to work through, root cause analysis and all.
I don't see where the horsepower is coming from.
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