Amy Adams: Careless fiscal strategy will send nation into decline

Amy Adams says there is no need to be increasing borrowing. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Opinion

Tomorrow Finance Minister Grant Robertson will deliver his first Budget against the background of the strong economy he inherited, with record new job creation and rising surpluses.

Not only does the Government have considerably more cash available to it than was predicted pre-election, they're increasing debt by $10 billion and imposing $2.2 billion of extra taxes.

Borrowing more and taxing more in strong economic conditions makes no sense and risks undoing all the hard work New Zealanders have done over the last few years.

Yet despite all this cash, Labour is still finding it hard to meet all the excessive expectations they have built-up with voters and promises to their coalition partners.

So far we have seen the Government look to blame everyone else for the promises they will break.

Broken promises like no new taxes, universal cheaper GP visit in July this year, 1800 additional front line police this term, 16,000 'affordable' Kiwibuild homes in the first three years, and the list goes on.

Ahead of the Budget Labour continued their political attacks against the previous Government.

The reality is National made big investments every year into health and education - last year alone we increased health spending by $880 million a year - the highest increase in eleven years.

Budgets are about priorities. It's hard to be sympathetic to Government arguing it doesn't have enough money for universal cheaper GP visits, when it has already spent $2.8 billion on free university for first year law students and nearly a billion dollars in foreign affairs and diplomats for Winston Peters.

It's clear that not only is this Government wasting the opportunities rising surpluses present, they have no plan to grow New Zealand and are on track to slow it. Independent economists are already saying GDP growth could halve in 18 months.

Another survey out yesterday tells a damning story of falling business confidence, with more than half of respondents saying that they expect New Zealand's economy to slow in the next year, and a similar number expecting the budget this week to be negative for the economy.

That's a big warning sign. But the Government isn't listening.

• Amy Adams is the National Party finance spokeswoman.