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Indian Newslink Budget Special 7

No measures in sight to turn around

Wellington, May 25, 2017

Finance Minister Steven Joyce presented his first Budget in Parliament at 2 pm today. This is his first Budget as Finance Minister and the Ninth for the National Party since occupying the Treasury benches in November 2008. We will bring updates continuously over the next few hours and conclude with our own exclusive analysis of the government’s Fiscal Policy later tonight.

-Editor

Winston Peters (Pictured) is a senior politician with his career as a Parliamentarian going back to 1978. In these 49 years (for three years he was outside Parliament, between 2008 and 2011), he has served as a Member of the House representing the National Party, as an Independent and Leader of the New Zealand First (since 1993). He won the Northland by-election in 2015. He is often regarded as the ‘King Maker’ and ‘Balancing Force’ in a hung Parliament, which some say could occur after the ensuing general election on September 23, 2017. Never known to mince words, Mr Peters has expressed strong views on immigration, foreign ownership of land and immoveable assets, law and order and a host of other issues. He has described Budget 2017 as, “wilful, wanton, weak, wobbly, woeful minister with a wilful, wanton, weak, wobbly and woeful.”

No measures in sight to around round

Winston Peters

After eight Budgets, these people portray themselves as sound economic managers.

The pose as people to be trusted with the nation’s purse strings – and they have claimed to ‘magicked’ a surplus.

Any fool can magic a surplus by not spending on critically essential items of public need.

But that is the thing.

Budgets are meant to be springboards for a philosophy but this National Party has none aside from staying in power for as long as it can hang on.

Desperate attempt

This Budget is a desperate attempt from a tired old, visionless, heartless party to stay in power as long as they can – as long as they can hang on.

Meanwhile the headlines scream out for the government to act on so many issues, in so many cities, and so many regions.

And the need of these cities and regions is billions and billions of social and infrastructural deficit.

This government has made countless promises and has failed to perform on everyone.

It is obsessed with globalisation, and mass immigration because mass immigration is the only thing propping this government’s finances up.

Our land and business assets are getting stripped out and sold to foreigners.

Unanswered questions

We are increasingly a branch economy of China.

One belt, one road but so many unanswered questions.

What ought to be up is down and what ought to be down is up.

They have go their priorities upside down.

Mr Joyce uses billion-dollar amounts all tagged with the fine print over four years, over 10 years, and some 30 years.

So, here’s simple advice:

Divide everything you have heard by four.

Then compare it in real terms to what was being spent when National came to power and then divide it by the population that this country has and then you will know whether what this minister says has merit or not.

Massive debt

New Zealand remains massively indebted to the rest of world – with a net international liability of $156 billion as of last year.

When National took office, this country had a surplus of $5.6 billion and net Crown debt of $10.3 billion.

Today, it claims to predict a surplus of $1.7 billion and net Crown debt of $61.8 billion but here is the interesting thing.

Net Core Crown Debt starts growing and by 2021 will be just under a $1 billion more than what it was in 2016.

There is no plan to reduce debt aside from time and inflation.

What have they got to show for it?

The Status

Family poverty, Mental health services in disarray, Conservation estate and services in dismay, Social housing in motels, Science, research and technology in disarray, Rampant house price inflation, Runaway immigration, Infrastructure deficits everywhere in city, town and country and Mr Joyce what happened to the Northland bridges? Crime on the rise and law and order out of control from under-resourcing, And a New Zealand Super fund of government contributions of $2 billion and to add insult to injury that fund built by taxation is being taxed as well.

If the government had been contributing to the NZ Super fund, as it should, the so-called surplus would be a mirage.

This is a wilful, wanton, weak, wobbly, woeful minister with a wilful, wanton weak, wobbly, woeful Budget full of posturing, half-truths and misinformation.

National Party supporters must be seriously worried today because there is no plan; there is no vision; there is no philosophy but ‘steady as we don’t go.’

Management by Crisis

Worse, from it being management by crisis, private debt is now past $412 billion with housing debt alone up $34 billion in just the past 24-months.

And just where are the real comparisons with Scandinavia or Australia, Canada and Singapore on: Wages, Housing costs, Power, Health, Education, Infrastructure

The government today is boasting its hand up for a Budget that they say will deliver for New Zealanders.

They say that they have given tax cuts and entitlement boosts to give an average $26 per week more to 1.3 million families.

$26 will go nowhere.

To use that famous movie Shawshank Redemption line: “The colossal ********* even managed to sound magnanimous.”

Look, if we were to increase the minimum wage by $3 an hour with policies to enable businesses to pay it, on a given week everyone would be $120 or more better off – freed from the state and not like under National, beholden to it as a beneficiary.

This government’s priorities are all cock-eyed.

We believe in the dignity of work and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, regardless of gender.

Rising inequality

What has happened in New Zealand in the last nine years is a massive rise in inequality of incomes, wealth and opportunity.

Budget 2017 does nothing to address these disquieting developments.

This budget should be careful to inform the country of potential instability and volatility so people can act accordingly.

It should have addressed the stupid comment by a writer in the New Zealand Herald today that the government is “swimming in money.”

The budget has no measures to turn around the decline in manufacturing and exports as a percentage of GDP, and set out clear tax policy to revive commerce and attack our national indebtedness.

Under-performing exports

Only yesterday the Overseas Merchandise Trade statistics revealed the stunning success of National’s much-vaunted, tiringly boastful export agenda.

In the 12-months to April 2017, New Zealand’s merchandise exports grew by a staggering 0.2%.

Multiply that by 10 years, what do you get?

You get 2 percent.

Two percent for a decade under National.

Underneath the hype and the misinformation is a fake Budget that delivers nothing meaning for ordinary New Zealanders and nothing to make our economy go faster.

Where does this Budget spell what our GDP per person growth rate is compared to say 10 first world economics or 20 first world economies or for that matter, Australia.

It does not, because if it did every New Zealander would know that under National we are going nowhere.

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