Fiscal discipline rewarded - Cullen

“The government’s fiscal discipline continues to be rewarded with strong Crown accounts,” Finance Minister Michael Cullen said today.

He was commenting on the release of the Financial Statements for the year ended June. These show an OBERAC [operating balance excluding revaluations and accounting policy changes] of $2.7 billion.

“The OBERAC is the best measure of underlying financial stewardship as it strips out revaluation movements over which the government has no control, which can be very large, which are often driven by shifts in interest rates and which usually reverse out,” Dr Cullen said.

“The final result was around $550 million higher than forecast in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update and compares with an OBERAC for the previous 2000-01 year of $2.1 billion.

“The figures show that the government is successfully achieving its fiscal policy objective of running budget surpluses to fund contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, financing the government’s investments and managing debt to prudent levels.

“Gross debt is around 30 percent of GDP and net debt at 16 percent, while net worth is up to 15 percent,” Dr Cullen said.

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