Andrew Little Post-Budget Address

Friday, 22 May 2015, 10:44 am
Article: Francis Cook

Andrew Little said today the Budget was not earth-shattering, but he made concessions regarding the government’s new policies on working for families and children in poverty.

Little’s main issue with the Budget was that it lacked a clear strategy for dealing with lowering milk prices. He said the country will be left with a $7 billion hole from falling diary prices and Goldman Sacs expected prices to remain low for the next five years.

Little called the current government “negligent” for their inaction and said there is nothing to indicate prices will go up.

Farmers are not spending money because they know prices won’t turn around, he said.

Little acknowledged that the working for families and child poverty policies were a step in the right direction, but said the real path out of poverty is through the creation of real jobs by lifting productivity. The government had created job growth from the Christchurch rebuild, but “rebuilding a city after an earthquake is not an economic strategy.”

On the housing crisis in Auckland, Little said the bright-line test would be easy to avoid for property investors and would not solve the problem of rising prices. Home ownership is at its lowest in 60 years, he said.

Little said the looming cost of superannuation “frightens the bejesus out of me”. He criticized National for not having a sound plan to deal with the cost.

“There is no vision in the government, there is no plan.”

Video here:

ENDS

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Francis Cook

Reporter

Francis studied History, gaining a first class honours in 2014. He is interested in politics, music and popular culture. His thesis looked at nuclear themes in Japanese film history.

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