[Sitting date: 27 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:5. Text is subject to correction.]

5. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance : What are the “other options” that the Prime Minister referred to in order to reach his Government’s surplus target for 2014/15, and do they include cutting funding for any existing programmes?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance : As the Prime Minister actually said, there may be other options we choose to take. We will have to wait and see what the final Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update numbers look like. Whichever way they turn out, they will just be the latest forecasts. We will know the actual result after the accounts close later next year, when the Government’s annual financial statements are published. I can reassure the member, as I did in a speech last week, that the Government has a track record of sticking to our spending plans, particularly to protect the most vulnerable and to provide certainty for public services. We will not be changing that approach.

Grant Robertson : Is it correct that the forecasts for the economy for the rest of this financial year do not show any sign of the $5 billion hole created by lower commodity prices being filled by growth in other parts of the economy?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE : No, I do not think the Minister could confirm that at all. We will have to wait until the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update numbers come out. Other parts of the economy have been growing significantly strongly, but there is no doubt there will be some impact as a result of the change in dairy prices.

Grant Robertson : Why would he have confidence that there would be a surplus coming from other export products to fill the $5 billion hole in his books, when today’s Statistics New Zealand figures show a 5 percent fall in exports across the board.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE : I think the member is confusing income to the dairy sector with income to the Government’s books. There is no $5 billion hole in the Government’s books. [Interruption] No, it is important for Mr Robertson to understand this, because he is new to finance. Just because a certain industry does not achieve a certain amount of income does not mean the Government’s books do not achieve exactly the same amount. The Government is not the country, even though I know Mr Robertson would like to make the Government the country

Grant Robertson : This will make for a good answer. Will he guarantee that a surplus will not be manufactured by artificially hiking ACC premiums or hiding expenditure for roading projects through loans, as he did in this year’s Budget?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE : I am sorry, but there appears to have been a leak over here. I wonder whether Phil Goff has been over, but I do not think he has. I can assure the member that when the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update comes out we will see what the numbers look like. But again I tell him that he needs to be aware that projections do not always come true in terms of the final outcome. There have been, for example, projections over the last year that Grant Robertson would be the leader of the Labour Party, and that did not work out very well.

Grant Robertson : Is it not the truth that his failure over 6 years to diversify the economy, grow exports, or discourage housing speculation means that the real surplus has dissolved, and any Budget surplus will result only from another attempt at cooking the books just like this year

Hon STEVEN JOYCE : I am sorry, but that is a little rich coming from the guy who is known as the “Walking ATM”, when he is actually prepared to hand out money to anybody who asks for any policy proposal and has opposed every cut in Government spending over the last 6 years. To turn round and say this Government is not fiscally responsible is truly unbelievable from Mr Robertson.

ENDS

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