About this episode

The episode discusses accusations of secret government spending and the implications for budget transparency in New Zealand.

Labour's accusing the government of secretly spending $1 billion from next year's budget. The Taxpayers' Union has chimed in too, accusing the government of political skulduggery over the billion dollars in undisclosed future spending. It amounts to $22 million in '27, '28 before ramping up over a four year period. Heather du Plessis Allan asked the Prime Minister about it this morning and he said there's nothing to see here. "It's not actually that super exciting to be honest, Heather, because it's an issue that blew up as we were finalising the budget. It's about an accounting provision for an existing transport related issue." "CRL?" "No, no, no. And it's just, but generally an accounting provision." So an accounting provision. And if it's not the CRL, it's bound to be the ferries surely. But why can't it be disclosed? Why, why even give Labour ammunition? And what's better, and I ask this as a genuine question, to have a secret stash of dosh under the mattress to spend at will later on transport issues, or to promise to pay for things and then work out how you'll get the money later? Like with Labour, they promised pay equity, which was going to cost billions and billions of…

People in this episode

Host: Kerre Woodham

Topics covered

• government spending
• budget transparency
• political accountability
• transport funding
• Labour Party
• National Party

Keywords

• government
• budget
• spending
• Labour
• National
• accounting provision
• transport issues
• political accusations

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Labour, Taxpayers' Union, National, CRL

Places: New Zealand

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