Bill English, 2010 budget speech:
It is projected to improve steadily in each subsequent year, and to reach surplus in 2015/16, three years ahead of last year’s projection.
Bill English, 2011 budget speech:
The projected operating deficit will fall dramatically over the next three years. It will be in
significant surplus from 2014/15.
Bill English, 2012 budget speech:
This Government’s discipline means New Zealand is on track to return to fiscal surplus in
2014/15, and then to start reducing debt.
The forecast fiscal surplus in 2014/15 is $197 million. This surplus is forecast to grow to
$2.1 billion in 2015/16 and $4.4 billion in 2016/17.
Bill English, 2013 budget speech:
We are on track to get back to surplus by 2014/15.
And we are on track to reduce government debt to 20 per cent of GDP by 2020.
Budget forecasts show an operating surplus before gains and losses of $75 million in 2014/15.
Bill English, 2014 budget speech:
There will be a small surplus next year, and incr
easing surpluses are forecast over time.
Key maintains he can hit "artificial" surplus ahead of pre-Budget speech, Stuff, 13 April 2015:
Ahead of his first major Budget speech John Key is refusing to rule out the Government hitting a surplus this year, while at the same time dismissing the target as "artificial".
[...]
Key said New Zealand was a $220 billion dollar economy, the Government spent about $70 billion, meaning a deficit of a few hundred million dollars was irrelevant.
"It's really like trying to land a 747 on a pin head. It's just not that possible for the Treasury to get that right."
And just like that, National's major goal, the thing it has constantly said it (and opposition parties) should be judged by, is dimissed. And tomorrow they'll no doubt be telling us that they never promised a surplus and that Helen Clark had nine long years to balance the books (and she did, every year).
[Hat-tip: David Slack]
