Monday, May 10, 2021



Incoherent 2

Last week, the government froze public service pay for three years in a return to the economy-strangling austerity politics of the National era. But today, suddenly they're rolling in money:

There’ll be more spending and lower debt levels in the 2021 Budget than expected, the Finance Minister, Grant Robertson says.

He told an audience of business leaders at a breakfast at Deloitte in Auckland that there would now be more money both for day-to-day spending and capital investment than he’d signalled in his last major Budget update in February.

But improving economic conditions mean this additional spending won’t be accompanied by increased debt levels; instead, he said the Government’s new debt track will show lower borrowing levels.

Naturally, there's no numbers. But it kindof contradicts the debt fearmongering they were spinning last week, and makes their pay freeze even less supportable. And I expect it will go down like a cup of cold sick with the people Labour is expecting to sacrifice so they can get headlines to appeal to arsehole National voters.