There’ll be plenty more, from all the contenders, but this old mutt choked on a giant porky put out there by Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins.
Chippy’s claim that New Zealand’s structural deficit was created by the current Government rather than inherited from Labour is a beauty, even for him.
In 2023, Treasury briefed Nicola Willis as incoming finance minister that the deficit was structural, not temporary.
This was not due to Covid measures - Treasury’s numbers were based entirely on Labour’s spending and revenue settings.
As one astute commentator noted, a ‘structural deficit did not magically appear when Willis became finance minister!’
