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Speaker 1: So surprise, Nichola Willis has pushed out surplus by another year,

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Speaker 1: which now makes it three years and two years, as in,

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Speaker 1: she has delayed surplus by three years in just the

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Speaker 1: space of the two years that she's been at the

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Speaker 1: Finance Minister's desk. Had she kept her pledge, which is

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Speaker 1: the one that she made up about tidying up this

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Speaker 1: country's books when she was asking for our votes in

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, we would be seeing surplus next year.

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Speaker 1: Now it's twenty nine at the earliest. Now, getting our

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Speaker 1: books back in order is not Beltway. It is important

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Speaker 1: if we don't want our kids to pack up and

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Speaker 1: leave for Ossie when they're old enough to. And Nichola

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Speaker 1: can blame everyone from Treasury to Trump if she wants,

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Speaker 1: but she also has not done enough to get us

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Speaker 1: back to surplus. There is plenty of wasteful spending that

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Speaker 1: could be cut if she wanted to. She has, for

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Speaker 1: some reason defended and kept Jucinder's wasteful policy of paying

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Speaker 1: for one year free for university students. It's been repeatedly

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Speaker 1: criticized as a flop because it doesn't actually make anyone

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Speaker 1: go to university. If she was brave enough to cut that.

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Speaker 1: It would save us in the vicinity of a billion

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Speaker 1: dollars over four years. She has given welfare to households

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Speaker 1: are more than two hundred thousand dollars a year by

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Speaker 1: giving them money for childcare. People on that kind of

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Speaker 1: coin do not need benefits. Cutting that would save a

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Speaker 1: billion dollars in a little over five years. She still

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Speaker 1: hasn't cut or income tested the winter energy payment, which

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Speaker 1: is going to people who are still in the workforce,

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Speaker 1: and they're just setting it aside for nice trips to Fiji.

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Speaker 1: Cutting that would save a billion dollars in less than

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Speaker 1: two years. Trimming it would save a little bit less,

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Speaker 1: but it would at least save something. She has one

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Speaker 1: thousand public servants who have been cut when Grant and

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Speaker 1: Jacinda actually added fourteen thousand, So still a lot there be.

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Speaker 1: In no doubt, Yep, money is tight, Treasury is not helping.

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Speaker 1: Trump's not helping. But there is still a lot of

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Speaker 1: waste that could be cut if Nikola Willis was brave enough.

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Speaker 1: For more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 1: news talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio.