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Speaker 1: Because now the government is being told it needs an

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Speaker 1: independent unit to make sure government spending is sustainable and

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Speaker 1: to check treasury forecasts and so on. Vast majority of

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Speaker 1: OECD countries do have this kind of institution, but the

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Speaker 1: Finance Minister isn't so key. The Herald's Wellington Business editor,

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Speaker 1: jenetib trainees with us, Hey, your name, hey, heav Why

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Speaker 1: doesn't she like the idea?

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Speaker 2: Well, Nikola Willis reckons that the Treasury does a good

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Speaker 2: job and also that the oversight provided by the Order

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Speaker 2: to General is good enough, although it could be beefed

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Speaker 2: up a little bit. Nichola Willis is open to establishing

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Speaker 2: a new unit that checks political parties policy costings. You know,

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Speaker 2: this is something that we've talked about quite a bit

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Speaker 2: because you know, every election parties come along and we

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Speaker 2: end up getting all tied up and whether their promises

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Speaker 2: stack up in terms of the money, and you know

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Speaker 2: that's potentially a distraction from us actually discussing the policies.

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Speaker 2: So she is open to that, but she's not, you know,

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Speaker 2: particularly exercised to you know, progress something like that.

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Speaker 1: So would this just be an agency that has a

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Speaker 1: look if the government says we're going to do the

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Speaker 1: following thing for this much money. It checks it over

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Speaker 1: and goes, yep, that's reasonable. Is that basically what it

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Speaker 1: would do.

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Speaker 2: Well around the world. These sorts of institutions have different mandates,

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Speaker 2: so some of them just do that. But what the

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Speaker 2: OECD reckons and also someone who did a big review

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Speaker 2: of our budget processes, they believe that we need a

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Speaker 2: sort of more broader institution that checks the Treasury's forecast,

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Speaker 2: you know, checks that the finances are on track, and

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Speaker 2: also checks the political party's costings. Now Cameron Bagriy, an

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Speaker 2: economist Allisses might might have heard a bit from. He

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Speaker 2: made a point in a column recently. He noted that

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Speaker 2: the Treasury at the budget assumed that in the future

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Speaker 2: our productivity growth would be pretty high, like thirty year

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Speaker 2: average high. But recently our productivity has been super low.

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Speaker 2: So he raised the point that if our productivity growth

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Speaker 2: continues to be as low as it's been in recent years,

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Speaker 2: we should forget about getting the books back in surplus. So,

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Speaker 2: you know, I thought that was quite a good point

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Speaker 2: that Cameron made, because the Treasury's modeling is based on

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Speaker 2: the assumption that productivity growth is going to improve, but

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Speaker 2: what if it doesn't improve. So this is the type

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Speaker 2: of thing that the experts reckon. A independent unit could

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Speaker 2: shed some light on interesting stuff.

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Speaker 1: Jennay, thank you. I really appreciate it. Jene tib Trainey,

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Speaker 1: the Heralds Wellington Business Editor. For more from Heather Duplessy

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Speaker 1: Allen Drive, listen live to news Talks 'd B from

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Speaker 1: four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.