1
00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:03,760
Speaker 1: Barbara Edmonds, who is Labour's finance spokesperson, joins us. Right now, Hallo.

2
00:00:03,520 --> 00:00:06,800
Speaker 2: Barbara, good morning Andrey. How are you very.

3
00:00:06,680 --> 00:00:11,720
Speaker 1: Good at your phone? You use works, unfortunately Gavin's does not. Okay, Well, look,

4
00:00:11,760 --> 00:00:13,720
Speaker 1: we had some grim readings for the Treasury's half year

5
00:00:13,760 --> 00:00:16,360
Speaker 1: Economic and Physical Update. The books will stay in the

6
00:00:16,360 --> 00:00:18,520
Speaker 1: read until at least twenty twenty nine, a year later

7
00:00:18,520 --> 00:00:23,400
Speaker 1: than previously predicted. And Finance Minister Nichola Willis is blaming you, saying,

8
00:00:23,400 --> 00:00:25,799
Speaker 1: in the past five years Labor added more than one

9
00:00:25,880 --> 00:00:28,920
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars to our debt. So you have the

10
00:00:29,040 --> 00:00:31,360
Speaker 1: chance to rejoin to that. What do you reckon?

11
00:00:32,800 --> 00:00:35,680
Speaker 2: Yes, I heard the question posed by one of your

12
00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:39,080
Speaker 2: listeners earlier. So do you look at government financial statements

13
00:00:39,120 --> 00:00:42,440
Speaker 2: going all the way back to say nineteen ninety nine,

14
00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:46,120
Speaker 2: meaning obviously its sorry to donate. With the change in government,

15
00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:49,800
Speaker 2: a debt had tracked from around twenty billion dollars had

16
00:00:49,800 --> 00:00:52,920
Speaker 2: gone up over sixty billion dollars. That was to cover

17
00:00:53,040 --> 00:00:57,240
Speaker 2: the GFC and to cover christ Church rebuild. We clearly

18
00:00:57,320 --> 00:01:01,680
Speaker 2: had a pandemic and that increase debt to just over

19
00:01:01,720 --> 00:01:05,000
Speaker 2: our hundred billion dollars. What we saw is that as

20
00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:08,520
Speaker 2: a percentage of debt to GDP that started to come

21
00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:10,520
Speaker 2: down in the same way that most government starts to

22
00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:13,039
Speaker 2: pay down that debt. As certain as that sort of

23
00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:16,920
Speaker 2: crisis is over, what has happened so far is that

24
00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:20,360
Speaker 2: Nichol Willis is borrowing more, has more debts and a

25
00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:23,680
Speaker 2: larger deficit. And that's because we're not sure why she's

26
00:01:23,720 --> 00:01:28,120
Speaker 2: borrowing more, except for obviously tax cuts, which really said

27
00:01:28,120 --> 00:01:32,720
Speaker 2: are unaffordable. She chose bringing back interest productibility for landmarks

28
00:01:33,080 --> 00:01:36,240
Speaker 2: and then tobacco companies obviously with their tax break. So

29
00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:41,040
Speaker 2: for me, it is her reputation that intestinesn't out well.

30
00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:43,080
Speaker 1: My text that you heard me read the text out

31
00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:45,000
Speaker 1: from Hugh. He actually did a two parts and one

32
00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:47,480
Speaker 1: whether you felt any embarrassment for the position you put

33
00:01:47,480 --> 00:01:49,000
Speaker 1: in New Zealand in while you were in charge of

34
00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:51,960
Speaker 1: the benches. He also went on to say, while you

35
00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:55,280
Speaker 1: can argue the Coalition hasn't got their recovery right, if

36
00:01:55,320 --> 00:01:58,120
Speaker 1: the Labor Party of the labor governments hadn't been so

37
00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:00,680
Speaker 1: profligate with the money during the panic and over that

38
00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:03,000
Speaker 1: period of time, we wouldn't need the recovery in the

39
00:02:03,040 --> 00:02:06,000
Speaker 1: first place. So do you take any part responsibility for

40
00:02:06,040 --> 00:02:08,640
Speaker 1: the situation this country finds itself in today.

41
00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:12,760
Speaker 2: So I take responsibility for the funding that we gave

42
00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:15,280
Speaker 2: out as part of COVID to help people with the

43
00:02:15,320 --> 00:02:17,720
Speaker 2: wave SUBSODI, to help businesses with the wave Subjedy, so

44
00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:20,880
Speaker 2: that employees and employees that could stay connected. The COVID

45
00:02:20,919 --> 00:02:24,480
Speaker 2: Residents Support scheme is obviously people needed them money as

46
00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:27,280
Speaker 2: they were losing jobs because of COVID and also because

47
00:02:27,320 --> 00:02:30,040
Speaker 2: of the small business Casher Loan scheme. The issue was

48
00:02:30,080 --> 00:02:32,680
Speaker 2: this of they're borrowing more and it was the tax

49
00:02:32,760 --> 00:02:35,760
Speaker 2: cuts which were unaffordable. The plan that they came up

50
00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:39,800
Speaker 2: with the budget this year, those figures have been revised

51
00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:42,359
Speaker 2: and they're worse than what they were. So we're not

52
00:02:42,440 --> 00:02:45,679
Speaker 2: seeing any plan countries from this government and the plan

53
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:47,320
Speaker 2: is clearly not working.

54
00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:49,359
Speaker 1: Okay, isn't it just rich as well?

55
00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:49,520
Speaker 2: Though?

56
00:02:49,720 --> 00:02:52,120
Speaker 1: You know, you blame or you say that they can't

57
00:02:52,160 --> 00:02:55,880
Speaker 1: blame you, but you when you're talking about what you did,

58
00:02:55,960 --> 00:02:58,600
Speaker 1: always blame COVID. But there was an awful lot of

59
00:02:58,639 --> 00:03:01,560
Speaker 1: other funding and spending decisions that were made that were

60
00:03:01,600 --> 00:03:04,639
Speaker 1: not because of the pandemic but because of your ideological stance,

61
00:03:04,680 --> 00:03:06,880
Speaker 1: whether it was you know, increasing the minimum wage or

62
00:03:06,880 --> 00:03:10,120
Speaker 1: worrying about the conditions of workers and et cetera. You know,

63
00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:12,360
Speaker 1: there was a lot of that spending that was also

64
00:03:12,639 --> 00:03:15,760
Speaker 1: could be considered considering the books and considering the economic

65
00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:19,960
Speaker 1: situation to be profligate that you did for ideological reasons.

66
00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:25,120
Speaker 2: So those two examples that you've used are examples of

67
00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:28,000
Speaker 2: where the cost is on the employer in order to

68
00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:31,080
Speaker 2: pay a bit more those that they had the minimum wage.

69
00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:34,480
Speaker 2: So again, when you look at the debt trajectory for

70
00:03:34,720 --> 00:03:38,000
Speaker 2: New Zealand since the mid two thousand, there have been

71
00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:42,960
Speaker 2: three major crisis which governments have borrowed for. So we

72
00:03:43,160 --> 00:03:47,160
Speaker 2: again going back to the deficit. Nicole Wills's deficit is

73
00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:50,800
Speaker 2: worse than what Brent Robinson in Iran except at the

74
00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:54,680
Speaker 2: height of cope. In your I apologize to carry on

75
00:03:54,720 --> 00:03:55,000
Speaker 2: the current.

76
00:03:55,040 --> 00:03:56,080
Speaker 1: You don't apologize for that.

77
00:03:56,960 --> 00:03:59,640
Speaker 2: I don't apologize for the wage subsidies that was absolutely

78
00:03:59,720 --> 00:04:00,520
Speaker 2: needed at the time.

79
00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:05,800
Speaker 1: Okay, So had you stayed on in power, would the

80
00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:09,320
Speaker 1: financial situation of this country be better now than it

81
00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:11,080
Speaker 1: is in your opinion.

82
00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:15,200
Speaker 2: Well, based on the economic fiscal forecast that we left

83
00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:18,640
Speaker 2: when we were in government for the books, both in budgets,

84
00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:22,320
Speaker 2: both in prefood So in twenty twenty three they were

85
00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:24,719
Speaker 2: stronger than the numbers that were given here. And part

86
00:04:24,760 --> 00:04:26,920
Speaker 2: of the reason why we're stronger is you look at

87
00:04:26,920 --> 00:04:29,760
Speaker 2: the numbers. You look at the spending that happened, that

88
00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:33,240
Speaker 2: was happening in infrastructure, which your school builds, housing builds,

89
00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:37,120
Speaker 2: hospital builds for example. That's all money that gets recycled

90
00:04:37,160 --> 00:04:40,680
Speaker 2: back into the economy through jobs. So the construction sector

91
00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:42,599
Speaker 2: you've seen since the government has come in, there are

92
00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:46,320
Speaker 2: twelve thousand fewer construction roles. All right, sort of stimulus

93
00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:47,120
Speaker 2: is needed.

94
00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:49,880
Speaker 1: Barbara, We've got to go. But guess what, because we

95
00:04:49,960 --> 00:04:52,360
Speaker 1: had a favure of a phone unit with our UK correspondent,

96
00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:53,960
Speaker 1: you've got a good old crack to get to go

97
00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:56,000
Speaker 1: back at what happened over course of yesterday. And I

98
00:04:56,040 --> 00:04:58,320
Speaker 1: thank you for your time in for Waking Up for

99
00:04:58,440 --> 00:05:01,760
Speaker 1: more Family Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News

100
00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:04,839
Speaker 1: Talks it'd be from five am weekdays, or follow the

101
00:05:04,880 --> 00:05:06,320
Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio.