Latest / Best of Business / Nicola Willis: Finance Minister says more details will come regarding billion dollar pre-Budget allocation

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Nicola Willis: Finance Minister says more details will come regarding billion dollar pre-Budget allocation · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed be
• 0:12
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• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Good evening and welcome to the program. She's all go
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: on the south coast of Wellington right now, so stay
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: safe and joining us from Wellington, It's welcome to the
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Finance Minister Nicola will Us.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Hello Nicola, Hi Andrew.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Very good to see you on Friday night at Matt
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  Speaker 2: Bellinger at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, letting your hair down
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: and enjoying some very five music. Indeed, yeah, and.
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  Speaker 3: I got to catch up with my brother and my
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  Speaker 3: brother in law, so it was a good night.
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  Speaker 2: Was Now what's with that one billion dollars pre allocated
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  Speaker 2: in the budget? The Prime Minister this morning said it
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  Speaker 2: had something to do with provisions for accounting. Jordan Williams
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  Speaker 2: reckons it's Solar. I've got someone texting me right now
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  Speaker 2: asking if it's a bribe for Winston Peters. So what
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  Speaker 2: is it?
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  Speaker 3: It is none of the above, and I'm afraid it's
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  Speaker 3: very boring. So are you ready for the boring explanation please?
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  Speaker 3: It reflects our provision for a potential capital to operating
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  Speaker 3: forecast change and transport spend that is subject to future
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  Speaker 3: decisions and may or may not eventuate. So that is
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  Speaker 3: literally what it is, and we will be taking policy
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  Speaker 3: decisions on that over the next few weeks and months,
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  Speaker 3: will be very clear about what those decisions are, so
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  Speaker 3: that by the pre election update when we open up
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  Speaker 3: the books, we can be clear whether that money is
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  Speaker 3: in fact required or not.
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  Speaker 2: Search for a road, what road.
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  Speaker 3: No, it's about the forecasting of transport spending and how
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  Speaker 3: much of that will be capital spending and how much
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  Speaker 3: of that will be operating spending. So what we did
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  Speaker 3: at the budget was we were transparent that some money
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  Speaker 3: that had previously been provisioned as capital spending may need
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  Speaker 3: to be seen as operating spending, so we provisioned for
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  Speaker 3: that against the operating allowance. However, this all came up
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  Speaker 3: quite late in the budget process, and so we want
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  Speaker 3: to work through a few more questions and issues before
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  Speaker 3: we make that allocation permanent.
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  Speaker 2: And is it because you're sort of negotiating public private
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  Speaker 2: partnerships or vating through you might have to actually put
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  Speaker 2: some of your own money in.
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  Speaker 3: No, No, it's literally that we've been going through the
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  Speaker 3: books of the Land Transport Fund. Some issues came up
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  Speaker 3: late in the piece, and so we wanted to be
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  Speaker 3: upfront about that.
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  Speaker 2: It's only a couple of weeks since the budget. Why
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  Speaker 2: can you have said it then? Because it is a
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  Speaker 2: transparency issue and if Labor did this, you'd jump up
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  Speaker 2: and down about holes and a lack of transparency.
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  Speaker 3: Well, no, we were completely transparent, which is that we
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  Speaker 3: provisioned for it for exactly that reason. I'd just like
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  Speaker 3: to give you a bit of context. Andrew, in their
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  Speaker 3: pre election update in twenty twenty three, Labour had pre
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  Speaker 3: allocated more than half of the twenty budget twenty twenty
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  Speaker 3: four budget and about that much of the following two budgets.
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  Speaker 3: They had allocated almost nine billion dollars worth of spending
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  Speaker 3: from the budget twenty four budget. That is not what
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  Speaker 3: is happening here. It's a very small pre allocation relative
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  Speaker 3: to that, and as I say, we're intending to take
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  Speaker 3: further work on that, so it may be that we
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  Speaker 3: unwind some of it, but either way will be completely upfront.
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  Speaker 3: You've changed about those costs.
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  Speaker 2: Look how you've changed being in this job. You say
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  Speaker 2: it's a very small allocation. It's one billion dollars.
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  Speaker 3: Reference nine billion dollars. Okay, well, compared to Labour's nine
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  Speaker 3: billion dollars that they pre allocated. I just think it's
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  Speaker 3: a little bit hypocritical in arms about it.
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  Speaker 2: So fresh from Labor saying, well, what's happening with this
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  Speaker 2: dodgy one billion dollars which you've told us the boring
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  Speaker 2: reason for it, they now say you've got four hundred
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  Speaker 2: and fifty million dollars set aside for the Middle East
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  Speaker 2: crisis if it escalates, and they're calling that a slush
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  Speaker 2: fund available to you all the way up to the election.
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  Speaker 2: Is that a fair point?
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  Speaker 3: At the opposite is the case. They're absolutely wrong what
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  Speaker 3: we have done. As we've said, we acknowledge that events
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  Speaker 3: in the Middle East are beyond our control. It is
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  Speaker 3: possible that over the next twelve months, fuel prices could
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  Speaker 3: spike again, or they could stay a lot higher for longer.
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  Speaker 3: If that happens, we acknowledge that we may consider further temporary,
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  Speaker 3: timely and targeted responses. So rather than wish that away
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  Speaker 3: and pretend it would never happen and then just wrap
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  Speaker 3: it up on the debt, instead, we took the prudent
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  Speaker 3: step of provisioning for that in our budget. This is
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  Speaker 3: us being really upfront, really transparent. It's something we hope
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  Speaker 3: won't happen. Hope is not a strategy, so we've prepared accordingly.
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  Speaker 2: So money that has been targeted, if you need it,
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  Speaker 2: it's nearly half a billion dollars, it must be something
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  Speaker 2: because you've costed it. What are you imagining might be happening.
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  Speaker 3: It's no, it's us planning for the worst case scenario,
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  Speaker 3: which would be fuel prices going higher again and staying
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  Speaker 3: higher for longer.
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  Speaker 2: What would happen side.
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  Speaker 3: Funding, Well, at that point, we would consider temporary and
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  Speaker 3: targeted measures to respond to that. And you've seen the
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  Speaker 3: sorts of things that we've done already. So, for example,
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  Speaker 3: we provided that increased to the in work text credit
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  Speaker 3: for low income working families. We provided additional support for
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  Speaker 3: the mileage for those health and community workers who have
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  Speaker 3: to travel around in their cars for work. We've provided
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  Speaker 3: additional funding for a number of government agencies who faced
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  Speaker 3: fuel costs. So those are the responses we've already taken
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  Speaker 3: that have already been budgeted for. But we're acknowledging, Look,
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  Speaker 3: if there was another big spike, we might need access
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  Speaker 3: to some funding rather than just do a labor and
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  Speaker 3: rack that on the debt. We've provisioned for.
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  Speaker 2: That all right now, mister Luxelan. I went over to
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  Speaker 2: see mister Alberines and they seem to have a jolly
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  Speaker 2: good old time and they seem to get on quite well.
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  Speaker 2: And there was a lot of too and throw and
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  Speaker 2: of course there was some talk that when you attacked
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  Speaker 2: Australia on Labour's tax reform that that was a bit
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  Speaker 2: vicious and we're just a little bit heavy. But Anthony
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  Speaker 2: Albernese called it bentter. So was it benter or did
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  Speaker 2: you have a real gripe?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, prominents to Albanesi and prominence to luck and
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  Speaker 3: get along very well. And I get along very well
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  Speaker 3: with my counterpart Jim Charmers as well. We've got a
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  Speaker 3: healthy rivalry Australia in New Zealand, just as it is
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  Speaker 3: on the sports field, so it is between us as countries.
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  Speaker 3: You know, the Aussies come here and they compete for
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  Speaker 3: our police and our skilled workers from time to time. Equally,
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  Speaker 3: I've been putting out the welcome mat saying, look, if
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  Speaker 3: you want to do a startup in New Zealand, good newss.
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  Speaker 3: No capital gains tax here, so come here to create
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  Speaker 3: your jobs and then comes, we'd love to have you.
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  Speaker 3: And as Anthony Albanezi acknowledges, that kind of banter is
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  Speaker 3: all in the spirit of a healthy competitive relationship.
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  Speaker 2: And let's just get back, of course, to the fuel crisis,
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  Speaker 2: which is still the dominant force in the world's economy.
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  Speaker 2: You've got an additional ninety three million liters of diesel
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  Speaker 2: storage at Marson Point.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, and we have fuel and a tanker
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  Speaker 3: already on its way. It's less than a fortnight away
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  Speaker 3: to fill up those tankers and then another shipment due
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  Speaker 3: in July, and that's to provide an additional nine days
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  Speaker 3: worth of fuel, so that we've got a bigger buffer.
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  Speaker 3: If everything took her turn for the worst and we
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  Speaker 3: were thinking there were challenges getting diesel, that would mean
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  Speaker 3: that we had a bigger reserve here in New Zealand. Again,
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  Speaker 3: it's us as a government being prudent. We hope for
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  Speaker 3: the best, we plan for the worst.
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  Speaker 2: All right, Nichola's see you is another gig. I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to Lee on Thomas on Tuesday, so I'll look out
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  Speaker 2: for you if you're there, letting your head down.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I'm afraid me going to a gig is a
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  Speaker 3: rear event, but I really hope you enjoyed it.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. And that is our Finance Minister.
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  Speaker 2: That is Nikola Willis.
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