Willis dares Hipkins 'come clean' with Labour spending gap claim

Labour has hit back after National's Nicola Willis dared the party to "come clean" about how it would pay for its commitments — as she releases analysis claiming a multi-billion-dollar hole in the opposition's spending plans.

Willis released a costings document earlier today, titled "Labour's Hidden Bill", which alleges an $18.2 billion gap between what National calculates as Labour's $21 billion in commitments and the $2.8 billion the party expects to raise from a capital gains tax.

"New Zealanders deserve to know how Labour will raise the rest of the money required to pay for their promises," Willis said, raising the prospect that Labour could abandon a return to surplus, expand its capital gains tax or reverse the coalition's tax cuts.

“It is now just five months until the election and New Zealanders still have no idea how Labour would meet its commitments or whether it will reverse Government decisions it has disagreed with.

"The Budget clearly sets out the state of the Government’s finances. Labour no longer has any excuse to withhold how it will pay for its spending plans.

"It should come clean with the public about its hidden bill.”

The document's costings are based on National's own analysis of Budget figures and its opposition counterpart's announcements and other public statements.

Willis said: "We're only just getting out of the blocks in the campaign, and Labour, no doubt, intend to pronounce a number of other spending promises, and my point is they are building that on the edifice of an already gaping hole."

Labour was quick to dismiss the analysis, with finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds calling it "about as desperate as it gets" and saying Willis should be scrutinising the Government's own books instead.

Pay equity, public sector cuts, school lunches in focus

The analysis relies on several assumptions that Labour itself has not fully confirmed, and in some cases, the document attributes spending to the party based on its previous opposition to Government policies rather than formal commitments to reverse them.

Willis defended that approach, arguing the party had sown uncertainty about its plans.

"What this highlights is the ambiguity that Labour have intentionally created about what their policies are, because they know that if they are clear, the spending hole will be even clearer," she said to media at Parliament.

The single largest figure is roughly $11 billion to reinstate the former pay equity regime.

Willis said this reflected independent Treasury forecasts of the previous scheme.

"They cannot have it both ways. Either they do not intend to fully reinstate the pay equity regime or they are saying they no longer think Treasury is a credible costings unit."

Last year, Labour's Chris Hipkins refused to publicly commit to returning all the money originally allocated for pay equity back to the scheme if elected this year.

Willis today challenged him to clarify the party's position publicly, saying workers believed Labour had promised to restore the regime.

"If he is not reinstating the pay equity regime, I dare him to say it on the news tonight," she said. "Let's see him tell the PSA, the CTU, and all of the workers he has promised that he will be reinstating that regime, too, that actually he was just being a politician."

Labour hits back at National attack

Other commitments listed include foregoing dividends from companies placed in Labour's proposed Future Fund ($2.8 billion), reversing public sector baseline savings ($2.8 billion), reversing income-related rent changes ($542 million), returning to locally made school lunches ($427 million), capping public transport fares and health spending.

When asked whether including policies the party had not explicitly committed to, such as reversing the Government's rent changes, was fair, Willis said Labour had committed to them "in the rhetoric." Labour previously called the changes "cruel".

"I find it difficult to reconcile that rhetoric with him also saying, but just quietly, we do the same. He hasn't said that bit out loud," she said.

"I'm challenging him today to say that bit out loud ... I'm very happy to correct this document if my assumptions are wrong. Very happy indeed."

The Future Fund estimate, for example, also assumes the Crown's stake in five named companies — Genesis, Mercury, Meridian, Air New Zealand, and Transpower — would be transferred to the fund, an assumption Willis acknowledged Labour had not detailed.

Willis said the five were the largest dividend payers to the Crown and that National had been conservative in its choices made in its report.

Asked why National itself had not yet released full costings for its own campaign policies, Willis said the party would release two versions of a fiscal plan, including its fiscal strategy early in the campaign and policy-by-policy costings over the coming months.

Willis also rejected suggestions that producing such a document while in Government set an unreasonably high bar five months out from the November election.

Labour has previously said it would set out its full plans after the Budget, which was delivered more than two weeks ago.

Responding to National's claims, the party's finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said the attack was "about as desperate as it gets".

"We will release a fully costed fiscal plan later this year so New Zealanders can see exactly how our priorities stack up and how they will be paid for," she said.

"National wouldn’t be attacking Labour’s plans if they weren’t worried about their own. This is simply a distraction from their own record because they know New Zealanders are worse off after three years of broken promises.

"If Nicola Willis was truly worried, she should investigate her Government’s own $56 billion hole in its roads of national significance and also explain why Government debt is higher now than it was forecast to be pre-election to the tune of $4.4 billion.

"Budgets are about choices. National chose tax breaks for landlords and special treatment for tobacco lobbyists. Labour will choose working people, families, health, education and the services New Zealanders rely on.”

She also accused Willis of continuing to "politicise paying women properly".

"It’s disappointing to see Nicola Willis continue to politicise paying women properly, when she was one of the loudest in support of the Bill passing under Labour, when it was politically convenient," Edmonds said.

“Labour has been upfront that we will introduce a simple CGT that nine out of ten New Zealanders won’t pay. "