Grant Robertson has announced that the 2022 budget, due in May next year, will include an additional $6 billion in new operational spending, mainly aimed at funding the government’s proposed health sector changes and also at tackling climate change.
More money that we don’t have. More quantitative easing. When exactly will this government run out of other people’s money? Answer: never… because they just keep printing more. Robertson is making Robert Mugabe look like a prudent financial manager.
Please note that the bulk of the health funding will not be going on new hospitals, recruitment of key medical staff or building ICU capacity. Sure, there will be some of that, with $644 million allocated to hospital upgrades, but that is a drop in a bucket of the overall $6 billion. No. The government will spend most of it on hot air – climate change spending that will make absolutely no difference to the world’s emissions and a small fortune on radically reforming a health system right at the wrong time.
And, let’s face it, that just about sums up everything that this government has done so far.
I would be absolutely furious, were it not for the fact that this government cannot actually do anything. All they do is talk about doing things, so the health reforms will almost certainly never happen. Sure, they will throw money at it like there is no tomorrow, but that is nothing new either.
I have no problem with increasing ICU capacity, recruiting skilled staff that we desperately need and upgrading tired facilities but the government should have started this project early last year when the pandemic hit. That they did not, and the fact that they are now proposing to do this after spending over $52 billion on the COVID response without increasing ICU capacity by one bed, shows just how incompetent and out of their depth they really are.
They are behind the rest of the world in everything. While cases of COVID are increasing in the Northern Hemisphere, deaths from Omicron are extremely few. This is because COVID-19 is behaving like all other viruses; it is petering out. Each new variant is weaker than the last, meaning that, before our winter sets in, the pandemic will most likely be a thing of the past. In allocating $644 million, however, the government is budgeting $544 million for staff to manage outbreaks of COVID next year.
They really don’t have a clue, do they? Too busy paying Shaun Hendy vast amounts of money for his dodgy modelling rather than bothering to study the science of viruses and pandemics. Also too busy allowing Michael Baker and the Wiles woman to fill the population with fear over future outbreaks, cancelling school Christmas concerts on the way.
But I have said this before, and I will say it again. COVID is all this government has got. Once the pandemic is over, they will be back to defending their appalling record on housing, poverty and the economy, which will give the opposition a chance to shine. It is hard getting hits on a government in a pandemic. People are scared… and this government fuels the fear to keep themselves in power. They are not going to let this go without a fight. Omicron has given them a new opportunity and they will milk it for all it is worth.
Among other things, such as printing money, Robertson justifies this on the basis of an ever-increasing tax take, but I am seriously wondering about this. Sure, he raves on in parliament about how well the economy is doing but all I can see everywhere are shortages and delays. I have been waiting for over a week for a parcel to arrive from Auckland, that apparently left the warehouse last Monday.
Countdown are unable to do as many home deliveries due to a shortage of drivers. We all know of cases of people stood down from their jobs because they do not want the vaccine. How does he think these people are going to pay tax? A shortage of deliveries ultimately means a lack of payments; a lack of payments means less tax. And let us not forget about all the businesses that have closed because of lockdowns. They are no longer paying tax.
A nurse I was talking to recently said that they have a chronic shortage of staff, including in ICU, and are having to move patients to other hospitals for treatment… if they can. There are staff shortages and delays everywhere. No truck drivers, not enough health professionals, not enough police or ambulance drivers and continued staff shortages in the construction sector. All these people paid tax… at least, they used to. The only place where there seems to be full employment is in the prime minister’s office, where her massive team of spin doctors continue their valuable work hoodwinking the public. There seems to be no shortage of those.
Didn’t you love Christopher Luxon‘s comment, on the last day of parliament, that he had considered buying the prime minister a cricket ball for Christmas because she is such a master of spin? Apparently, Ajaz Patel’s recent success has been a result of a few extra lessons from Ardern herself.
Robertson’s poor understanding of economics is going to cost this country enormously, as he predicts an economic success that has clearly been curtailed. He focuses entirely on the export sectors, completely forgetting about the local economy. Sure, our exporters are doing well and will certainly be paying their taxes, but he ignores the local economy at his peril. Auckland hairdressers, for example, have survived the last 4 months in paying over the PAYE owed to the IRD from funds received from the government by way of wage subsidies. A never-ending circle of government money is no way to grow the economy and it is no way to fund ridiculous amounts of extra spending either.
This administration will have a lasting legacy. The government’s foolhardiness and lack of understanding of economic matters will create debt that will still be outstanding into the next century. Your great-grandchildren will still be paying for this government’s excesses… unless, of course, they simply default on the debt, crash the currency and become the Zimbabwe of the South Pacific.
Either way, it is not exactly a legacy to be proud of, is it?