Labour’s secret fiscal hole

Stuff reports:

Labour denies it left a $235 million “hole” in the costings for its GST-free fruit and veges plan, but admits to sending out incorrect information before Sunday’s announcement.

National Party finance spokesperson Nicola Willis accused Labour of miscalculating the cost of its plan to take GST off fruit and vegetables next year.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said, if re-elected, the Government would remove GST from fruit and vegetables from April.

Before Hipkins officially promised this policy during a speech on Sunday, Labour circulated a policy document with reporters that undercounted the cost of his promise. It under-estimated the cost to start it.

So what they sent out to the media under embargo had a $235 million hole in its costings.

The error was quickly rectified when the policy went public, and neither Hipkins nor Finance Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mistakes in their speeches or under questioning.

Note they didn’t tell the media that what they had sent out under embargo was wrong. They just tried to keep it a secret and hoped no one would notice.

The spokesperson insisted the party knew what its GST policy would cost, and that the error was only included in a fact sheet sent to media.

“References to ‘holes’ or ‘uncosted’ by the Opposition are false,” they said.

LOL. We gave the media a detailed fact sheet with a $235 million error in it, but it is false to claim it was a hole!