{"id":175193,"date":"2025-12-09T09:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T09:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/175193\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T09:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T09:55:08","slug":"ruth-richardson-agrees-to-debate-countrys-fiscal-position-with-nicola-willis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/175193\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruth Richardson agrees to debate country\u2019s fiscal position with Nicola Willis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy message for Ruth Richardson is a very clear one, come and debate me face to face. Come out of the shadows.<\/a> I will argue toe for toe on the prescription that our Government is following,\u201d Willis said.<\/p>\n

\"FinanceFinance Minister Nicola Willis criticised Ruth Richardson’s organisation for its pressure campaign and called for a public debate. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

\u201cI reject your approach and instead of lurking in the shadows with secretly funded ads in the paper, come and debate me right here in Parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cI challenge any of these media outlets here to host that debate. I\u2019m ready anytime, anywhere. I will debate her. She needs to come front up face to face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richardson had earlier laughed when RNZ asked her if she would debate Willis and made no apologies for the pressure campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came to Parliament as a Minister of Finance. She is the Minister of Finance. She has to make the calls.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday afternoon, Taxpayers\u2019 Union spokesperson Tory Relf said Richardson was more than happy to debate the Government\u2019s debt, levels of public spending, balancing the books and growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government promised to reduce public spending. It\u2019s now higher than when Grant Robertson left office,\u201d Relf said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government promised to tackle Labour\u2019s 30% increase in bureaucrats. They\u2019ve managed to reduce the size of the core public service by not even 1%.\u201d<\/p>\n

Relf said all National Party finance ministers since Robert Muldoon have had to tackle structural deficits inherited from Labour, and Willis\u2019 challenge was no different from Richardson\u2019s or Sir Bill English\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government promised to get the books back into surplus. Unless you count a newly invented OBEGALx measure, the Government\u2019s fiscal pathway never gets New Zealand back into surplus,\u201d Relf said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government promised \u2018growth, growth, growth\u2019<\/a>. GDP per capita is lower than when Grant Robertson was in office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government promised to reduce borrowing. Borrowing is still near Grant Robertson-era levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Taxpayers\u2019 Union confirmed Richardson was ready to debate the country\u2019s fiscal position after the release of the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update next Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u2013 RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMy message for Ruth Richardson is a very clear one, come and debate me face to face. Come…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12466,1887,4101,37078,111,43,139,20484,69,8998,24365,6624,61,792,102],"class_list":["post-175193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-agrees","tag-countrys","tag-debate","tag-fiscal","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nicola","tag-nz","tag-position","tag-richardson","tag-ruth","tag-to","tag-willis","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}