Labour said it would also \u201caim\u201d to reduce net debt down to 20% of GDP \u201cover time\u201d. It would also seek to maintain current levels of core Crown expenses of about 33% of GDP once the party\u2019s capital gains tax was fully implemented. <\/p>\n
Criticising the current Government for high unemployment levels, Labour also committed to restoring the Reserve Bank\u2019s dual mandate so monetary policy was developed alongside supporting maximum sustainable employment, as well as keeping inflation between the 1-3% band. <\/p>\n
Removing the dual mandate and focusing the Bank solely on tackling inflation was the first piece of legislation passed by the coalition Government, which argued it gave the Bank clarity about its role in the economy. <\/p>\n
Labour would also bring back wellbeing reporting, which was also removed by the current Government from the Public Finance Act. Introduced in 2020 with a first report in 2022, Treasury was required to produce wellbeing reports which described the state of wellbeing in New Zealand, how it had changed and what risks it faced. <\/p>\n
\u201cLabour will use wellbeing measures alongside traditional economic measures to test whether government policies are actually helping New Zealanders get ahead \u2013 whether people have well-paid work, can cover the bills, are healthier and more secure, and feel confident about the future,\u201d the party\u2019s document said. <\/p>\n
The party also committed to establishing a Parliamentary Budget Office to \u201cprovide independent analysis of the government books and election commitments\u201d. National has previously expressed support for an independent costings unit but did not progress it alongside coalition partners New Zealand First and Act this term. <\/p>\n
\u201cNational came in promising to fix the economy. Instead, unemployment is up, businesses are struggling and everything costs more,\u201d Labour leader Chris Hipkins said. <\/p>\n
\u201cLabour will get the books back into shape but we won\u2019t do it by making life harder for New Zealanders or cutting the services they rely on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour said it would also \u201caim\u201d to reduce net debt down to 20% of GDP \u201cover time\u201d. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[284293,2851,1643,1396,31742,16639,51851,1122,1644,78,6721,5983,122649,29135,111,43,139,69,148267,7254,30503,15483,10665,23365,1527,44935,6123,1533,379],"class_list":["post-577382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-284293","tag-also","tag-bank","tag-banks","tag-considered","tag-decisions","tag-dual","tag-employment","tag-financial","tag-in","tag-labour","tag-levels","tag-mandate","tag-monetary","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pledging","tag-policy","tag-promises","tag-promising","tag-reserve","tag-restore","tag-return","tag-surplus","tag-while","tag-will","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577382","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=577382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}