Where is the money?

Nicola Willis and Grant Robertson both seemed open to public-private partnerships at a markets and debt summit last week. (Image: Dileepa Fonseka/BusinessDesk)

Dileepa Fonseka

Mon, 18 Sep 2023

The National party’s foreign buyer tax caused them no end of grief last week, but in the future, politicians may well wistfully look back on this time as one when they still technically had money to spend. In last Tuesday's pre-election fiscal update (Prefu), the biggest cost increases to come were not in the form of contractors, consultants, public servants or more parties for the Ministry of Pacific Peoples, but increased debt financing costs and superannuation. And if interest rates stay higher for longer while...

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