Why doesn’t the Treasury just do its own costings on election promises?

Michael Cullen accused then-minister of finance Ruth Richardson of releasing a “screed of lies”. (Image: Getty)

Thu, 28 Sep 2023

Arguments over the cost of National’s election promises dominated the first few weeks of the campaign. With both main parties releasing their fiscal packages this week, that is probably just an entrée for what will come.So, why can’t we rely on the experts at the Treasury to shed some light on all this policy costing palaver?For the answer, we need to flashback to the 1993 election when it was Labour’s policy costings that everyone was arguing about.At that time, the Treasury did provide costings of election promises wh...

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