“Labour’s cost of living crisis is hitting our most vulnerable New Zealanders with the amount paid out for hardship up 18 per cent over the past year,” says ACT’s Social Development spokesperson Karen Chhour.
“Labour’s cost of living crisis is hitting our most vulnerable New Zealanders with the amount paid out for hardship up 18 per cent over the past year,” says ACT’s Social Development spokesperson Karen Chhour.
“Kiwi families are doing it tough. Labour has borrowed and spent which has fuelled the inflation fire. We’ve heard heartbreaking stories of people having to choose between paying the rent or feeding their kids.
“Earlier this week it was revealed that 10,000 more children relying on charity and families unable to put food on the table, the human cost of inflation has never been more evident in New Zealand.
“The Government has to take responsibility for its own policies, namely its spending, its Reserve Bank legislation and appointment of Adrian Orr, its long closure of the border and its expensive ideological experiment called the ‘immigration reset.’
“Any pretence of careful economic management was abandoned long ago. In the past financial year the Government spent $151 billion, $17 billion more than the year prior. Inflation is too much money chasing after too few goods, and this Government has borrowed, printed and spent too much money.
“The Reserve Bank got it completely wrong. It distorted government policymaking by giving it cheap credit, now we are all paying the cost, literally in the rising price of everything.
“Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s insistence on a dual target helped to encourage irresponsible monetary policy, which subsidised bad government policy.
“There’s always a human cost to this sort of economic mismanagement, and sadly we are seeing it play out across New Zealand households."