“Jacinda Ardern twisted herself in knots trying to explain why inflation has gone from half of wage growth to double in the space of five months,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.
“Yesterday in Parliament Jacinda told me “wage growth being at around 3.5 per cent and inflation around 2 percent.” Wage growth is actually 2.4 per cent and inflation is 4.9 per cent.
“Today she tried to explain it away as the figures she used being correct back in May when the Budget was delivered.
“What she didn’t even attempt to explain is why there has been such a seismic shift in those figures in just a few short months.
“That’s because she knows the answer is her Government’s policies. New Zealand had the second largest fiscal policy response in the OECD, before Delta hit. The Government was not ready for Delta, and billions more have been borrowed and pumped into the economy since August. We almost certainly now have the largest fiscal stimulus in the OECD.
“All the borrowed and printed money that the Government has pushed into the New Zealand economy pushes up the price of everything, especially housing. The Government’s conservative approach to COVID-19 depends on cheap money, but cheap money means inflation.
“New Zealanders are being squeezed in every direction. The Prime Minister might want to live in the past, but she can’t ignore the pain she’s inflicted on Kiwi families and how they’re feeling it with every purchase.”