Aussie steel giant laughing at Labour, but the joke is on taxpayers

"Today's admission from NZ Steel that they could have upgraded to electric furnaces without Labour's corporate welfare is another example of why New Zealand needs to end its reliance on corporate welfare while the country is billions of dollars in debt," says ACT Leader David Seymour.

"Whether it's steel production, concerts or mussel farms, when the Government starts picking winners in the economy, taxpayers always lose. At the time of the subsidy Chris Hipkins justified it by saying it was an emissions reduction policy, he was always wrong because New Zealand’s emissions are capped under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) meaning any emissions saved by the project just occur somewhere else.

"We pay $24.8m a day servicing the interest on our debt. By the time you have finished reading this press release, another $50,000 will be gone. In 2018/19 it was $10.1m a day.

"New Zealand cannot afford another government that spends without thinking about hardworking New Zealanders. But the challenge is bigger than locking Labour out.

"While this Government has gotten rid of much of Labour's corporate welfare, taxpayers still spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on industry grants and economic development subsidies directed at specific companies. Government does not have a good record of picking winners. The businesses that actually drive jobs and wages do not need a grant from Wellington, but competitive conditions, lower costs, less red tape, and a government that gets out of the way.

"ACT Ministers have driven $14 billion of savings across three Budgets, helping avoid more debt, taxes, and pressure on interest rates. That discipline has helped put the Government on a path back to surplus a year earlier, but it needs to be delivered year on year.

"If we want New Zealand to be the best little country in the world, we need a smaller, more efficient government that focuses every dollar on results."