The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces.
"Christopher Luxon is choosing to prolong the recession and kneecap productivity through merciless cuts," says the Green Party Co-Leader and Finance spokesperson, Chlöe Swarbrick.
"Today's HYEFU shows the Government's trickle-down decisions come at the cost of the very 'economic growth' they crow so much about. It doesn't add up and it doesn't make sense, and they clearly don't care.
"For all the bluster, 'the economy' is just all of us, the things we make, and the rules we put in place to create the world we want to live in. Under a Green Government, people and planet would be put before profit, through a fairer tax system and a guaranteed minimum income.
"But right now, the Government is redistributing wealth upwards with their trickle-down tax cuts, while gutting public services and infrastructure spending, and shifting costs onto regular people.
"This is the austerity play book: defund public services to failure, watch them fail, then privatise; take the so-called 'cost' off the Government's books and watch those costs rise for regular people.
"Christopher Luxon's Government wants to play Monopoly when what we need is a responsible Government. It would pay for them to learn that the game was designed to educate children about the pitfalls of an economy premised on land speculation and luck," says Chlöe Swarbrick.
