Here's the
article you quoted from, Cuzzie. It is easy enough to be confident about the next year when dairy prices are around $8 a kg and near their best result ever. Plus the govt may finally be able to spend a little less than it receives in income. My argument all along has been that if jobs are cut from the economy, there are less taxes paid, and there will tend to be more beneficiaries. Without having to change their market economy thinking, National have simply waited until the Christchurch rebuild and the unexpectedly high dairy prices fixed the govt income gap. They have nudged unemployment higher by dropping state staff where they thought it wouldn't be noticed too much. The private sector followed the lead.
In the SST today, there is a chart which shows ACC payouts drop back in years National are in, and tend to increase when Labour is in. The number of court cases with people protesting their ACC claim increases when National are in, and 50% of them win their case. National virtually changed the entire board of ACC when they came in after the 2008 elections. Similar things happen to community trusts.
The National Govt has also severely pulled back on asking for construction tenders on Hospitals and Schools, about 50% of previous value. So it's just as well there is a lot of work in Christchurch for the private sector.