Phil Twyford really is a special kind of stupid

by Cameron Slater on May 19, 2018 at 8:30am

Phil Twyford really does like showing us his special kind of stupid. Radio NZ reports: Quote:

Treasury is wrong in halving its forecast of the early impact of the Kiwibuild programme, Housing Minister Phil Twyford says.

Treasury expects the government’s building programme to add $2.5 billion to the economy over five years, with its real contribution coming later than previously forecast.

Mr Twyford said a higher forecast from the Ministry of Building, Innovation and Employment was much more in tune with the construction industry.

Treasury have made a number of highly questionable assumptions,

“It’s almost a hypothetical or academic exercise trying to model the effect on overall residential investment. I think they’re simply wrong and it’s unfortunate.”

National housing spokesperson Judith Collins said Treasury’s forecast meant KiwiBuild would contribute “half as much to the building of new houses as Mr Twyford has spent years claiming”.

“He’s arrogantly said all those experts are wrong and he’s right.

“In the last few weeks alone Mr Twyford has been forced to admit he won’t build the number of houses he promised, he won’t build them for the total cost he claimed and he won’t be able to sell them for the price he promised.

“To make matters worse, confidence in the residential construction sector is waning because the government is making it harder to find skilled tradespeople to build the houses as well as to get the credit to pay for the houses.”

Treasury also forecast Budget surpluses to rise gradually, from an improved $3.7 billion in the year ended 30 June, 2018, to $7.3bn in 2022.

It has forecast net debt to fall to 19.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2022.

It expected growth would rise from 2.8 percent in the June 2018 year to peak at 3.6 percent in late 2019 before easing back to 2.5 percent by 2022 due to rising interest rates and slowing jobs growth. End quote.

In his interview with TVNZ he made one especially stupid statement: Quote:

major stoush has broken out between the Housing Minister and Treasurywith Phil Twyford slamming some of those working at the Government’s lead economic and financial adviser as “kids.”

That’s after Treasury downgraded its forecast over how much extra housing investment Kiwibuild will deliver to the economy.

Builders are under the pump and construction is being delayed on some new houses by at least a year.

“We’re really busy as an industry and just forever I get reports of builders wanting more and more people. And they’re just not available, so we’re in a pretty chronic position currently,” Grant Florence of the NZ Certified Builders Association told 1 NEWS.

It has prompted Treasury to downgrade its forecasts for the Government’s Kiwibuild programme.

“I just think some of these kids in Treasury are just fresh out of university and they’re completely disconnected from reality,” Mr Twyford said.

National’s housing spokesperson Judith Collins said her experience is “you should always listen to Treasury”.

“They’re not always going to be exactly the way they see things, but ultimately they’re looking at it from a dispassionate point of view and independent point of view,” she said.

Before Christmas, Treasury said Kiwibuild would result in $5.4 billion of extra residential investment by 2022.

Now it has slashed that number in half, saying some of that investment won’t happen as quickly.

“One of the mistakes I think Treasury have made is that they’ve assumed that the investment has to be made before the houses are built,” Mr Twyford said.

The Government has also promised to build 1600 state houses a year.

Currently there are almost 8000 households in need of state housing and National says it would have built more.

“National went into the last election promising over 6,000 state houses over the next three years. So we were promising on 2000 a year,” Ms Collins said.

Mr Twyford said: “The opposition had nine years and they allowed the housing crisis to spin out of control.”

The Government is promising there’s no change in its plan to build more houses, and there will still be 100,000 affordable homes in a decade. End quote.

What an utter moron. Abusing civil servants is one of the first signs that you aren’t coping. Then uttering stupid statements like his one on investment just proves that you are under pressure, don’t understand your portfolio and are losing the argument.

Phil Twyford is the government’s biggest risk right now. He also needs to get some body language coaching to try to cover up when he is lying.

I’m not sure abusing Treasury officials is particularly smart. All he has done is show that when under pressure the Labour party return to form as the Nasty party.