It’s been revealed the tax cut pamphlet released with the Budget was based on made-up people.
That’s despite Christopher Luxon, Nicola Willis and the National Party campaigning on giving an extra $250 a week to the average family; and their Budget Day brochure claiming a family with four children, two at ECE would get $271.
“It turns out these families are actually just ghost families,” Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said.
“Ministers today promised they’d go away and find the real families used in their tax package brochure, only for Treasury officials to then confirm they were in fact made up.
“Officials said there was modelling used to come up with the tax package. But from there, the families in the brochure were created by the Minister punching different scenarios into the tax calculator.
“The Government has plenty of data it could draw on from real people to come up with policies, but it is clear now they didn’t use it.
“Nicola Willis has already had to reverse-engineer how many families would get the $250 that National was elected on. After saying the average family would get that much for months, she was forced to reveal it was actually fewer than 3000.
“While Nicola Willis searches for a real family that benefits by $271, she has managed to find 5000 families who are worse off by at least a dollar.
“It was disingenuous to promise huge tax relief to people and not deliver it. To then use ghost families to try and sell the actual tax package is dishonest,” Barbara Edmonds said.