Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

As we squabble over toast for new mums in hospitals and funding for street dance performers in Auckland, we are penny pinching a lot lately, aren't we? We're bickering about all sorts of things, should nurses be getting the free toast in the smoko room if they're doing a night shift? The insignificance of all of these debates is being laid bare this morning. There's an article in the Herald, it's a bit of a truth bomb from the Treasury boss. She's leaving the job, the data is not really new, but the way that she is speaking so openly and frankly is quite new. Her name is Dr Caralee McLiesh. You probably don't know her name, she doesn't do many interviews, she doesn't want to be in the press. She's Australian, she's apolitical, and her five year term coming to an end. She's actually going back to Australia to be the auditor general over there. So, what has she said? Well, she said the chickens are coming home to roost after covid, we have a structural deficit and it is so bad that the penny pinching or the pin