The Wellbeing Budget has been released, and $2.9 billion has been allocated to infrastructure.
Managing editor of Newsroom Pro and economic writer Bernard Hickey says there's a hole in the Wellbeing Budget, and it could be disastrous.
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"We're very concerned there'll be an earthquake, or there'll be a global financial crisis and we'll need all our capacity for that."
Hickey says the Government wants New Zealand to have 20 percent debt and, in his opinion, this is a foolish move.
"When you generate your budget you have to have an anchor and essentially the Government’s anchor is having debt at a net 20 percent of GDP. Now everyone else in the world has debt closer to 60 or 70 if you're in the developed world and the world's bond markets do not think New Zealand has a debt problem," he told Newshub Nation on Thursday.
He says more focus needs to be put on reengineering our infrastructure and economy so, if there is another disaster, New Zealand will be ready.
"It doesn't really address in a major way, those real challenges, it’s again disappointing, although not surprising, the Government is not using its balance sheet strength to signal a multi-decade reengineering of our economy and our society, using a lot of money that people overseas want to lend us," he told Newshub Nation on Thursday.
"We should be using that freshly printed money from the rest of the world money to rebuild our cities and improve our well-being properly."
Watch the full interview above.
Newshub.
