The National Party is blaming high inflation on the Government spending like "drunken sailors" while Labour is hitting back by sassing the party over inconsistent messaging.
Attorney-General David Parker and National MP Paul Goldsmith joined AM on Friday to discuss the cost of living crisis and high inflation.
It comes after the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures revealed annual inflation hit 6.9 percent in the March quarter. That's the largest year-on-year increase in nearly 32 years and is up from the 5.9 percent rate recorded for the year to December 2021, itself the highest since 1990. The CPI rose 1.8 percent in the March quarter compared to the December quarter.
The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting supply chain and labour issues, as well as Russia's invasion of Ukraine, are all pushing the prices of goods and services up.
But things got heated during Friday's discussion when Goldsmith hit out at Labour over its impact on inflation.
"Look there is an international element to this and you can't control that, nobody can control that. So you have got to focus on what you can control so here in New Zealand what can you do?
"Well, you can take the pressure off by not overstimulating the economy by the Government spending like drunken sailors. By having an overly loose monetary policy driven by a change to the way we operate the Reserve Bank," Goldsmith told AM co-host Ryan Bridge.
"The sooner we get some good quality Government will help," he continued. "That's what we've been lacking and we've just got this Government that's feeding the beast at the moment and making it worse and families are really struggling."
But his comments didn't go down well with Parker, who hit out at Goldsmith over his party's mixed messaging.
"When we supported New Zealand with $20 billion of wage support during COVID you called for more, please be consistent," he said.
In 2021 National, then led by Judith Collins, produced an alternative COVID-19 economic plan that included a boost to the wage subsidy, tax cuts for small businesses, and $100 hospitality vouchers for fully vaccinated adults. It also called on the Government to boost its COVID-19 leave scheme.
Earlier in the interview, Parker said while prices are expected to stop rising so quickly by next year, it could be a while before inflation drops.
"The oil price part of it you would expect would settle down if the war in Ukraine ends, we don't know when that will be, we hope it will be soon.
"The supply constraints out of China, well you see predictions of that being a year perhaps to settle. That doesn't mean to say prices will continue at the same rate of increase because of that," he said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has previously denied claims the Government's spending is to blame for inflation.
Her comments came after former National MP Simon Bridge and ACT leader David Seymour both blamed the Government's record spending during the COVID-19 pandemic for inflation.
"Grant Robertson's spending has been 40 percent higher throughout his time as Finance Minister than it was under National. This year he's planning to increase that to a staggering 68 percent at $128 billion, with $6 billion in new spending," Bridges said in January.
"While elevated spending was appropriate through much of the pandemic, some easing off and greater focus on the quality of spending is now required."
Seymour added: "The Government's relentless borrowing and spending has added to the cost of just about everything. Locking the economy down and borrowing $50 billion so far has left us with a mountain of debt and rising prices."
But Ardern disagreed.
"I refute that, I absolutely refute that," she told reporters. "The alternative, if they're proposing it, is that we should not have had a wage subsidy in place, and that is what has helped cushion the blow of the pandemic in New Zealand.
"There's a reason the United States has even had inflation surpassing these rates announced today. Particularly what we're seeing in oil prices and international tensions that affect those oil prices, are a contributing factor."
