10 Oct 2018

Will $5.5b surplus turn around business confidence?

From Morning Report, 8:10 am on 10 October 2018

The Finance Minister Grant Robertson is flush with cash and under increasing pressure to loosen the purse strings. The government's books show a bumper five-and-a-half billion dollar surplus - that's two-point-four billion dollars ahead of Budget forecasts. That's prompted demands, including from the Greens, for more spending on social problems like homelessness. But earlier on Morning Report, Mr Robertson said it's not as if the government is putting all its money aside for a rainy day. The government's economic credibility has been on the line over the last year amid plummeting business confidence - so will the latest figures help turn that around? Kim Campbell heads the Employers and Manufacturers Association. He talks to Susie Ferguson.