We currently pay back $9 Billion each year to service core crown debt that Labour incurred

Misleading
Christopher Luxon
Simeon Brown
Matt Doocey
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Christopher Luxon has said the government's "interest bill alone is now nearly $10 billion a year, more than the total cost of Police, Corrections, the Ministry of Justice, Customs and Defence added together." He has also said it is equivalent to "five Dunedin hospitals" a year.  He did not state if this was before or after they cancelled the project they inherited.

National finance spokesperson Nicola Willis has separately put the figure at "$9 billion a year, almost as much as gets invested in primary and secondary education."

New Zealand does pay roughly $9 billion annually to service Crown debt. That figure covers interest on all Crown debt, not debt specifically incurred by the previous Labour government.

Individual loans carry a range of interest rates, with Covid-era borrowing locked in at some of the lowest rates on the books.

But if the coalition Govt is wanting to focus on sources of debt, let's have a look at that;

In 2022 Treasury altered how Net Debt was calculated, making that a confusing value to track, so we'll look at Gross Debt (Total Crown Borrowing) instead.

  • Oct 2017(National leaves / Labour enters) : $87.1 billion
  • June 2019(Pre-COVID Benchmark) : $84.3 billion
  • June 2021(Mid-Pandemic Borrowing) : $121.2 billion
  • Nov 2023(Labour leaves / National enters) : $155.5 billion
  • Mid-2026 (Now-ish)(Current National Coalition Status) : $223.8 billion

Labour has a steady decline until Covid. Overall score: +$68.4 billion
National has had a steady increase with no mid-term global crisis: Overall score: +$68.3 billion

Imagine where we would be if Covid hadn't of happened.