Nine billion dollars a year. $750 million a month. Or $24 million a day.

That’s how much interest we are currently paying on government debt. Just the interest.

But, despite that, the Government thinks it’s a good idea to borrow more money to cover the cost of the revenue it’s not going to get because of the fuel tax freeze.

The Transport Minister has confirmed that more money is going to have to be bow-wowed. Because the Government’s books are in deficit.

Chris Bishop says borrowing is the only way to do it, given the state of the country’s finances.

Which comes at a time when we are spending $9 billion a year just paying the interest on government debt.

It is nothing short of lunacy.

I’m not against governments borrowing money. But it has to be money for essential things like infrastructure.

If we have to, borrow money to build roads. If we have to, borrow money to build hospitals.

But don’t go borrowing money because you’ve decided, for whatever reason, to deny yourself revenue because of this political paranoia about taxation.

Politicians go on all the time about the Government having to run the books just like you and I run our household budgets.

So sticking with that analogy, what the Government’s doing with this plan to borrow money to pay for its decision to play politics with taxation is like someone getting a loan from the bank to pay for the kids’ pocket money.

The kids are happy but, because the money has to be paid back with interest, they struggle to pay the powerbill during winter.

Sounds nuts? That’s exactly what the Government is doing with its borrowing to pay for less tax revenue. It’s exactly what Labour did too.

Remembering that the long-term picture when it comes to government debt isn’t pretty. We’re heading for a situation in the next few decades where government debt will be 180 percent of GDP.

Yet, these politicians in Labour and National, claim to be the ones who know what it takes to run the economy. And they think more debt is the answer. Do me a favour.

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Opposition Leader Chris Hipkins is waiting for the Government to release its pre-election fiscal update before explaining how Labour would fund a freeze to fuel taxes over the next three years.

Speaking to Canterbury Mornings, Hipkins said Labour would need to wait until the government's books were opened to determine how it would fund the election promise, but he backed the party's plan to ease petrol costs for Kiwis.

"What I'm being really clear about is that we're not going to ask New Zealanders in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis to pay another 25 cents a litre every time they fill up the car."

Hipkins also discussed Labour's policy to guarantee jobs for all graduate nurses, the latest Roy Morgan poll numbers, and the Paris Agreement, which currently divides the coalition government.

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You know how we’ve been saying for ages how much of a problem e-scooters, in particular, are?

How we’ve been saying for ages that, in the wrong hands, they’re death traps? How we’ve said all that, but we’ve done absolutely nothing about it?

I reckon we need to be looking at what they’re doing over in Queensland right now. And I think we should do the same.

Because, as of this week, Queensland is the first state in Australia - and one of the very, very few jurisdictions anywhere in the world - to set age limits and licensing requirements for e-bike and e-scooter riders.

Which is a brilliant move.

As of this week, in Queensland, anyone wanting to ride an e-scooter or e-bike on their own needs to be 16 and, at the very least, have a learners driver’s licence.

As of this week, in Queensland, there is a new speed limit for e-scooters - 12 kilometres per hour near pedestrians.

And because people will now need at least their learners licence to use these things in public, the police in Queensland have a lot more power to intervene when someone’s being a muppet.

So, when they’re breaking the speed limit, the cops can now stop them and fine them.

If they’re under-16 or if they don’t have a licence, the cops can ping them.

If they’re riding an e-scooter or an e-bike drunk, they can be done for it.

What’s more, the parents of any kids in Queensland caught breaking these new rules can be fined.

They’re doing this over there because people have had a gutsful of e-scooters, e-bikes and those electric dirt bikes.

But we have too, haven’t we? And we’re not imagining how much of a problem they’ve become. Especially the e-scooters.

Between 2022 and January this year, ACC claims for e-scooter crashes totalled $49,580,000. On average, that’s $12.5 million a year.

What you don’t get from those figures is the ongoing consequences of those injuries.

The numbers show too why what Australia is doing with its age limit makes sense and why we need to do the same here.

Over the last two years, there have been 3,090 e-scooter ACC claims from teenagers. Last year, here in New Zealand, 10-to-19-year-olds were the most crash-prone e-scooter riders.

You might have noticed that I said crash-prone, not accident-prone. Because most e-scooter injuries are avoidable. They’re not accidents.

That’s because of the way people use these things. Especially, the hire scooters.

Which, by the way, do require people to verify that they’re over 18 before using them. But we know that a lot of kids just use their parents' details to get around that.

Besides which, putting it on the scooter operators makes no sense. Which is why I think it would be an absolutely no-brainer to do what they’re doing in Queensland.

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