Our recommendations

Commentary on He Tirohanga Mokopuna 2021.

We encourage the Treasury to consider the overall purpose and place of the long-term fiscal statement and long-term insights briefing within the public financial management system.

We recommend that the Treasury:

  1. review its current process for preparing long-term fiscal statements and long-term insights briefings to identify future improvements, including:
    • whether to continue to integrate the two documents;
    • how it can more effectively incorporate public feedback into their preparation; and
    • how these documents will support and connect to the long-term insights briefings of other departments;
  2. continue to develop its modelling approaches and projections:
    • to test their sensitivity and reliability, and ensure that the two models’ assumptions and projections align with other elements of the public financial management system; and
    • better reflect the impact of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund assets in the calculation of net debt;
  3. consider a wider and more integrated range of scenarios that could take place in different time periods within the 40-year horizon to provide more realism and relevance; and
  4. broaden the measurement and analysis of financial sustainability and consider in more depth how it relates to other dimensions of well-being.