Annex 3
The process of producing this statement
Affording Our Future is the third Statement on the Long-Term Fiscal Position the Treasury has published. Our process for preparing this Statement was very different from our past processes, however. The process leading up to this publication was particularly open and collaborative, and involved contributions from a broad range of people.
Our process included:
- In conjunction with the Victoria University Business School, establishing an External Panel to test our analysis as we went along. We held four Panel sessions in 2012 and two in 2013. Most of the Panel sessions were followed by the release of a summary of the Panel's discussion and the papers that the Panel considered. For details of the Panel's membership and summaries of its discussions, see www.victoria.ac.nz/sacl/about/chair-in-public-finance/events/long-term-fiscal-external-panel.
- Running a competition for high school students to write essays and give presentations on how to address New Zealand's long-term fiscal challenges. A team of four students from James Hargest College, Invercargill, was the winner. The Victoria University Business School co-sponsored this initiative. A competition for high school students (on different topics) is now an annual Treasury event. Details about the 2012 competition are available here: www.treasury.govt.nz/government/longterm/schoolschallenge.
- Running the Affording Our Future conference with the Victoria University Chair in Public Finance in December 2012. The conference involved New Zealand and international speakers addressing the sustainability of different areas of government spending and revenue. The conference programme and papers presented are available here: www.victoria.ac.nz/sacl/about/chair-in-public-finance/events/affording-our-future-conference-2012.
- Commissioning policy work from a range of sources (internal and external to the Treasury) and making that work publicly available on our website prior to publication of this Statement. This policy work has now been collected in one place and is available on the Treasury website at www.treasury.govt.nz/government/longterm/fiscalposition/2013.
- Supporting the McGuinness Institute in running the LongTermNZ workshop. The LongTermNZ workshop brought together a group of young New Zealanders, who attended the Affording Our Future conference then produced their own Youth Statement on the Long-Term Fiscal Position. The Youth Statement is available here: longtermnz.org/workshop-2012/youth-statement-2012.
