Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

I've seen a lot of commentary in the past few days about our government debt position.  We're up over 40% of GDP - that's doubled on pre-Covid. There are those on the left who say that's too little. We should borrow more. Forget a debt ceiling, borrow more and throw it at the public service and create some jobs - any jobs. This is what Carney is doing in Canada. His budget would double Ottawa's debt to $80-odd billion.  They've got Trump tariffs and weak domestic demand, so, he's getting out the deficit and trying to revive it.  Make no mistake, if a Labour-led government were to get in, that is the approach we'd have taken here.  Chris Hipkins has made that very clear. TPM and the Greens would make sure of it, too.  What we haven't heard from them yet is how much more they're wanting to borrow. Remember Robertson has a debt ceiling of 30% of GDP. Well, didn't that go well? The fact is it's popular to spend more. It sounds like you're doing something. The more you spend, the more you