3 November 2003

Hon Jim Anderton MP, Progressive Leader

NZ First and United could support Dinosaur Don taking NZ back to the failed policies of the past

The threat that NZ First and United Future could back a Don Brash-led National-Act government means New Zealand could risk returning to the failed policies of the past, Progressive Leader Jim Anderton says.

He told a conference of economic statisticians in Christchurch that the restructuring programme of the last years of last century did not bring about the economic results we needed fast enough.

Jim Anderton said the policies Don Brash wants to return to were supposed to deliver faster growth, more jobs, and an economy better positioned to earn our living in the world.

“But compared to other developed countries, our economic and social performance was poor. Today we rank alongside Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Slovenia in per capita wealth. If we had grown at the same rate as Australia, average workers would earn an additional $175 a week, we would have another $3.7 billion a year for health, $4.2 billion a year for education and we could invest twice as much on roads as we do at present.”

“These are the policies ‘Dinosaur Don’ Brash would take us back to. United Future and NZ First are preparing to be potential political allies of a Don Brash government which would do just that.”

Jim Anderton told the statisticians that the New Zealand economy is performing much better now.

“National, Act and NZ First blamed the 1998 recession almost solely on the Asian financial crisis.

“Yet over the last year or two we have coped with the wreckage of September 11, 2001 as well as SARS. These slowdowns in the world economy have made the Asian financial crisis seem like a picnic. Yet our economy was one of the strongest performing in the developed world over the last three years. What’s different between now and the recession of 1998 is that this government didn’t throw money into tax cuts and cause a blow out in the current account and fail to provide for the social, environmental and infrastructural investment necessary for a first world economy.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media