11 March 2004
Greens support Reserve Bank intervention

The Green Party has welcomed the Reserve Bank's request to take a more active role in getting the New Zealand dollar down to a realistic level and has offered its conditional support to a parliamentary motion to make this possible.

"We are pleased that the Reserve Bank and the Minister of Finance are finally planning to do something to reduce the crippling effect that the high NZ dollar is having on this country's productive sector" said Green Co-leader Rod Donald.

"Any mechanism that gets the NZ dollar down to a realistic level is worth supporting and therefore we intend to vote for the proposed motion to change the Reserve Bank's funding agreement.

"While the proposal is likely to only have a small influence and involves some risk, it is an important signal that the bank is no longer prepared to sacrifice exporters, tourist operators and domestic manufacturers in order to reach its obligations under the policy targets agreement.

"The Reserve Bank's monetary policy statement contains serious warnings about the fragility of the New Zealand economy which should not be lost sight of in the debate about whether it should intervene in the foreign exchange market.

"They are projecting that unemployment will start rising again early next year, the current account deficit will continue to deteriorate, the terms of trade will fall from +2% to -4.5% next year and household spending will exceed income by 11% from the beginning of next month.

"If domestic property prices slump, as the Reserve Bank is predicting (pgs 5 & 15), then household spending habits will change dramatically, leading to a very hard landing for the whole economy.

"It's time we all faced up to the fact that we are living way beyond our means and adopted policies to achieve self reliance and sustainability," he said.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>