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Mallard's UFB Comments Economic Sabotage

Mallard's UFB Comments Economic Sabotage

The Labour Party’s latest attempt at economic sabotage is further evidence of their unfitness for the Treasury benches, says ACT New Zealand Leader Dr Don Brash.

Senior Labour MP Trevor Mallard has warned Telecom and other Ultra-Fast Broadband contract winners that a future Labour Government might rewrite their contracts without paying compensation. During the committee-stage debate on the new UFB legislation, Labour also tabled an amendment that would have increased the fines that Telecom might have to pay for breaching separation or "line of business" requirements in the bill from $10 million to $100m.

"Anyone entering into an arrangement based on this legislation has got to know that it may not last,” Mallard added.

“This is wanton economic thuggery,” says Dr Brash. “Whatever the merits or demerits of the Bill – and there are two ACT MPs opposed to it – when and if it is passed it will become law. The relevant businesses should be entitled to expect it to be honoured and to proceed on the basis of it, free from the spectre of having the rug pulled from under them by political caprice and retrospective vandalism.

“How does Mr Mallard expect investors in any area of the economy to engage in business if the rules under which they do so are to be so blatantly subject to his whim? Has he stopped to consider the effect his bluster might have on our fragile economic recovery and thus the wellbeing of working men and women Labour claims to represent?

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“The threats about retroactive increases in fines for breaches of requirements are especially insidious. Mr Mallard may just as well have erected a sign at Wellington airport saying, ‘Invest here at your peril. If we get in, all bets are off.’

"This is reminiscent of Michael Cullen’s infamous ‘We won, you lost, eat that’ arrogance. In the end Labour lost because of it. Mr Mallard should eat that,” Dr Brash concludes.

ENDS

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