Responding to John Wright, former Social Credit member now in the Alliance, Ilam MP Gerry Brownlee today said that the hapless Jim Anderton has left it to the even more hapless Mr Wright to respond to his (Brownlee’s) statement of 8 September that the “loopy Alliance tariff increase policy” would contribute $!92 of additional expenditure per week for the average New Zealand family, should a Labour-Alliance government get elected.

“I want to spell out clearly for Mr Wright, the financial genius of the left, that my figure was derived from a $110 per week tax increase if the Alliance policy of reversing tax cuts were implemented, a $60 per week increase as an expected 3 percent premium interest rate charged by banks as a result of a Labour-Alliance government, and $22 per week derived from savings in tariffs already cut.

“In fact the five percent tariff increase would add even more to that amount.

“Mr Wright’s suggestion that a five percent tariff increase will only add 85 cents in every 100 dollars spent on imported goods other than those from Australia has to be a figure that Major Douglas, the Social Credit founder, would have been proud of. There would not be a business in this country prepared to state that their mark ups are so great that a 5 percent tariff on landed cost equals only 85 cents in every hundred dollars at the retail end,” said Mr Brownlee.

“Mr Wright’s personally focussed press release is yet again confirmation that the Alliance has not got a clue how the New Zealand economy works, and that Mr Wright himself as a prospective Treasury minister is woefully short of qualifications for the job.

“My chief concern is for the average New Zealand families that make up my constituency who will face enormous additional costs in the sad event of their being a Labour-Alliance government,” Mr Brownlee said

ENDS

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