23 July 2002

Answer the questions Dr Cullen...

"Yesterday I challenged the Minister of Finance to answer 20 questions about how Labour's policies will help get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD.

"So far his silence has been deafening," says National's Finance spokesman David Carter.

"Dr Cullen has been about as compliant and shifty on answering my 20 questions as the Prime Minister was with the police during the Paintergate debacle.

"However, the questions I have asked Michael Cullen are ones he must answer before Labour can claim any credibility about achieving 4% economic growth," Mr Carter says.

Ends

See 20 questions below:

20 Questions for Dr Cullen

1) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD when we have the highest corporate tax rate in the Asia-Pacific region?

2) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD with general government outlays (central and local government spending, as measured by the OECD) at 40% of GDP?

3) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD or to close the gap between New Zealand and Australia when Treasury expects long-term growth of only 2% per annum?

4) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD when Treasury is forecasting productivity growth of only 1.5% per annum?

5) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD by investing $2 billion dollars a year for the next 25 years in overseas sharemarkets?

6) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD by allowing more inflation?

7) How does he expect to get New Zealand to the top half of the OECD when he can't act on the key recommendations of the Ministerial Panel on Business Compliance Costs?

8) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD when his Government's policies have added $26,000 to the costs of running a business in New Zealand? (Source: Business New Zealand)

9) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD when he can't fix the RMA?

10) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD when accident insurance is run by a state monopoly?

11) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD by increasing the minimum wage?

12) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD by legislating for pay equity so that a bureaucrat can decide that cafeteria workers get paid the same as builders?

13) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD by ratifying ILO conventions that will allow general strikes on economic and social issues?

14) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD by ratifying the Kyoto protocol before our trading partners?

15) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD by re-imposing strict school zoning, and strengthening the power of the central education bureaucracy?

16) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD by running the tertiary education system by a centralised bureaucracy?

17) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD by weakening the work test for those receiving the unemployment benefit and the DPB?

18) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD by increasing the tax rate relevant to those most likely to invest and take entrepreneurial risks?

19) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD when he doesn't done a single thing to improve the competitiveness of the New Zealand economy?

20) How does he expect to get New Zealand back to the top half of the OECD when his Party is devoid of people who have any experience in running a business, getting an overdraft, meeting all the regulatory requirements of running a business and employing staff?

© Scoop Media