Phil Goff
Leader of the Labour Party
26 January 2011 Media Statement

John Key’s privatisation plan a recipe for disaster

New Zealanders will face higher power prices and cuts to essential services like schools and hospitals under John Key’s plan to privatise assets and slash spending, says Labour Leader Phil Goff.

“This isn’t an economic plan. It’s a recipe for disaster. Hocking off our assets to foreign buyers and slashing spending is vintage National. It doesn’t have an economic plan so it’s simply rehashing the failed policies of the past.

“Mums and dads don’t have spare cash floating around to buy up shares. They’ll be gobbled up by those foreign pixies John Key likes to talk about and power prices will skyrocket as they push for profits.

“Low and middle income New Zealanders were ignored under John Key’s tax plan. They are being stung by his GST hike. Now they’ll face cuts to health and education. And they’ll pay through the nose to heat their homes once National sells off our power companies to foreign investors.

“That kind of economic management is irresponsible. It is socially, ethically and morally wrong to impose the sorts of cuts he’s proposing on society after having given away billions to the country’s most wealthy.

“Labour ran Budget surpluses and reduced net Government debt to zero. In comparison, National has mismanaged the economy and is now crying poor in an attempt to convince New Zealanders it has to sell off valuable assets and make brutal spending cuts. It is showing its true colours.

“John Key told the country we’d come aggressively out of the economic recession. We haven’t. Unemployment is up and wages are stalled. He said he wouldn’t increase GST. He did. He said he wouldn’t sell off state assets. He now says he will. This is a man who can’t be trusted. We are now really seeing John Key’s true colours,” said Phil Goff.

ENDS

© Scoop Media