David Parker
Finance Spokesperson

5 June 2012

Global instability reveals weak NZ economy

More instability in global markets is laying bare weakness in the New Zealand economy, Labour’s Finance spokesperson David Parker says.

That instability makes it more urgent to modernise the New Zealand economy to grow exports, jobs and wages, he says.

“Poor economic news in the US, Europe and China, a drop in the Australian share market and instability in Greece are all contributing to unsettled markets.

“But they are not the cause of New Zealand’s slow economy.

“The international conditions are revealing how little strength there is in New Zealand’s economy. The economy is hardly growing at all and has too little resilience against volatile global conditions,” David Parker said.

“New Zealanders' cost of living has been rising faster than wages, exports are weak and total overseas borrowing is climbing astronomically.

"People are leaving for Australia because of New Zealand's economic problems, not Greece's.

“We’ve just come off three years of historic high prices for our exports. Borrowing costs are unusually low. We should be growing our economy faster.

“The more unstable the global economy becomes, the more urgent it becomes to modernise the New Zealand economy with more exports encouraged by pro-growth tax reform, deeper savings and more innovation.

“It is also imperative that the Canterbury rebuild is not further delayed, as this is an important part of economic activity in the next few years,” said David Parker.

ENDS

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