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Media Release
19 October 2006

New Zealanders are being ripped off

We are being ripped off, not so much by inappropriate election spending, but by a Government which allows an obscene budget surplus to grow by the sweat of an over burdened taxpayer.

The huge surplus is a testament to the gross mismanagement of the economy by the Labour Government and by Doctor Michael Cullen in particular.

Having taken the money from us he can’t give it back because “conventional wisdom” says:
• That it will be spent on cheap imports and exacerbate the huge trade deficit New Zealand has with the rest of the world;
• That it will cause excessive consumer demand, create inflation and the Governor of the Reserve Bank will be obliged to raise interest rates;
• That overseas investment will flood into the country to follow the high interest rates and thus our trade deficit will increase further when profits are repatriated to their overseas owners; and
• That our exchange rate will increase and penalise our exporters even more.

Conventional wisdom would also suggest that the government spending that money on our behalf would lead to the same set of problems.

What then should the good Doctor do?

Michael Cullen should throw conventional wisdom out the door, use good old fashioned common sense and: leave a far greater proportion of our pay in our pay packets; fund necessary infrastructure projects with a Credit Card type loan from The Reserve Bank (at 1% or less); put in place a trading system which facilitates real Imports and Exports of products, while doing a away with the speculative nature of currency exchanges.

He should give serious thought to utilising our nation’s right to issue our own money supply and not leave that privilege with overseas owned banks.

ENDS

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