"A budget of very little brain."

Alliance Party media release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday 28 May 2009

Alliance Economic Development spokesperson Quentin Findlay says Bill English's 2009 Budget is a 'Winnie the Pooh' budget - "a budget of very little brain".

Mr Findlay says the Budget merely continued on with the current economic market led orthodoxy in the face of radically changed circumstances.

He says it demonstrated the Government had no real strategy or alternative approach to cope with the recession created by deregulated global free markets.

"This is a budget that promises nothing and delivers even less."

Mr Findlay says an alternative strategy is required to deal with the effects of recession.

"The Government's own advisors, Treasury and the Ministry of Social Development, have already predicted a 'swelling' in the level of unemployment. Treasury stating expects unemployment to rise to 8 percent by 2010."

Mr Findlay says the Government should re-impose tariffs and financial controls to protect and grow New Zealand industry, instead of living in the free trade fairy land it presently inhabits.

"The Government should invest more in rail and shipping rather than dead end motorway building madness. It should invest in house building to ensure that builders have job and people have homes. All of this contributes to the domestic economy."

He says despite all the talk about jobs, the Government was in the process of adding to the unemployment lines by eliminating public sector jobs, while paying its cronies $2000 a day to administer the cuts.

Mr Findlay says if the Government was really serious about saving money and investing in infrastructure then it should continue to contribute to Kiwi Saver, make it Government guaranteed, and scrap the 'Cullen' Fund, which was a major burden on taxpayers.

He says that such a strategy would be at odds with the Government's real masters represented by agencies such as 'Standard and Poors.'

"The Government is in thrall to these undemocratic and unelected representatives who are propping up an unfair system. This budget is not designed to ensure New Zealand's economic stability, it is merely an exercise in following orders."

However, Mr Findlay says that one good thing had come of the Budget.

"It has appeared to have annoyed right wing commentators no end. Fortunately, Bill English is savvy enough to realise that a return to the scorched earth policy of the 1980s and 1990s would be an economical and political disaster."

ENDS

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