TV3's 'The Nation - Summary

MOST CHRISTCHURCH BUSINESSES UNAFFECTED BY EARTHQUAKE.

Westpac CEO George Frazis says 70% of the bank’s Christchurch business customer s have not been affected by the earthquake.

Speaking today on TV3”s “The Nation” he said only two per cent of their Christchurch customer s looked unlikely to continue in business and they were mainly single proprietor CBD retail businesses.

Mr. Frazis said he believes the New Zealand economy is about to start growing again.

“We've done all the right things,” he said.

“There was a restructure that needed to happen.

“People had to reduce debt and that’s occurred.

“I think we're at the end of that, and by the end of the year I can see demand really picking up, so right now is the time for businesses to really be bold and invest and regain their confidence.”

He said that both Australia and New Zealand current faced commodity booms.

“What Australia's done is they’ve reinvested that into productive capacity, we've deleveraged, which is not a bad thing, but we've now got to start investing in production.”

TOWER TO SEE TREASURY ABOUT BUYING AMI.

Tower Insurance is to meet Treasury next week to talk about buying AMI insurance.

The Government has announced a provision of up to one billion dollars to bail out AMI after the company revealed it might have insufficient funds to meet Christchurch earthquake claims.

Tower’s CEO, Rob Flanagan, speaking today on TV3’s “The Nation” said his company was definitely very interesting in buying AMI because they were compatible businesses.

“Their business is almost the same as ours as far as the clientele, it's a general insurance business, it has branches, we don’t have branches, it has very good staff, it has a computer system that’s old, about to change, we've got a new computer system, and so it goes on,” he said.

“There are some good synergies for us and we hope there's an opportunity for us.”

But Mr Flanagan confirmed speculation that household insurance premiums might rise by 20%.

“The reinsurance premiums just from this event have gone up, the contracts for next year will go up, and they’ll go up considerably.”

NATIONAL PARTY PRESIDENT NOT CONCERNED ABOUT OFFICIAL’S APARTHEID PAST.

National Party President Peter Goodfellow is not concerned that an Afrikaans migrant party official advocated violence to win a white homeland in South Africa.

TV3’s “The Nation” today revealed that Rodney Electorate chairman Cehill Piernar had been a leader of the Conservative Party in South Africa’s Orange Free State.

Mr. Pienaar fought to retain a white homeland.

“The Nation” showed web versions of documents which quoted Mr. Piernar saying that if the party could not get the-then Apartheid Government to agree to the whites only state, “the only option open to us will be to use violence.”

Mr Goodfellow said that these allegations related to events in the 1990s.

“Cehill is a New Zealander, he’s in New Zealand now we’re now a melting pot and people come to New Zealand and establish lives for themselves and he’s been elected by members in Rodney and became chairman some years ago,” he said.

Mr Piernar is being accused by some of stacking branch membership within the electorate so a fundamentalist Christian accountant, Brent Robinson could win the nomination for the safe National seat.

Mr Robinson’s candidacy is supported by members of the fundamentalist Life Church and has won approval from the Moral Majority organisation, Family First.

Family First’s director, Bob McCoskrie told “The Nation” that New Zealand needed more politicians who were social conservatives “who are willing to listen to the concerns of families and listen and act on the best interests of families rather than this anything goes, well too bad if we advertise alcohol, too bad if we have pokie machines to bad if we have loan sharks ripping off families you know too bad if there’s prostitutes in the neighbourhood next door to where your kids live, we’ve got to have politicians who say hey we can fix this.”

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