September 21, 2011.

Govt role in job creation recognised in Green Party economic proposals

Growing international consensus about the role governments can play in stimulating job creation may be lost on the current government, but a future government with Green Party input would see a welcome change of direction, the National Distribution Union said today.

NDU General Secretary Robert Reid said that following fresh warnings from the IMF about the risks to the global economy, the New Zealand government needed more stimulus measures to ensure we don’t fall into a deep recession also.

“Cutting public spending and privatisating state assets as National and Act want to do are daft ideas that will do nothing to improve the economy, create jobs and lift wages,” Robert Reid said.

“A proactive role for government, implementing policies such as those outlined by the Greens today, would better secure an economy that delivers for working people, not an investor elite.”

Robert Reid said that the union welcomed the Green Party’s focus on boosting housing construction, which would increase the stock of state houses and create jobs.

He said that a sole focus for the Reserve Bank on inflation alone was harming the export sector, and the Green Party’s suggestions for a wider brief for the Reserve Bank, a capital gains tax and other measures would help take the heat out of the currency.

He welcomed a focus on whole of life benefits to government procurement, saying domestic industries such as wood processing and textiles, which should be ramping up production to meet the demands of the Canterbury rebuild, were just two industries let down by procurement rules.

“The Green Party’s economic policy release today is a comprehensive and well thought through package. We hope to see some of it implemented in future governments,” Robert Reid said.

ENDS

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