National's low expectations won't help Kiwis

The National Government’s low expectations for the New Zealand economy, including flogging off precious state assets at below valuation, won’t help recovery, says Labour’s Finance spokesperson David Parker.

“Analysis released by Treasury before Christmas showed convincingly that public management of SOEs stacks up well internationally,” David Parker said.

“Changing who owns the SOEs will not improve New Zealand’s economic performance. That’s ideological nonsense, and the Treasury analysis, which interestingly wasn’t provided before the election, proves just that,” David Parker said.

“John Key’s economic recipe is made even more unpalatable because National proposes to sell off the SOEs at below their book value.

“John Key is selling assets as a ‘plan’ to try to conceal the fact that he actually doesn’t have a plan to grow the economy.

“Increasingly John Key is all about further lowering expectations for the economy, not about managing recovery,” David Parker said.

“Following the 2008 election, National dropped its promise of ‘a step change in the economy’, and seems to have abandoned its much-heralded promise ‘to close the wage gap with Australia’,” David Parker said.

“Now, less than two months after the 2011 election, National’s ‘building a brighter future’ catchphrase seems destined to be shelved under fiction as the Prime Minister watches on while the prospects for our economy get gloomier rather than brighter.

“Kiwis deserve far better than that.”