Excuses, excuses...

A whole new excuse is being promoted by the Government for its failure to grow the economy, Labour’s Finance spokesperson David Parker says.

“Confronted with the weak economy while on a visit to Northland yesterday, Finance Minister Bill English responded with an argument about recovery taking longer from ‘recession caused by debt’.” http://bit.ly/Ky1T2o

“That’s an astounding new excuse for failure to grow the economy.

“First they blamed the global financial conditions. Then they blamed the earthquakes. But now New Zealand is growing more slowly than just about anywhere outside Europe, and the Canterbury rebuild is contributing to the economy.

“So the latest excuse is to blame the type of recovery.

“What the National Government won’t do is look at themselves and their own mismanagement. That is what has failed to deal with the long term changes needed to modernise our economy,” David Parker said.

“The Finance Minister claimed ‘people are saving more and that’s slowing down the recovery’. But as a country we are not saving - New Zealand is borrowing more and the Budget forecasts our total liabilities to grow to more than $200 billion.

“Saving is good for our economy and helps it grow faster. But National is not helping New Zealand save. It’s causing New Zealanders to borrow more.

“Bill English said on radio that ‘no-one’s expecting some big wave to come through that’s going to float them up’.

“But there’s a big difference between ‘some big wave’ and the stalled growth the Government is delivering.

“Our economy is not growing as fast as other non-European economies, wages aren’t growing fast enough, the jobs are not being created, and our overseas debt is nearly as big as Spain’s.

“All the Budget had in response was larger class sizes and selling out our assets and our farmland,” said David Parker.