English Bill: General Debate 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Volume:672;Page:18338] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 That member Phil Goff should be apologising for the damage the Labour Government did to the New Zealand economy and in particular its legacy of record debt levels to foreigners. New Zealand owes foreigners $170 billion and that debt ran up rapidly under the stewardship of that Government. The Labour Government promoted property speculation debt-funded consumption and Government transfer programmes that were very expensive and it strangled our export sector. Under the Labour Government this country went on a debt-funded spending binge and strangled its earning capacity. That is why this Government has to focus on turning round the imbalances in our economy. In the new world since the global financial crisis no country can afford to be run in the way the Labour Government ran this country—no country. 
The good news is that there are some small reasons for optimism that the process of undoing the damage the previous Labour Government did is making some progress. Not all of it I would have to say is this Government’s doing; not all of it is because one of the things working for us for instance is that export prices are at record levels. What happened to exports under the Labour Government? When it came to office exports represented 30 percent of the New Zealand economy. When it left office exports represented a bit over 25 percent of the New Zealand economy. So we need the benefit of high commodity prices. That is where the growth of this economy will come from and much of this Government’s policy framework and the next steps that will be outlined in Budget 2011 are aimed at taking advantage of those high export prices which are actually up 30 percent in the last year. 
The other bit of good news is that mortgage interest rates are at 45-year lows. Can we recall when the first mortgage rates hit 10 percent in I think 2007 under the previous Government wound up by a frenzy of speculation and rapidly rising Government spending? Now floating mortgage rates are at 5.7 percent. They have halved since the Labour Government left office. Floating interest rates are half what they were when Labour was in power. 
Hon David Parker 
: Rubbish! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: They are almost half. 
The other good news is that real after-tax wages have increased by 10 percent since September 2008. Despite the global financial crisis and despite the Labour Government - induced recession New Zealand had experienced before that global financial crisis real after-tax wages have increased by 10 percent since September 2008. In the 8 years before that they grew by 4 percent. Real wages are actually up by 10 percent. The other goods news is that forecasters are now expecting that economic growth will push above 4 percent next year and be in the zone of 3 to 4 percent beyond that time. That is important because as a result of the policies of the last Labour Government and then the global recession per capita incomes in New Zealand have still not yet reached the level they were at in 2004. They started dropping then we started to turn them round but per capita real incomes dropped so far under the Labour Government at a time when we were meant to be enjoying a global boom that in 2011 we have not got back to the levels they were at in 2004.