McNair Craig: Budget Debate 
McNair Craig: Budget Debate 
[Volume:608;Page:5947] 
CRAIG McNAIR (NZ First) 
: 
 I have 3 minutes to say a lot. [ 
Interruption 
] We are all singing from the same hymn-book so it does not matter. 
New Zealand’s economic performance has been poor since the mid-1980s. We have seen a focus on the reduction of inflation and for the most part a mean-minded approach to social spending. New Zealand is now placed at the lower end of the developed countries and our position has been deteriorating. Real and lasting national prosperity will come only via real economic growth. New Zealand First recognises that our lifeblood has always been trade. Export-led economic growth is the key to our future development. For example New Zealand exports only US$3600 per man woman and child compared with Ireland which exports about US$19000 per man woman and child. We may then compare a small nation like Singapore with a beautiful country like New Zealand which is just so rich in resources. It is quite staggering that Singapore exports US$34731 per man woman and child compared with a beautiful rich-in-resources country like New Zealand. Mita Ririnui is looking at me as if to say “What’s wrong with that?” well that is a big difference—$3600 compared with $34000 is bad news. Clearly we have underperformed as a country and that is certainly our problem. 
There are a number of major factors affecting that poor performance and an emphasis on the interests of the financial sector at the expense of those of the productive sector and exporting is one of the problems. Another problem is our overvalued exchange rate coupled with high interest rates. What is the exchange rate now? It is nearly 60c to the US dollar. What is that doing? It is hurting our exporters and our farmers. What are we going to do about it? What is this Government doing about it? I have seen nothing in this Budget to show that the Government is trying to stem the growth of that exchange rate as it heads upwards. All that is helping is the big import giants like the Warehouse and so on. They do a great job in our community but my question is what are we doing for our exporters? What is this Government doing? It is not doing a hang of a lot if one asks me. 
Last night I heard David Parker—the guy who kicked out Gavan Herlihy—say how great the Labour Government of the 1980s was. He was heralding how amazing the Labour Government of the 1980s was. I was not very old in the 1980s— 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: You still aren’t. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: I thank Mr Prebble for the compliment. I still remember that that Government sold Air New Zealand for a song—for the value of three Boeing 767s from the 200 series. That is what the Government sold a 34-aeroplane fleet for with trucks and everything else under the sun that went with it. The Government that David Parker is so proud of also sold Telecom. That is the Labour Government—[ 
Interruption 
]. Red is red; it does not matter. Labour MPs today are still under the Labour banner and I tell them that that is exactly what the Labour Government of the 1980s did. It sold New Zealand Steel Petrocorp Postbank Land Corporation and Telecom. Last night David Parker was saying how great it was when the Labour Government could be proud of that kind of thing.