Do Nothing, Go Nowhere Budget

ACT Finance Spokesman Rodney Hide said today that Michael Cullen's Budget failed by the Government's own goals.

"Prime Minister Helen Clark set the goal to put New Zealand into the top half of the OECD within ten years. Michael Cullen set the goal of achieving four percent growth by 2006.

"The Budget's outlook for growth over the next ten years is a pitiful 2.5 percent.

"That compares to an average annual growth rate of 3.6 percent over the past ten years. A period during which Prime Minister Helen Clark declared that the economy simply "marked time".

"We achieved a growth-rate over the past ten years nearly half as much again as what Treasury thinks this Government can achieve over the next ten years. So much for the "Knowledge Wave", the "Jobs Machine" and "Smart Growth".

"The Cullen Budget does nothing for working New Zealanders. Cullen's Budget means they have to work harder and harder for less and less.

"The Budget does nothing for business. The Clark Government has hammered business with compliance costs.

"Dr Cullen should have dropped the company and top-rate of tax to 25 cents.

"He should have blasted the red-tape that is destroying business in New Zealand.

"Dr Cullen has delivered a do-nothing, go-nowhere Budget," Mr Hide said.

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