Media Release
Tuesday 12th June 2007

Bollard bets a $billion

“Bollard is in crisis mode” says John Pemberton, Finance Spokesman, DSC. “No sooner has the predictable effect of the OCR increase occurred - the continued rise of our exchange rate – than he falls back on the last resort of many in dire straights. He gambles by putting a $billion Kiwi into the pot.”

“A billion Kiwi dollars, a mere pittance in relation to the huge amount of liquid dollars sloshing around the world from one currency market to another. He plays a game which even the big boys like the Bank of England have played and failed. Alan Bollard will shortly wish he had opted out of re-signing his five year contract.”

“For too long now the ignorance of Reserve Bank Governors, the current one and his predecessors, has seen them interfere in the running of economy,”says Pemberton. “They create boom and bust cycles that have at the worst destroyed our economy, and at the best, hindered its growth.”

“We have been encouraged to work smarter, to produce more wealth for the nation, to not only benefit our families directly, but to ensure that we could have great hospitals, schools, roads, sewage systems, water supplies and electricity for our communities.”

“Anger is mounting throughout New Zealand as we are frustrated at every turn. Interest rate increases have made: housing unaffordable; water and rate increases unbearable; business survival difficult; exporters’ success turn to failure; and inflation that eats away our incomes faster than we can earn them.”

“Who is to blame?” Pemberton asks. “The Gambling Governor, that’s who! A man in crisis, dicing with the remaining spoils, is being cheered on the sidelines by Michael Cullen, the Labour government, John Key and the National Party.”

“With this mad gamble, Bollard has finally demonstrated he is bereft of ideas. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand, with its entire infrastructure, is now a tainted institution. It is a lackey and tool of corporate powers that strip this country of its assets.”

“The Reserve Bank of New Zealand, in its current form, should be abolished.”

ENDS

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