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No hope for people on lower incomes

"With the Official Cash Rate going up yet again, and Kiwi Saver looking like an upper middle class savings bonanza, those on lower incomes are shut out of the gravy train yet again," says Katherine Ransom, DSC Social Issues Spokesperson.

"Dr. Bollard should look at the glaring clues: the exchange rate is at an all-time high, companies are taking their production overseas, jobs are being lost every day. Yet the Reserve Bank Governor keeps bashing at the economic problems with his only sledgehammer, the OCR. It's a form of insanity," Ransom says, "to continue the same action in the vain hope that it will work, though it hasn't ever worked in the past."

"Meanwhile, people on moderate to low incomes can ill afford to reach for the dangling carrot that is Kiwi Saver. Even $5 a week means less bread in their children's mouths. Does Dr.Bollard think that raising the OCR will not affect these people?" Ransom asks. "With the rise in interest rates, rents will rise, leaving less than ever in the family coffers for food, clothing and medicine."

"In the dark days of neo-liberal economics, it was openly declared that New Zealandneeded a hungry, unemployed underclass, to keep wages down and therefore benefit... someone. We know now that when a proportion of the population lives in poverty, crime rates rise, women and children are abused and the health care system groans under the complex effects of creeping malnutrition."

"Just who does Dr. Bollard think he is helping?" Ransom demands. "Not the ordinary people of New Zealand, who are already struggling to keep their heads above water. The only winners here are the very rich, many from overseas, who rush to purchase property in greedy anticipation of fat returns on their investments."

"The property boom will not slow with a rise in the OCR," declares Ransom. "It will only continue to accelerate, as more and more property falls into the hands of fewer and fewer people. As house prices go out of the reach of the rest of us, those on the lowest incomes lose all hope."

ENDS

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