Alliance Party media release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday 17 April 2009

The Alliance Party says a new OECD report on the New Zealand economy got one thing right and pretty much everything else wrong.

Alliance Economic Development spokesperson Quentin Findlay says the OECD’s latest report on the New Zealand economy was a throwback to the past, and their solutions had no relevance in a modern economy.

"They are right in predicting that things are going to get worse for New Zealand in this recession, but if we followed their ideas for solving things we'd be completely stuffed."

“"Their ideas are still based on free market polices that led to the present recession. They are an organisation out of time,"” he says.

Mr Findlay says the report demonstrated the reactionary thinking behind some of New Zealand’s financial institutions, such as the Treasury who would have advised the OECD around the compiling of the data.

“"What many people are not aware of is that much of the data and prescriptions used in the OECD report come from agencies such as the Treasury. The OECD is mostly a mouthpiece for them.”"

Mr Findlay said that the current recession had brought home the failure of deregulation, privatization and the free market "slash and burn" approach to economic development.

“For the past twenty years these policies have been inflicted upon us with the result that much of New Zealand’s infrastructure has been corporatized or privatised or given away to foreign buyers.”

“Because of these policies, New Zealand workers are paid lower wages in comparison to other OECD nations. It has also meant a downgrading of health, education and social welfare provision within this country,” he says.

Mr Findlay says the wild fluctuations in our exchange rate show that New Zealand has lost control over its own monetary policy.

The Alliance Party says we should follow the real life policies of the major OECD countries, not the OECD reports, and assert control and ownership of vital sectors.

“New Zealand requires increased regulation and public ownership in the financial sector as a means of ensuring that the economy genuinely benefits the needs of all and not just a few,” said Mr. Findlay.

Goals such as full employment, environmental sustainability, high wages and the provision of good social services within the community were also vital.

“The prescriptions of the OECD and Treasury don’t work and they have never worked. The rest of the world is turning its back on these policies because they have caused the crisis we now face. It is time that New Zealand did likewise.”

ENDS

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