Rodney Hide ACT Party Parliament Buildings WELLINGTON Dear Rodney I'm enclosing a copy of my press statement of this even

  • Winston Peters
Deputy Prime Minister

No wonder a party that gets its figures so wrong is engaged in Pyramid selling schemes, Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters said in response to an ACT press statement today.

"Mr Hide claiming to be Parliament's only economist, Heaven help us, says:

"Just half a percent rise in interest rates increases the cost of an $80,000 mortgage by $80 a week."

"Now I make a 0.5 per cent increase on $80,000 to be $400 a year. This divided by 52 weeks is $7.69, not $80 per week, but less than $8 per week.

"In short, Mr Prebble and Mr Hide are 1000 per cent wrong.

"Given that the statement was Mr Prebble's curtain raiser to his main event, the political stunt of writing to the Prime Minister and me, and releasing those letters to the media, ACT's suggestions are appropos of nothing other than one more severe personal embarrassment to themselves.

With two exceptions. Mr Hide advocates full scale privatisation of Government's assets. But in the repatriation of former taxpayer owned asset profits to offshore investors we have one key element to New Zealand's problem for which Mr Prebble and Mr Shirley and their ilk were totally responsible.

The second point is of course that ACT advocates more Government savings when even Moody's and others point out that it's not the Government's accounts that are the problem, but non-governmental private accounts or the lack of savings by New Zealanders.

"In short, we're not saving enough to finance our own capital developments - we're living off the savings of other populations and other countries.

"These last two issues are the ones the Government is addressing.

"I do take any concern about New Zealand's credit rating seriously. That's why I have argued for years for a national savings strategy which ACT belatedly have tried to "piggy-back"."

"I've got a Kaimanawa horse called Rodney and he's making a lot more sense than his namesake."