‘Tawdry, Silly Argument’: Winston Peters Criticises Asset Sales, Says Government Has Not Fixed Economy

Morning
Report

NZ First leader Winston Peters has
savaged National’s suggestion of asset sales as a “tawdry
silly argument”, which he says it is falling
back on after having failed to fix the economy fast
enough.

Prime
Minister Christopher Luxon said on Monday he was open to
the possible sale of state assets, though he has ruled it
out this term.

Winston Peters told Morning Report
there was a history of poor choices of asset sales by
both Labour and National.

“Because they’ve failed to
run the economy properly, they want to go to the assets of a
time when the country was run properly, when we were number
two in the world and built up by our forefathers and to
start to flog those off … to so-called balance their
books,” Peters said.

“This is a tawdry silly
argument.”

The government had not turned the economy
around as quickly as it should have, he said.

“I know
it can be turned around, but not with this sort of strategy
where you’re not actually fixing the economy, you’re just
getting rid of assets.”

Getting rid of assets to
balance the books was a mission that was doomed to fail
before it even started, Peters said.

There were
countries that were being smart in terms of fixing their
economies such as Singapore, he said.

The coalition
government is exploring the potential sale of its stake in
the telecommunications
lines company Chorus after investing in the rollout of
ultrafast broadband.

The government had invested $1
billion in Chorus’ fibre network. Finance Minister Nicola
Willis said has the book value of the debt is $643 million
and the government was seeking advice on what potential
return it could get.

“This is literally the debt we’re
hocking off,” Willis said.

But Peters did not support
the idea calling it “creative accounting of the worst
sort”.

“You’re selling off a debt on the basis that
you’ve got an asset? Why don’t we just make sure that Chorus
pays us back.”

Selling assets off was “a tawdry
repetition of history” and Treasury was not performing, he
said.

“When Treasury get their forecasts so wrong,
they need to upskill themselves for goodness sake,” he
said.

“We’re talking about a failed economic strategy
that Treasury has pushed for a long long time.”

Peters
claimed Treasury did not know what it was talking about and
it supported a “borrow and hope programme” during the last
government which changed the country’s debt ratios.

“I
do know what I’m talking about here, I have looked at
countries like Croatia, others that are coming around fast
who are smart in what they’re doing, Singapore’s classic,
Ireland until recently was doing brilliantly, Iceland is
doing brilliantly.

“They all understand that if you
add value to your asset wealth in the people’s interests the
jobs and the income and the wealth will come to your
country.”

Treasury was asked for a response and
declined to
comment.

© Scoop Media