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Time to start growing the economic cake

Wednesday 30 April 2008, 3:11PM

By Hon Sir Roger Douglas

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New Zealanders’ preoccupation with how to divide up the current economic cake – rather than on how to grow it – is one of the major reasons why we have done so poorly in terms of productivity over recent years, ACT founder and candidate Sir Roger Douglas said today.

“There are better ways to help struggling families – such as targeted tax cuts – and removing GST on food will simply add to business compliance costs and reduce the nation’s wealth,” Sir Roger said.

“New Zealanders have a fundamental choice to make: stay as we are and slide further down the list of nations in terms of per capita income; or adopt the growth policies advocated by ACT which, in time, would enable us to catch up to Australian income levels – that is, an increase of between $300 and $400 a week.

“If New Zealanders continue to reward politicians who put up phoney solutions, then that is all we will ever see. Decent policies and growth will only come about if Kiwis vote for the Parties that put up real solutions.

“ACT is the only Party trying to make New Zealand wealthy – meanwhile all the other Parties make it poorer as they argue over who’s going to get what slice of the economic cake,” Sir Roger said.