Economic policies ‘given bad name’

Press, 18 March 1988, Page 6

Economic policies ‘given bad name’

By

BRENDON BURNS,

in Wellington

| The Opposition spokeswoman on finance, Miss) Ruth. Richardson, has condemned the Minister 6f Finance, Mr Douglas, for giving liberal economic policies a bad name.

In an;address this week to ecorlpmists in Wellington, she said M• Douglas had got the sequence of t reforms[ wrong — freeing up financial markets and floating! the dollar while New Zealand still had high inflation, big fiscal and highly regulated goods and labour markets. Now,! the Government was rusjhing through State asset sales in a bear market to try to balance the books. [ Such sales would be supported by National, she said, provided they were .veil - implemented

and gave taxpayers a reasonable price. ; But at this time they were wasteful and improvident and no substitute for reducing State expenditure. Miss Richardson said the wrong sequence of reforms could now be corrected by moving immediately to deregulate the private and State sector labour markets. All sectors of the economy should! be exposed to the same degree of pressure to adjust, with no allowances [ to interest groups giving rise to contradictions.

The Prime Minister, Mr; Lange, said he believed! the Government’s .move to deregulate the ! labour! market — the Labour Relations Act — was pro-, perly balanced. ; ! While financial markets; could shift assets by push-: ing a button, making; people shift through! labour reform could be a| very hard personal pro-! cess and they had to have! some protection, he said, i If further labour mar-! ket deregulation were rej quired it would, not be in[ the direction of a free-for-all.