Anderton calls for Govt to cancel sale

Press, 23 February 1989, Page 7

Anderton calls for Govt to cancel sale

By

PATTRICK SMELLIE

The Government should cancel the sale of the Bank of New Zealand and offer a Government guarantee for its deposits, Mr Jim Anderton (Lab., Sydenham) said yesterday.

“The sale of the BNZ in its present condition will not realise anything like its real worth, past, present, or future, to the New Zealand community,” he said.

“There now needs to be an extended period where the only concern of senior management at the BNZ is rebuilding both the reputation and performance of New Zealand’s most important financial

institution.”

The process of attempting to sell the bank had taken its toll in both financial and management terms.

Mr Anderton suggested a Government guarantee of BNZ deposits would restore confidence in the bank and encourage further deposits. Such guarantees were common in the United States, he said. However, his statement did not acknowledge that such guarantees have become a costly drain on the American financial system, and a contributor to its weakness. Mr Anderson said most New Zealanders thought

the sale of the BNZ had been abandoned. “It is now rumoured that the National Australia Bank is the likely purchaser of the BNZ,” he said.

“It is somewhat ironic that even in Margaret Thatcher’s Great Britain there has been strong opposition from the Bank of England to majority foreign ownership of important financial institutions.

“To contemplate selling the BNZ, particularly to any foreign-owned financial institutions, cannot be allowed without the strongest protest from the whole community,” he said.