KEY POINTS:
BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander:
"'Fixed interest rates would disappear from the mortgage offering in New Zealand so, while it would be something that I think over the longer-term would be positive for export development by limiting the time the kiwi dollar remains high, it would be exceedingly negative for the housing market."
Export New Zealand CEO Bob Walters:
"What we are looking at here though is the absolute need to increase our foreign exchange earnings through exports and international business in order that we can maintain the standard of living that we require in New Zealand."
Real Estate Institute President Murray Cleland:
"I don't think it's a goer. I think that it needs a lot of thought and effort put into it but I can't see it being a goer."
Revenue Minister and United Future leader Peter Dunne:
"At first glance this sounds like a 21st century version of Sir Robert Muldoon's disastrous attempts in the early 1980s to control interest rates.
"If that experience is anything to go by, the introduction of such a scheme would cause market distortions, as lending institutions worked out ways around it.
"Such a mechanism could only be short-lived, with an inevitable explosion in interest rates once it was lifted."
National Party finance spokesman Bill English:
"Dr Cullen should fix his own high taxing, big spending policies before he levies a new tax on fixed interest mortgages.
"Labour is planning a surge in spending up to the 2008 election.
"The irony won't be lost on taxpayers. Dr Cullen is proposing a tax on families with a mortgage so they stop spending while he goes on a binge himself."
- NZ HERALD STAFF
