Inflation mongers forget their pride

I don't know what it is about some of us Kiwis but we always have to think we are doing worse than everyone else.

In spite of growth in New Zealand eclipsing most of our overseas competitors, unemployment lower than most countries and comparative debt lower than almost everyone, the Greens and Labour just have to crank up the depression pills.

Their big panacea for our high dollar is to devalue it, in the hope that by winding down the dollar our exports will become more attractive to overseas buyers.

At the same time, they have to hope that with the vastly increased cost of fuel - more than $3 per litre - we won't notice that every item in our supermarkets that needs to be driven there in a truck costs more money.

The funny thing is it's those on lower incomes, who Labour and the Greens say they care about so much, who will suffer most.

This is at the same time Labour wants the taxpayer to bail out coal mines and an aluminium smelter, and the Greens want us to give every family in New Zealand a baby bonus regardless of income, assets or personal wealth.

Both parties want to up the minimum wage, extend maternity leave and to pay all students to study at university.

Labour and the Greens forget the times when fuel went up because our dollar lost value. That the cost of living increased so wages followed (but always lagged behind so nobody ever caught up), and the resulting inflation meant that every dollar bought about 20 per cent less each year.

It was out-of-control inflation. Those were the years when Ella and I bought our first home. We got a home loan with 18 per cent interest on our mortgage.

The Green solution is to print more money and chuck it into our economy. The Germans once tried that, and ended up with $1000 loaves of bread.

Our trouble is that our dollar is high because the UK, the United States, Japan and Europe are all weak at the moment. Simple solutions will not fix this. New Zealand's edge is to make and grow good products that people will pay more for, even in a depressed market.

We still grow the best food internationally, cheaper than anybody else, and people still have to eat. In recent years, we have moved from feeding commodity produce to the poor to feeding niche high-value-added products to those who can afford them.

National has never claimed to have the Perfect Answer which can fix all our woes overnight, but we are making progress. Policies which hurt jobs, which require huge government spending and the borrowing which accompanies that, which leads to huge inflation, would undo this progress.

Following our traditional partners like the US and Europe into policies of economic desperation will only drive our economy to the same perilous place. That New Zealand's economy is doing better than those countries is not something to be ashamed of - it's something we can be proud of.