Editorial: Rising damp

OPINION: Next time exhausted firefighters find themselves faced with the need stay on duty to stop hundreds of hectares of burnt land from bursting back into flame, they would do well to consider heading home to bed and leaving the task to Bill English, writes The Southland Times in an editorial.

Just put the Finance Minister in the midst of that charred landscape, and invite him to explain in detail the current state of the New Zealand economy.

Such is his capacity for dampening-down that there's scant chance of anything re-igniting until he shuts up.

Last October, Labour scolded him to stop talking the economy down. Clearly no-one in Mr English's position should be too eager to act on Opposition advice, but in this case his reaction seems to have been to further entrench his Eyeore-ish position.

Economic data of late have been either positive or surprisingly less negative than expected. Not that you'd think so to hear Mr English.

Where some see gains, he sees one-offs, reversals-in-waiting, or at best incremental improvements that leave the longer-term challenges as substantial as ever. Can he get an "Amen!" to that? Not really. It's more like a wretched "Oh dear God in heaven ..."

The recession is turning around but, as things stand, we seem to have a Finance Minister who doesn't want us to sleep soundly in our beds while we face another six years of forecast Budget deficits and net Crown debt that might treble to $65 billion by 2014.

Hell yes that is serious, because, as he says, it's surpluses that give us choices. The message has been hammered hard that the May 20 Budget will be drafted with discipline as its watchword.

Understood. But too much work has been done to keep the public's Budget expectations satisfactorily low. It would do the wider community (and therefore, dare we say, the economy) no harm to be detecting that the Government doesn't regard every piece of good news as a potential problem, perception-wise.

When Crown accounts show balance of payments improvements, revenue higher than forecast, expenses lower than forecast, operating deficits better than forecast, the news is accompanied by ministerial messages that if you feel at all bucked-up by any of this, then you cannot have been paying attention.

Extra revenue from Inland Revenue's settlement with the banks? Apparently that's okay as far as it goes, which isn't very.

News that the Government's wholesale funding guarantee, set up late 2008 during the liquidity crisis, will end in May, having proven a nice little earner with no payouts required so far, nor looking likely, but some $290 million charged in fees? Neither here nor there, in the greater scheme of things.

One of the biggest drivers for the economy is public confidence and this is suffering from Mr English's determination to save us all from the terrible consequences that would arise from the mad expectations that would be created if we were to be are to be feeling confident, or optimistic, or immodestly hopeful about our future.

How about lightening up just a little, Minister?

Talk to the doctors (those who remain on these shores) and you'll learn that patients in recovery don't respond so well to having medics leaning over their beds, at every opportunity, to whisper "you're still very, very sick ... "

- © Fairfax NZ News

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