National Party leader Christopher Luxon. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Economic growth is the only way out of the recession, the National Party leader says.
The latest inflation figures will be released later this morning and economists are picking a fall below 6 percent.
But Christopher Luxon told Morning Report the government is borrowing and taxing its way out of the current recession.
"We're also the only economy in the whole of the Asia-Pacific region in a recession, and what's happened is that we've had a government that was the second biggest spender per capita in the OECD, we were the fourth biggest printers of cash in the OECD, we shut the country down like no other, it spiked domestic inflation, that led to high interest rates, led to recession, and the risk of rising unemployment so we are not in great shape."
Listen to the full interview with Christopher Luxon here
Luxon said he had spoken to families in recent weeks that were going without meat because they could not afford the price of food.
Good economic management was essential, he said.
"The thing that would make the most difference to the most amount of New Zealanders is good economic management. The government has mismanaged the economy on a scale we haven't seen before.
"That has caused huge amounts of pain and suffering for New Zealanders. Half of Kiwis worry about their money on a daily basis. 430,000 of us are behind our debt payments."
Luxon said the National Party was really serious about growing the economy, and creating a world-class education system, investing in infrastructure and investing in science and technology were all part of what it would do if it was in power.
Luxon defends rental bond policy
Luxon said the KiwiSaver policy the party announced earlier in the week had been "misrepresented".
The idea had come from the Young Nats and would give young people an option to dig into the few thousands dollars they may have saved up in KiwiSaver through a part-time job to pay a rental bond of four weeks' rent, he said.
"It's designed for the renter. It's for the young person who has worked hard to try and get into university, trying to make something of themselves, wants to get ahead and they've got to go find all of a sudden four weeks worth of rent and all we are saying is you'll be able to move that from your KiwiSaver account, into the tenancy services and then back to your KiwiSaver account, and if that helps you get set up in accommodation, in good accommodation, then it's a good idea. It's a practical option that is available to people.
"I think that's a good example of practical common sense policies and ideas that help people rather than actually solutions and ideology roaming around and searching for problems which this government has been doing."
Luxon said it was a small policy but designed to show young people that the party understood the issues they faced and what they were going through.