Lest we forget

Thanks to the hive for reminding us of this in a critically important year:

Clark's not on solid ground when it comes to hidden agendas. As deputy Prime Minister and Labour's key strategist at the 1990 election she helped perpetrate the big lie of that campaign.

In 1990, New Zealand was teetering towards economic recession. But the Labour Cabinet kept claiming right up to election day that the Government's accounts were in surplus.

National Prime Minister Jim Bolger's plans for a decent society were scuppered when he was confronted by officials just one day after the election with news of a serious fiscal crisis that they had kept secret under Labour's orders.

The Bank of New Zealand was about to go belly-up, something senior Labour ministers had known about for weeks, and the Treasury was forecasting a $3.7 billion deficit for the 1991/92 year which would blow out to a $5.2 billion deficit by 1993/94 unless drastic actions were taken.
Bolger's Cabinet had to cut costs to avert a major credit rating downgrade for New Zealand.
These are the conditions that led to the mother of all budgets.

But beneficiaries were not the only ones to feel pain.

New Zealand businesses folded as the recession bit and many Kiwis lost their jobs and were forced into major reductions in their living standards. It was a horrible time because the country was broke.

I'm sure we would rather have been prepared for the hard times ahead by a truthful Government instead of being conned by the snow-job perpetrated by Clark and her senior colleagues at the 1990 election.


Perhaps our Finance Minister trained as he is in economic history will reminisce of these times in the election year ahead?