Winston Peters says getting rid of assets will not fix the economy. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii
NZ First leader Winston Peters has savaged National's suggestion of asset sales as a "tawdry silly argument", which he says it is falling back on after having failed to fix the economy fast enough.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Monday he was open to the possible sale of state assets, though he has ruled it out this term.
Winston Peters told Morning Report there was a history of poor choices of asset sales by both Labour and National.
"Because they've failed to run the economy properly, they want to go to the assets of a time when the country was run properly, when we were number two in the world and built up by our forefathers and to start to flog those off ... to so-called balance their books," Peters said.
"This is a tawdry silly argument."
The government had not turned the economy around as quickly as it should have, he said.
"I know it can be turned around, but not with this sort of strategy where you're not actually fixing the economy, you're just getting rid of assets."
Getting rid of assets to balance the books was a mission that was doomed to fail before it even started, Peters said.
There were countries that were being smart in terms of fixing their economies such as Singapore, he said.
The coalition government is exploring the potential sale of its stake in the telecommunications lines company Chorus after investing in the rollout of ultrafast broadband.
The government had invested $1 billion in Chorus' fibre network. Finance Minister Nicola Willis said has the book value of the debt is $643 million and the government was seeking advice on what potential return it could get.
"This is literally the debt we're hocking off," Willis said.
But Peters did not support the idea calling it "creative accounting of the worst sort".
"You're selling off a debt on the basis that you've got an asset? Why don't we just make sure that Chorus pays us back."
Selling assets off was "a tawdry repetition of history" and Treasury was not performing, he said.
"When Treasury get their forecasts so wrong, they need to upskill themselves for goodness sake," he said.
"We're talking about a failed economic strategy that Treasury has pushed for a long long time."
Peters claimed Treasury did not know what it was talking about and it supported a "borrow and hope programme" during the last government which changed the country's debt ratios.
"I do know what I'm talking about here, I have looked at countries like Croatia, others that are coming around fast who are smart in what they're doing, Singapore's classic, Ireland until recently was doing brilliantly, Iceland is doing brilliantly.
"They all understand that if you add value to your asset wealth in the people's interests the jobs and the income and the wealth will come to your country."
Treasury was asked for a response and declined to comment.
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