Finance Minister Bill English is confident this year's ‘zero Budget' offers benefits for Tauranga.
He spoke about this when grilled by about 150 invited guests at a lunch hosted at Mills Reef Winery today.
Tauranga business leaders such as Zespri CEO Lain Jager, Tauranga Chamber of Commerce CEO Max Mason, Port of Tauranga CEO Mark Cairns and Bay of Plenty Regional Council chairman John Cronin were among the guests at the Mills Reef Winery lunch.
During a question and answer session after the lunch one guest grilled Bill English about allowing too much Chinese investment – saying China will soon own New Zealand.
Bill assured the audience that the relationship with China was an important one and joked that his father had similar fears about the Japanese decades ago.
4 comments
Look behind you Bill
Posted on 02-06-2011 18:16 | By Openknee8ted
Don is coming and he will have your job after the election.
eating Bill's dust
Posted on 03-06-2011 08:23 | By People Matter
The latest ONE News Colmar Brunton Poll shows that Don Brash's take over of the ACT party has failed to give his party a significant boost, with ACT scoring just 2.5% on the party vote, so this would suggest that Don is not coming
A Nothingness Budget-Guess Why ?
Posted on 05-06-2011 16:30 | By KAMIKAZE
INTEREST RATES OCR / INVESTMENTS / MORTGAGES /SHARES Ever since the Reserve Bank Governor recently lowered the official cash rate by .50 points people have become increasingly concerned with the effect of this course of action will have on the economy which to some degree resulted from Government pressure following the Christchurch earthquake. The result has been that the Banks have slashed deposit and term investment rates by up to 1% not the .50 points OCR reduction, resulting in many Bank depositors receiving 20% less income on what were already very low rates of return. The clear understanding is the National Government has been expounding the virtues of saving and this will do nothing to encourage this. On the flipside of the coin, mortgage rates have been reduced by around ½% encouraging more people to buy houses, resulting in heightened interest in the residential housing market which all know, caused NZ much of the angst in the first place. Is this what the National Government wants? I would be interested in Simon Bridges and other local National MPs comments . The projected 5% inflation rate for the current year even allowing 2% for increased GST is nothing to be joyous about either. Prominent accountants and sharebrokers see the same problems arising !!.On the love affair with shares, the penchant for investment in the sharemarket, either directly or through managed funds does nothing for the Company share price. It is solely between individual investors - not 1 cent goes to the Company R & D, etc. Only if one is the original shareholder providing share capital or venture capital is it of any significance. It is a myth, perpetuated by NSX etc. and does not help the economy at all. It is private wealth creation process and the reverse side of the coin is it can be a very harrowing experience if the Company share price ever falls out of bed. So when you are directed away from property investments or term deposits/ investments and shares are recommended, give it some very serious thought. These sort of fixations result in a ZILCH Budget.
STARTLED RABBIT
Posted on 05-06-2011 18:01 | By RORTOLOGIST
Video caption for the look of horror on Bills face should read "Whoa hold up there mate it is not the National Governments fault no one knows what to do and me and John boy just goin' with the flow bro' "
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