It’s not the “Big picture” – it’s the rotten canvas

It’s not the “Big picture” – it’s the rotten canvas Brian Gaynor (Herald, Saturday June 28) says ‘None of our political leaders seem to have a big picture vision or any idea how to reverse this long term under performance.’ I disagree - as important as the big picture is, it will never come to much if it is painted on a rotten canvas. New Zealanders have never suffered from an absence of visionary political leadership, have always had a pretty good idea of what they want as a country and have never had an economy that has been rudderless. New Zealand’s political visionaries, with their big pictures, have just been painting their dreams on the rotten canvas of debt and compounding interest. We have a desperate drive for growth, decades of current account deficits, a never ending need for taxation and rates and the unavoidable boom-bust cycles. We are unable to achieve a stabile and prosperous economy. There is the difficulty of funding a generous superannuation scheme, the impossibility of funding adequate - let alone first rate - health and education systems, the futile efforts to provide genuine growth in incomes to all, and at the same time to have a productive profitable economy that can make the investment necessary to recreate a green, sustainable New Zealand. It is all impossible because of underlying debt and interest – the rotten canvas. Nearer the end of this year, election 2008, more now than ever before we need people who can not only see the big picture but know what sort of canvas to paint it on. New Zealand’s greatest big picture, a long term success, was the massive state housing project established by the Michael Joseph Savage Labour Government. The project was built on a sound canvas of “honest money” created by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand at a mere cost of administration. Bring on the new canvas so the big picture can be realised.