Nats explain why super not important

Superannuation and savings are not crucial to economic growth, and that is why they were left out of the National Party’s discussion document on economic growth, says finance spokesman Don Brash.

The party announced several weeks ago it would focus on four issues this year: growth, education, social welfare and one standard of citizenship. The party was criticised by some within the financial services industry for not including superannuation in the list.

ING managing director, and former Investment Savings and Insurance Association chairman Paul Fyfe described the omission of the issue as "missing a golden opportunity".

The omission is not because National does not think savings are important, Dr Brash says.

"It is an issue I’m vitally concerned with, and one we will come back to. But this document is focussing on economic growth. The fact of the matter is, it’s hard to argue that savings are critical to economic growth at the moment.

"We’ve had the situation where some of countries with poorest savings records, such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand, have growth reasonably well recently. Other countries with very good savings records, such as Japan, have hardly grown at all."

The main concern regarding savings and economic growth is in the extent of New Zealanders’ borrowing, he says.

"If we continue to rely heavily on savings of foreigners, then at some point those foreigners may say they have had enough of this. We may see an adjustment upwards in the interest rate and downwards in the exchange rate. That could be quite uncomfortable. But there’s no sign of that at the moment."