“John Key’s got it wrong. The whole point of our policy is to strengthen Kiwibank to be a better commercial bank, not weaken it by encouraging non-commercial behaviour,” Green Party Co-leader James Shaw said.
“John Key is being deliberately alarmist and making things up because he doesn’t have his own plan for improving banking for Kiwis.
“The evidence from Kiwibank’s first few years shows how wrong John Key is. Back then, capital injections and lower dividends helped Kiwibank compete commercially to drive down the big Aussie banks’ rates and fees.
“Providing Kiwibank with capital to grow instead of using its profits to prop up NZ Post isn’t going to suddenly encourage Kiwibank to make bad loans, like John Key is pretending,” said Mr Shaw.