The whole truth

Apropos of this morning’s first post on trust in media:

There is a very good reason that court witnesses must swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

It applies to news stories too.

Telling only part of the story without giving the whole story, and without the context, is misleading and can show bias.

In the latest series of context the Media won't provide:
Headline: 'Dozens of jobs set to be axed at Treasury'
Missing context: Since 2017, Treasury staffing has increased by 141 FTEs. In the past year it increased by 89.https://t.co/J1BnTy6NXv

— New Zealand Taxpayers' Union (@TaxpayersUnion) April 5, 2024

Labour hasn’t learned

Just a few months after their election defeat, just days after confirmation that the country is in recession and Labour is promoting the idea of new taxes.

Responding to comments from Chris Hipkins’ State of the Nation speech that New Zealand’s tax system is unsustainable, inequitable and in desperate need of reform, Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Alex Murphy said:

“Chris Hipkins might be trying to conjure up the narrative that implementing new taxes will somehow lead to a more prosperous and productive New Zealand, but a quick look at the latest GDP figures will tell you that our economy needs to be stimulated – not stifled.

“Time and again we’ve demonstrated that bringing in a capital gains tax or a wealth tax is about the worst thing you could do to an already slumping economy, and in the latter’s case, would potentially bring in less tax, as all those top earners wave goodbye and move their wealth abroad.

“The Government is reeling in more tax than it has ever done before, and despite the spin from leftwing groups, is being funded almost entirely from the top quarter of earners. Hipkins would do well to pull his head out of the sand and realise that New Zealand actually needs less taxation and less government spending to get it out of this hole, not the contrary.”

David Farrar points out what Labour cost us:

. . . If Labour had kept to their 2017 promise (the temporary increase in 2020 for Covid-19 doesn’t justify it still being this high in 2024) then there would be no need for expenditure cuts. In fact we would have a $5 billion surplus instead of a $9 billion deficit. . . 

In April 2011 a worker earning $70,000 paid $14,020 in tax or an effective rate of 20%.

In December 2023, a worker earning the equivalent of $70,000 in April 2011 would earn $94,282 today.

The tax on $94,282 would be $22,033 on an effective rate of 23.4%. You have had a tax increase in today’s dollars of $3,177. . . 

Labour hasn’t learned, they want to tax us more.

The country isn’t in rough financial waters because of too little tax.

We’re not here because they didn’t have enough.

We’re not here because they didn’t spend enough.

We’re here because they thought, and still do, that more spending is better spending.

We’re here because they put far too much into the quantity they spent and not nearly enough into the quality of spending.

We’re here because they took too much, spent too much and did so little good with it.

Their government didn’t take too little, they took too much and wasted it.

How typical of a party that hasn’t learned from its mistakes that the leader’s first major speech focussed on taking more rather than showing it had learned it ought to have taken less, spent less and delivered more.

Labour’s legacy

When politician’s retire, commentators remind us of what they’ve achieved and that’s usually positive.

The reaction to former Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s resignation has been less so, including this from the Taxpayers’ Union newsletter:

LEAKED: a former senior Treasury official on Robertson’s legacy 😬

. . . Your humble Taxpayers’ Union was accidentally CC’d into an excellent appraisal by a former senior Treasury official we ought not name. 

Robertson’s departure is a reminder of how much worse what seems like everything has become under his watch – monetary policy mess ($12 billion lost and inflation to boot) including pathetic RBNZ appointments, neutering the Productivity Commission, banning gas and oil exploration, making us more dependent on Australian coal, fiscal balance in “structural deficit”, spending up by about 6% of GDP since 2017, net core Crown debt up by about 22% of GDP, working age welfare dependency up alarmingly, school truancy and under-achievement, hospitals an organisational mess, nurses and others fleeing to Australia, GP shortages developing, tertiary vocational training a shambles, 6 years on RMA a wasted effort, Treasury looking anaemic. Perhaps $30 billion to buy overseas carbon credits to 2030, while major countries will not keep to Paris Agreement net zero targets.  No material difference to climate change, so at a major cost of NZers material wellbeing. Add to that the destabilising’ co-governance that increasingly really meant a co-sovereignty ‘partnership’. And this guy apparently wanted a wealth tax.

To what extent was he a restraining influence? I have no idea.

But he and Labour MPs will now jeer at this government for failing to fix these problems fast. . . 

This isn’t just Robertson’s legacy, it’s Labour’s legacy.

We will all be paying for it for a long, long time and the coalition government will be criticised for tough medicine needed to fix the ills Labour inflicted on us.

NZ could be tariff-free

Could New Zealand soon be tariff-free?

Commerce Minister Andrew Bayly will soon get advice on dropping New Zealand’s few remaining tariffs, allowing vastly more goods to enter the country without paying a fee.

A Briefing to the Incoming Minister of Commerce (BIM) hinted the Government was receiving advice on dropping remaining tariffs, which was an Act Party election policy. Bayly’s office confirmed in a statement that the minister was getting advice in the near future.

Most of New Zealand’s trade is covered by fair trade agreements, which means countries whose imports are covered under those agreements pay low or no tariffs. . . 

Bayly’s BIM made the consumer case for dumping tariffs.

“New Zealand retains five and sometimes ten per cent tariffs on imported goods. Although free trade agreements greatly reduce these, consumers can still face higher prices because of tariffs that apply to goods such as cosmetics (including sunscreen, make-up, perfume, and skin care), motorhomes and caravans, frozen pork, t-shirts and sweatshirts, leather shoes and jewellery,” the BIM said.

These tariffs earned the Government $180 million last year, meaning that getting rid of them would cost the Government roughly that amount of money.

However, the BIM said the cost to the total economy was greater than what the Government earned in revenue.

“Costs include the administrative costs for government in maintaining the system and compliance costs for businesses in demonstrating that their imported goods come from a country that qualifies for lower tariffs under a Free Trade Agreement. A recent study estimated these add another $90-260 million in costs to consumers, businesses, and government,” the BIM said. . . 

Tariffs contribute to inflation. Dumping them would make a contribution to cutting costs:

Responding to calls for the Government to scrap New Zealand’s remaining import tariffs, Taxpayers’ Union Policy & Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:

“Tariffs are a tax on consumers, and if there’s one thing Kiwis don’t need during this cost-of-living crisis it’s the Government increasing the price of goods even further.

“As well as driving up prices and the costs of doing business in New Zealand, our tariffs quite literally cost the Government more to administer than they raise in revenue. They are a millstone around our country’s neck stifling competition and holding back growth.

“The folly of import tariffs is clear, and cash-strapped shoppers should be jumping with joy at any attempts to follow Singapore’s example in becoming a free trading nation.”

Dumping the tariffs would be good business and also a good example to other countries.

New Zealand is a strong advocate for free trade and should dump tariffs to demonstrate our commitment to that.

We can’t fund terrorism

The Taxpayers’ Union has launched a petition calling for the Government to scrap continued funding of UNRWA, following revelations about connections to terrorism in the Israel-Palestine conflict.  

. . . Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union said:

“New Zealanders should not be forced to fund any aid organisation where there are serious allegations of money being funnelled into terrorism. There are plenty of other not-for-profits able to do the job without the politicisation.”

“In addition to the new allegations relating to UNRWA participating in the the 7th October attacks, previous concerns have been raised about UNRWA inciting radicalisation through obscene hate-filled publications.”

“New Zealand should join the governments of Australia, Canada, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands and the US and pull taxpayer funding of UNRWA.” 

Criticisms of UNRWA are not new:

. . . The involvement of UNRWA staff with the Hamas attacks may be the catalyst, but there has been numerous scandals over the last decade ranging from UNRWA teachers promoting Jew hatred in schools, to anti-semitic textbooks to teaching kids how to kill Jews etc. This is not a case of a few bad apples, but a culture that has been allowed to flourish for years.

And every time these issues have been raised, the UN did nothing but deny and dissemble. They had the chance to sort them out, but didn’t. . . 

UNRWA has sacked some staff but it’s not just a few bad apples:

Notwithstanding the repeated denials by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and its insistence that it has zero tolerance for hatred and antisemitism, UN Watch continues to find abhorrent antisemitism and support for jihadi terrorism by UNRWA staff on social media. This report details how UNRWA teachers in a 3,000-member UNRWA staff Telegram group cheered and celebrated Hamas’s October 7th massacre while at the same time asking when their UNRWA salaries will be paid. The UNRWA staff in the group shared photos and video footage of those events and prayed for the terrorists’ success and for Israel’s destruction, in clear violation of UN rules.

This is the latest in a series of reports on UNRWA staff antisemitism and incitement to jihadi terrorism which our research proves is systemic and widespread. Since 2015, UN Watch has exposed over 150 UNRWA staff Facebook pages that contain antisemitism and incitement to jihadi terrorism in blatant violation of UN neutrality. UNRWA’s typical response to our research has been to disparage our human rights organization and downplay the problem as reflecting just a few bad apples. The UNRWA Telegram group featured in this report completely eviscerates UNRWA’s denials and exposes the extent of UNRWA’s failure to do the bare minimum to address its staff’s neutrality violations.  . . .

Our $1million contribution to the organisation is relatively small compared with those from other countries but size is irrelevant. Hamas is a terrorist organisation and we cannot fund terrorism.

UNRWA provides humanitarian aid to Palestinians and that work will be severely compromised by the withdrawal of funding form several countries but there are other agencies with no known links to terrorism that do similar work and funding could go to them instead.

The loss of funds should also be a wake up call to the UN which must provide much better monitoring of its agencies to ensure they are doing the good work they are funded to do and not supporting terrorism.

You can sign the petition here.

User pays fairer

Tradies, farmers and every other buyer of a new utility vehicle were subsidising buyers of electric vehicles until the ute tax was axed at the end of last year.

All road users have been subsidising EV drivers who were paying neither fuel tax nor road user charges as every other vehicle owner must. That subsidy will soon stop:

The coalition Government is confirming that the exemption from road user charges (RUC) for owners of light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrids will end from 1 April, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.

“Petrol tax and distance-based RUC are paid by road users to contribute to the costs of maintaining our roads, but EVs and plug-in hybrids have been exempted from RUC. Transitioning EVs and plug-in hybrids to RUC is the first step in delivering on the National-ACT coalition commitment to bring all vehicles into the RUC system.

“This transition to RUC is about fairness and equity. It will ensure that all road users are contributing the upkeep and maintenance of our roads, irrespective of the type of vehicle they choose to drive.

“Plug-in hybrids are powered by electricity and petrol and have had to pay petrol tax, but not to the same level as petrol equivalent vehicles. To ensure that plug-in hybrids avoid paying twice through both fuel excise duty and RUCs, these vehicles will pay a reduced rate RUC. 

“The previous National Government exempted EVs from paying RUC to encourage their uptake. This exemption was always intended to end when EVs hit around two per cent of the light vehicle fleet and we’re now at that point.

“With the increasing uptake of EVs and plug-in hybrids being brought into the RUC system, this means that these vehicles will now be contributing towards the maintenance and upkeep of our roading system like all other road users and will support the Government’s priority of building and maintaining our roading network.”  . . .

It might dissuade some people from buying electric vehicles but contrary to the rhetoric from those worried about environmental damage, the Taxpayers’ Union points out that this will have no impact on transport emissions which are governed under the emissions trading scheme.

Removing the subsidy is user pays and it’s fair. Drivers of EVs should pay as other road users do for the maintenance and upgrade of roads.

Say no to taxpayer funding of political parties

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has sensibly ruled out several recommendations from the  Independent Electoral Review’s final report :

“A number of recommendations can be ruled out immediately, such as lowering the voting age to 16, allowing all prisoners to vote and stand for Parliament, freezing the ratio of electorate to list seats, which would lead to extra MPs as the population increases, and repealing the offence of ‘treating’ voters with refreshments and entertainment.”

The final report is here and includes several other recommendations which ought to be ruled out too.

Among those is state funding of political parties and I support the Taxpayers’ Union which opposes that:

Responding to today’s release of the Final Report of the Independent Electoral Review, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said:

“The recommendation from the Review to increase funding for political parties is morally wrong, and erodes grassroots democracy.

“No taxpayer should be forced to fork out money to fund parties they find morally reprehensible. People pay taxes so that it can be spent on quality public services, not party propaganda.

“If parties can rely on guaranteed money from the taxpayer, they become less reliant on membership dues and fundraisers. This reduces the incentive for parties to be responsive to their members’ values and will lead to less accountability.

“Incumbent political parties already receive substantial taxpayer funding through the broadcasting allocation and the ability to use Parliamentary Service funding for political advertising that is not even subject to our Official Information laws. Rather than shifting the money around and adding even more taxpayer funding into the mix, all taxpayer funding for political parties should be scrapped.

“We call on all political parties to publicly reject the recommendation for further taxpayer funding of political parties and urge them to go one step further by removing the broadcasting allocation and the ability to use taxpayer funds for blatantly political advertisements.”

MMP has given a lot more power to parties.

If they can’t persuade their supporters to finance them they have no right to public funding and if they can persuade their supporters to fund them they have no need for public funding.

The government is looking at ways to save money. Ditching the broadcasting allowance wouldn’t save a lot in terms of overall spending but it would send a signal that every cent is being spent wisely. Ruling out any additional funding of political parties would reinforce that.

It is the democratically, economically and ethically sensible thing to do.

Waste watch

Team meetings can be necessary,  useful, even valuable, but $800,000 over two years looks excessive :

The Taxpayers’ Union is astounded at the staggering cost of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise spending $809,450 seven ‘Regional Team Meetings’ over two years, but the cost breakdown is even worse.

A Taxpayers’ Union OIA can reveal:

• • Meals for these 2-3 day meetings totalled $185,696 and averaged $217 per person, per day, but for some meetings were as high as $296 per person per day.

That is at least twice, possibly three times, more than would be reasonable for three meals and morning and afternoon teas.

• • Accommodation costs totalled $292,295
  • Key agenda items for the meetings included:
    • Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament
    • Silent Disco
    • Scavenger hunt
    • Yoga
    • Song contest
    • Team Trivia Night
    • Animal Sanctuary Visit
    • Wellbeing Teambuilding challenge
    • Creativity session
    • Personal purpose and reflection time

Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said:

“Despite the exorbitant costs charged back to taxpayers, it seems like the jaunts were little more than children’s holiday camps rather than getting down to business.

“Reading the information response, we thought someone was playing a joke. Rock, paper, scissors tournaments, silent discos and scavenger hunts? Seriously? You couldn’t make this stuff up.”

“How this kind of expenditure was allowed to go on across multiple years is simply unfathomable. It is time for NZTE to grow up, front up and stop acting like children.”

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise may as well have been using scissors to cut up actual paper money and taxpayers would still be feeling like they've hit rock bottom. Hours of every regional team meeting is filled with bull dust such as this. pic.twitter.com/O7g35RmGig

— New Zealand Taxpayers' Union (@TaxpayersUnion) January 8, 2024

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise were dancing taxpayer dollars away while the accountability for how this money was allowed to be spent like this remains deafeningly silent. NZTE's meetings seem more like kids summer camps than serious trade meetings. pic.twitter.com/w1fhaCX4N1

— New Zealand Taxpayers' Union (@TaxpayersUnion) January 10, 2024

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise spent $809,450 on seven ‘Regional Team Meetings’ over two years, but what's worse, these meetings appear to have involved almost no work. Among the agenda items have been scavenger hunts, silent discos, paper scissors rock tournaments and more! pic.twitter.com/2yhWiZJ7ar

— New Zealand Taxpayers' Union (@TaxpayersUnion) January 10, 2024

You would think if an organisation is spending $800,000 on team meetings, they would actually be getting work done. Turns out NZ Trade and Enterprise is spending the money on yoga, singing contests, scavenger hunts and paper, scissors, rock tournaments instead. pic.twitter.com/xtLV5LtG2y

— New Zealand Taxpayers' Union (@TaxpayersUnion) January 11, 2024

NZTE's regional team meetings, averaging a cost of $115,000 per meeting, are a complete waste of time and money. The meeting agendas are filled with silly activities like song contests and scavenger hunts leaving very little time to get any real work done. pic.twitter.com/EOt6lF8WrT

— New Zealand Taxpayers' Union (@TaxpayersUnion) January 14, 2024

Equality, Treaty & Taxpayers Union

Lord Hannan, Daniel, talks about equality, the Treaty and Taxpayers’ Union.

He talks about the dangers of importing indignation, tribalism and identity politics taking us back to pre-enlightened times.

Did you see the one about . . .?

Cultural fixation is a crock – Lindsay Mitchell :

The public service’s dogged determination to impose Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations across the sector results in the absurd and incongruous.

According to Oranga Tamariki, formerly Child, Youth and Family:

Oranga Tamariki is currently introducing a new practice approach (completion 2024) that is framed by Te Tiriti o Waitangi, based on a mana enhancing paradigm for practice, and draws on Te Ao Māori Principles of oranga and transpires into a practice that is relational, inclusive, and restorative which is good for all tamariki, children, whānau, and families.[i]

It sounds rather like the ‘Maori way or the highway.’ In 2021 Te Pati Maori, supported by Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis, insisted that OT adopt a ‘by Maori, for Maori’ approach.

Children in OT care are now put into “four high-level categories”: Maori, Pacific, Maori/Pacific, and lastly, as an after-thought almost, NZ European and other.

Children in the care of OT are now categorised as either Maori, Pacific, Maori and Pacific or non-etc.

Cultural identity is ‘paramount’ apparently … but if you are Asian or Indian or NZ European … yeah … nah. You are just non-Maori or non-Pacific. The details of your lineage are of no account. In truth the only cultural identity of interest is Polynesian and OT struggles to disguise this.

How does the “bi-cultural practice” advocated in OT’s ‘Maori Cultural Framework’ serve, for example, a refugee child? When I asked OT which two cultures the framework catered to, the answer was inconclusive:

Under the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989, the Chief Executive of Oranga Tamariki must ensure, wherever possible, that all policies adopted by the department, and all services provided by the department, recognise the social, economic, and cultural values of all cultural and ethnic groups; and have particular regard for the values, culture, and beliefs of Māori.

I can only interpret that as Maori and other. Whatever happened to multi-culturalism?

Oddly though, in this ‘by Maori, for Maori’ organisation, in April 2023 only 28 percent of staff were Maori. Nearly three quarters weren’t.

And here’s another irony. Of those who answered all the questions in the survey referred to, “99% answered in English only, none answered in Māori only, and less than 1% answered in both English and Māori.”

Staff are predominantly NZ European, and the language used by staff and their clients is predominantly English.

Oranga Tamariki’s crucial role is to ensure the safety and security of children. All and any at-risk children. Yet the survey itself showed “little overall improvement in tamariki and rangatahi experiences.”

Their fixation with culture is a crock.

A Government-run supermarket is a fool’s idea – Mike Hosking :

The most shameful promise this election came from Labour, who promised in 2017 to increase the breast screening age, and then for six years didn’t do anything. 

And now they are promising it again, as though you are supposed to believe them and things will be different. 

The most ridiculous promise came yesterday, suggesting Labour are now wanting to run a Four Square. 

It would be a Government-run supermarket, or at least they want to help you get into one. They want to be an investor in the supermarket business.  . .

To be frank, it still won’t lead anywhere because the election for Labour is over. But the fact that things have got this mad and this unhinged shows you just how tragic it has all become. . . 

Given Labour’s record on delivery, what fool would even consider going into business with them selling apples? Or any other grocery item? 

Government-run supermarkets is the stuff of communism and third world backwaters. 

And as close as we may have gotten to that status, surely most of us are bright enough to work out they have completely and utterly lost the plot.

A late pitch for supermarket competition – Eric Crampton:

. . . First, backing companies is a mistake. The government shouldn’t be picking who the next grocery retailer might be. 

Next, subsidising entrants would also be a mistake. If you have everything else set right, the potential entrant’s decision about whether to enter tells you something really important about viability. But if a subsidy’s needed to get them over the line, it’s a lot harder to tell whether that entry really made sense in the first place. And you’re setting the stage for future subsidy-seeking. 

I don’t know what incubating innovation means and I’m not sure they do either. It feels like something that Rhonda from Australian TV series Utopia might have thrown into the mix because it sounded good. 

But making sure land is available and that regulation isn’t in the way strikes at the root of the current problem.  . . 

The real devils among us – Dane Giraud

. . . The organized Left—once a bastion for free speech, equality, and social justice—has become drunk on the heady wine of identitarianism, losing its way in the maze of its own making. The politics of identity have eclipsed the quest for universal values, and in doing so, mutated into a grotesque facsimile of the very far-right extremism it purports to fight. The great irony lies here: In their incessant mission to highlight the pervasive evils they claim to battle, they have themselves become the embodiment of these forces.

In my cobwebbed tale of the invisible Christians, the characters justified their maleficent manipulations by claiming to fight a greater evil—the devil. In doing so, they manifested a power that, until their scheme, wasn’t even real. In their lust for power, they manipulated fear and ignorance, the twin devils of any society. Today’s wielders of influence seem to have leafed through the same dark playbook. They may not vanish in the literal sense, but they engage in a different kind of disappearing act: the erasure of honesty, the disappearance of critical debate, and the nullification of the very values they claim to uphold.

So, let’s not pretend that we are merely passive spectators of some unfolding drama. Our society has become a theatre of the absurd, where visibility is granted to the loudest and most divisive among us, and obscurity is the punishment for those who dare to question their paper devils. . .

We’ve shown you ours. . . .

The Taxpayers’ Union has been questioning Labour’s numbers for its policy to remove GST from fruit and vegetables.

The union has released its modeling and is now challenging Labour to show us theirs:

Following recent concerns raised by the Taxpayers’ Union that Labour’s GST-exempt policy would leave a revenue hole of up to $411m because, as Labour have claimed, more people may eat fresh fruit and vegetables if they were cheaper, yesterday Chris Hipkins told media “We’ve already banked the savings that people make. So when people get their GST off their fruit and vegetables, we’ve assumed that 100% of the savings they get from that are going to be spent on more fruit and vegetables.

“If they spend that on something else then actually, our costings are overly conservative because they’ll pay GST on the other stuff. The Taxpayers’ Union beat-up is just fictional. It doesn’t make sense. They haven’t actually got their numbers right.”

To call the Prime Minister’s bluff, the Taxpayers’ Union is releasing the excel spreadsheet and is inviting journalists and analysts to come to their own conclusion on Hipkins’ version of ‘fiction’. The spreadsheet is available to download here.

“It’s certainly a big coincidence that Labour’s numbers match, almost exactly, our figures before we adjust them for behavioural changes. After this behavioural adjustment, Labour is left with a $411 million hole which they are yet to explain.

“Now that we’ve done so, Mr Hipkins and Robertson should release their spreadsheet showing how they came to the same number, but – as Hipkins claims – accounting for the substitution effect on demand for fresh fruit and vegetables from his GST-free policy.

“Either it’s an almighty coincidence, the Labour Party leader is being misled by his advisors, or Mr Hipkins is misleading voters. We are pretty confident it’s not the first one.

“It’s time for Mr Hipkins to put his money where his mouth is and release Labour’s own costings.” 

We’ve released our modelling showing the $411 million hole in Labour’s GST policy. Until they release theirs, Grant Robertson’s economic credibility meter will continue to dig deeper and deeper. pic.twitter.com/94xIkWtYQI

— New Zealand Taxpayers' Union (@TaxpayersUnion) September 28, 2023

There isn’t a single economist who has said that sabotaging what is widely regarded as a gold-standard GST system by taking the tax from fruit and vegetables is good policy.

If savings get passed on to consumers it will benefit the wealthy far more than the poor and it is very, very unlikely that the full savings, if any, will be passed on anyway.

Even if Labour’s numbers are right, there are far better ways to help the poor afford more nutritious food, but how can we know they’re right if they won’t accept the challenge to show them?

The TU is confident enough in their numbers to show them, if Labour is confident about its numbers it should show us theirs too.

The challenge isn’t just to the Labour Party, it is also to the media – will they question Labour over its figures as doggedly as they have questioned National over its numbers?

Govt feeding debt monstor

Labour announced its fiscal plan yesterday.

The party is trying to persuade us to ignore the past six years of mismanagement and believe that they will do better in the next three.

Labour’s Fiscal Plan will be a work of fiction like all of their other documents. They are addicted to spending and break every spending commitment they ever make. pic.twitter.com/CnlBxccwKL

— Christopher Bishop (@cjsbishop) September 26, 2023

The Taxpayers’ Union’s debt clock shows the size of the problem.

As Government debt continues to pile on, the tax burden on the next generation of taxpayers continues to grow. This means that in the coming years, more and more money will be spent on paying back debt and interest resulting in less money for core government services like health and education.

The party that’s been feeding the debt monster that’s devouring the country’s public finances can’t be trusted to tame it.

“They’re not racist either”

One of the weapons used by those into identity politics is to label people who disagree.

This came up in the Taxpayer’s Union panel discussion following last week’s leaders’ debate and Damien Grant showed how it is wrong :

pic.twitter.com/EmSdVk4UD6

— Damien Grant (@damienmgrant) September 21, 2023

Damien Grant: Is Jordan Williams a racist because he doesn’t agree with co-governance? Is Jordan Williams a racist.

Simon Wilson: No

Damien Grant: Okay, so if Jordan Williams isn’t a racist, what about all the other people, are they, they’re not racist either because you cannot sir, you cannot turn around to somebody and say because you disagree with me on this issue, ipso facto you must be a racist. 

The people who are stirring up racial hatred who go there and infer from somebody’s views malice, and that sir, is wrong and you shouldn’t do it. You are a member of the fourth estate, you should do better.

The full panel discussion is here. Damien’s statement is at 56:20.

Disagreeing with co-governance doesn’t make someone racist.

Criticising a woman’s actions, policies or views doesn’t make the critic sexist.

Standing up for women’s rights to fairness in sport,  privacy and dignity in changing rooms and loos and stating the biological fact that biology is binary, doesn’t make people anti-trans or transphobic.

Labels are too often used to shut down discussion and debate and the fourth estate should not be enabling it.

Contrary to the heading, it’s not just Democrats, it’s anyone who attempts to shut down discussion by trying to pin ist labels for those who disagree with them.

Every single time pic.twitter.com/1RuZLBTRIN

— Declaration of Memes (@LibertyCappy) September 22, 2023

Common sense on speed limits

National is showing common sense on speed limits:

A National government will undo Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions, returning many state highways to 100 km/h from 80, and many local roads to 50 km/h from 30, while designing new highways for 110 km/h, National’s Transport spokesperson Simeon Brown says.

“Under the guise of safety, Labour has exposed its anti-car ideology by slowing down New Zealanders going about their daily lives.

“New highways like Transmission Gully and the Kapiti Expressway near Wellington were designed for vehicles to travel at 110 km/h but Labour has mostly imposed a 100 km/h speed limit. Both roads will rise to 110 km/h under National.

I’ve driven thousands of kilometres on motorways in Europe where there is no speed limit. There were also no pot holes and no road works.

“All around the country, Labour has cut speeds on many highways from 100 km/h to 80 by ignoring economic impacts including travel times, and by giving insufficient weight to road users’ and local communities’ views.

“National will repeal and replace the rules that set speed limits so that economic impacts – including travel times – and the views of road users and local communities count, alongside safety. We anticipate this resulting in highways going back to 100kmh speed limits, except where it would be unsafe to do so. Similarly, we’ll restore local roads to 50 km/h from 30, except where that would be unsafe.

Temporary speed restrictions round schools when children are arriving and leaving might be sensible and there could be other stretches of roads where slower speeds are needed. But there is no social licence for blanket speed reductions and they are mostly being ignored.

“It makes no sense to have roads that can safely accommodate higher speed limits, only to require motorists to drive more slowly.

“The reductions which were part of Labour’s expensive ‘Road to Zero’ road safety campaign, have not worked. The road toll was 350 in 2019 when ‘Road to Zero’ was introduced, and it rose to 374 last year.

“Although Labour has had a single-minded focus on safety – alcohol and drug use is the number one contributor to road fatalities. National will encourage Police to increase the use of breath testing and we will fix roadside drug testing legislation so Police can effectively test drivers for drugs.

“We will also reduce the use of road cones and limit temporary speed restrictions where they are not justified. Temporary traffic management keeps roadside workers and motorists safe during construction or maintenance activities. However, excessive use of road cones and speed limit reductions – sometimes left in force when work is complete – simply slow traffic and frustrate drivers, without improving safety.”

Hundreds of metres of road cones and much slower speed limit either side of a small patch where the seal has been dug up and no-one is working is over-kill that encourages drivers to ignore the restriction. All that’s required is a sign requiring a lower speed, perhaps with a few cones, much closer to the problem.

National will:

· Change the rules for setting speed limits with the expectation of reversing Labour’s blanket speed restrictions on highways and local roads, except where it would be unsafe to do so.

· Increase speed limits to 110km/h on the Kapiti Expressway and Transmission Gully, and on the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway if a current review finds that would be safe.

· Require contractors to minimise the use of temporary speed limit reductions at road maintenance sites at times when workers are off-site and risks to motorists are mitigated.

· Require reduced variable speed limits around schools during pick up and drop off times.

“New Zealanders are fed up with Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions. Everything has become more difficult under Labour and National is going to get New Zealand moving to increase productivity and economic growth.

“A growing economy will ease the cost of living and means New Zealand will be able to afford more of the public services we all want and expect.

“In three weeks, voters will decide whether New Zealand suffers another three years of mismanagement, with a Labour/Greens and Te Pati Māori coalition. Or New Zealanders can choose a stable National government that will manage the economy well, ease the cost of living and deliver tax relief so we can all get ahead.”

Speed can kill but so can inattention and frustration and that’s what happens when speed restrictions don’t make sense and then don’t get public buy-in.

Signs reducing speed to 30 kph were put at the foot of a small slip beside State Highway 83 west of Kurow for months. There was nothing from the slip on the road and no apparent sign of any danger. Finally common sense broke out and the speed restrictions signs were replaced with signs pointing out there was a slip and leaving it to drivers to adjust their speed if necessary, which it wasn’t.

Most of Wanaka has a blanket 40 kph limit for most of the town and most drivers ignore it. That’s good for revenue collection by the police at the cost of loss of social licence.

That’s just two examples of speed unnecessary speed restrictions, there will be many more, all over the country with no benefit for safety and high costs:

Responding to National’s plans to reverse Labour’s blanket speed reductions, Taxpayers’ Union Policy Adviser, James Ross, said:
 
“The real cost of reducing speed limits is far more than just changing some signs, and it is not a policy which comes cheap. Trucks, buses and cars rely on being able to get from A to B as quickly as possible to keep the country ticking over. Longer travel times for transport and freight lowers productivity, which in turn means less growth, higher prices and lower wages.
 
“Where there is clear evidence that reducing speed limits on a specific section of road will have a significant effect on road safety, then this option should of course be considered. However, hobbling the economy with blanket reductions is a decision which has been taken far too lightly.
 
“At a time when improving our productivity is more important then ever, we should be looking for ways to safely allow people to travel faster, not slow them down. A return to evidence-based highways policy which makes full use of proper economic assessments will be a welcome change for Kiwis struggling under the cost-of-living crisis.”

This policy is a vote winner, not just because of the positive impact it will have on travel times but because it shows National is basing policy on evidence and practicality not ideology and politics.

They’ll also be trusting us to drive to the conditions and with the knowledge that speed limits are limits and not targets.

$411m hole in Labour’s fruit & veg costings

There’s a hole in Labour’s costings for its policy to take GST of fruit and vegetables:

The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that it appears the Labour Party has failed to account for behavioural change in its flagship election GST policy. Despite the policy document stating that it “will have the additional benefit of encouraging Kiwis to purchase more healthy fruit and vegetables in their weekly shop”, the Party does not seem to have factored this into its costings.
 
By using data from the 2019 Household Economic Survey and excluding canned dried fruit and vegetables, we can estimate that the share of current GST revenue that is levied on fruit and vegetables is 1.55%. Applying this to the BEFU GST revenue figures, allows us to almost perfectly match the figures in Labour’s costings:

Note that in the HES, fruit and vegetables are combined into canned, bottled and frozen. The above calculations assume that half of this category is frozen.
 
When a good becomes cheaper relative to another similar good, there is a substitution effect where consumers shift towards consuming the cheaper alternative. By removing GST from non-processed fruit and vegetables, it is likely that there will be some shift towards these products from processed alternatives. The shift away from processed fruit and vegetables will mean less GST is raised on these products and this should be taken into account in any costings.
 
Applying figures from a modelling study on effect of food taxes and subsidies on population health and health costs in New Zealand from 2019 by Blakley et al. would suggest a percentage change of around 17% and a resultant gap in the costings of $411 million if the GST reduction is passed on in full as suggested by some Labour candidates’ election advertisements. Even if only 30 per cent of the GST reduction is passed on as the Tax Working Group’s report on the issue suggests, there would still be a $123 million gap in Labour’s costings.
 
Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director, Jordan Williams, said:
 
“Labour’s policy of removing GST from non-processed fruit and vegetables has already been lambasted by economists and people across the political spectrum, but it seems that their proposals were even less well thought through than it first seemed. Despite boasting that the policy will encourage Kiwis to shift their eating habits towards more non-processed fruit and vegetables, even Labour’s own modelling leaves it out for the purpose of the costings.
 
“Labour is effectively saying its plan to destroy the best GST system in the world will not result in Kiwis eating one more carrot.”
 
“Either Labour’s got a big hole in its costings, or they know their key sales pitch is fresh baloney.”
 
“If some of their candidates’ rather unrealistic claim that supermarkets will pass on GST reduction in full, our estimates suggest that Labour would have a hole in their budget of over $400 million. Even using the Tax Working Group’s more conservative pass through estimates, we still see a gap of over $120 million that remains unaccounted for. Voters are already seeing through this cynical policy and this latest blunder would suggest that even its main champions haven’t even properly thought it through.
 
“Misleading costings like these show why an independent costings unit to audit the spending promises that political parties put forward is a no brainer.”

Would it be safe to hold my breath while waiting for the media to hound Labour on this the way they’ve been hounding National?

There isn’t a single economist who has supported Labour’s policy and what was bad before has got worse with this hole in its calculation of the costs.

Vote them out #24

Thanks to Ruth Richardson’s Fiscal Responsibility Act, government’s can’t hide what they’ve done to the country’s books.

The sorry state of the country’s economy will be laid bare in the Pre-election Economic Fiscal Update (Prefu) today.

It will be evidence of Labour’s over-taxing, wasteful spending and legacy of debt.

That debt was approaching $158 billion in May’s Budget. It will be worse now.

Just how bad the debt is will become clear when the Taxpayer Union launches its debt clock outside parliament with a sausage sizzle between noon and 1pm.

The debt and the interest on it will be a handbrake on the economy, and on future government’s ability to properly fund services and infrastructure for decades.

Labour’s economic incompetence is a very good reason to vote them out and allow a National-led government to get the country, its economy and all it funds, back on track.

Dodgy deals from MfE

Federated Farmers is right to turn down the dodgy deal from the Ministry of the Environment:

“The Ministry for the Environment are looking to fund NGO participation in resource management and freshwater reform processes to the tune of up to $600,000 over three years for each participating organisation,” Federated Farmers RMA spokesperson Mark Hooper says.

“Federated Farmers were approached to participate in the pilot programme and were presented with an alarmingly short timeline – a rush job of 4 weeks just so it can be completed before the election.

“This doesn’t pass the sniff test for us at this stage of the political cycle, so we are turning the money down out of principle and we’re calling on other organisations to do the same.

“It’s not appropriate for MfE to be trying to shovel taxpayers’ money out the door as fast as they can on the eve of voters going to the polls,” Hooper said.

The Government’s RMA and water reforms are highly controversial. The Opposition have made it clear that they will repeal these laws if they are elected in just six weeks’ time.

“It seems financially reckless to be looking to sign contracts just weeks before an election, particularly when there is a chance these programmes will be scrapped altogether.

“I want to know why the Ministry are in such a hurry. There is absolutely no reason why this needs to be rushed through before the election,” Hooper said.

Federated Farmers are calling on the Government to immediately postpone this dodgy pilot process until after the election – or scrap it all together.

“Is this really the sort of thing the Government should be funding in the first place?” Hooper questioned.

“Why does the Government need to be forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars to select lobby groups to engage with their policy processes?

“If the Government really believes the only way people are going to be able to engage with their policy processes is if they have a six-figure war chest, that tells you everything about how complex and broken these Government reforms are.”

Instead of offering state funded assistance to NGO’s, they should be focusing on developing a policy process that local communities can actually engage with, Hooper said.

“Federated Farmers will continue to engage in these processes as the independent voice of farmers – but we won’t be doing it with taxpayer funding.”

Federated Farmers is showing more respect for public funds than MfE and is to be commended for acting on principle.

The Taxpayers’ Union is justifiably alarmed by the offer of these dodgy deals:

Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Callum Purves, said:

“This is incredibly worrying and undermines public trust in the political neutrality of our public service. The RMA reforms are expected to be implemented over a 10-year period, there is no reason for the Ministry to be shovelling money out of the door and rushing through the plan development process just weeks before the election. It seems that the Ministry is of they view that if they can rush through enough of the changes before the election, the next Government may decide that the reforms have gone too far to unwind.

“It is wasteful and unacceptable that the Ministry is seeking to sign contracts that potentially add up to millions of dollars for work just before the election that the opposition have committed to scrapping if they are elected. No private business would sign a major contract for work just weeks before a decision on whether or not that work should be continued – there are clearly other motives here.

“The Taxpayers’ Union will be demanding answers from other government agencies to see whether similar approaches are being taken in respect of Three Waters, Fair Pay Agreements and the GIDI fund. We commend Federated Farmers for rejecting the money on principle and encourage other organisations to do the same.”

If voters do the right thing and deliver a National-led government next month the debacles that are Labour’s freshwater and RMA reforms will be axed.

Even if we don’t get the change the country desperately needs this is not responsible use of scarce public funds.

Mud sticks to hand that throws it

The CTU’s wrap around advertisement in yesterday’s New Zealand Herald demonising National leader Christopher Luxon has got a lot of publicity.

That was the aim, but it might have back fired on both the union and the paper.

The paper had a right to print the advertisement, although it begs the question of why a personal attack on a politician by a union is acceptable when an advertisement merely asking the question what is a woman? was not?

A paper that publishes some political advertisements but censors others that don’t breach advertising standards is showing bias.

If talkback calls can be believed, the Herald has lost some subscribers because of perceived bias over the union advertisement.

A union spokesman tried to justify the ad by comparing it with Taxpayers’ Union ads against the government, conveniently ignoring the important difference between ads that criticise policy and attacks against a person.

🎶 One of these things is not like the others… 🎶 pic.twitter.com/sJ0qDX6iv7

— New Zealand Taxpayers' Union (@TaxpayersUnion) September 4, 2023

Mud sticks to the hand that throws it and no matter the protestations from both the union and Labour that they are not aligned, the mud in this instance has stuck to them both.

The ad may well have done the opposite of what is was intended to do by garnering sympathy for Luxon from fair minded people who prefer political campaigns to stick to debating policy rather than personal attacks.

You deserve better. Party Vote National to get our country back on track. pic.twitter.com/RlB2ED4p2v

— NZ National Party (@NZNationalParty) September 4, 2023

 

 

Better way for water

The government has forced through its Three Waters legislation but it will be gone in 100 days if National is in government :

Labour’s Three Waters backdown bill has now been rammed through Parliament under urgency after a truncated and undemocratic process, but its days are numbered, and within 100 days of a National Government – it’s gone, National’s spokesperson for Local Government Simon Watts says.

“Labour’s unpopular Three Waters Bill has been a disaster from start to finish. Over 86,000 people voiced their opposition to the first bill – and then Labour was caught out trying to entrench part of the bill.

“Three Waters is broken and unworkable, and as the first part of National’s Three Waters Plan, we’ll repeal it in our first 100 days in office.

“Unlike Labour’s broken reforms, National has a plan, so Kiwis don’t have to worry about sewage on their streets, un-swimmable beaches, or having to boil their drinking water.

National’s Local Water Done Well Plan will:

• • Repeal Three Waters and scrap the 10 co-governed mega-entities
  • Restore council ownership and control
  • Set strict rules for water quality and investment in infrastructure
  • Ensure water services are financially sustainable.

“Under National, water stays in local hands and investment in water infrastructure is secured so that New Zealanders can be sure their water is safe and affordable.”

There are far better ways to deal with water that improves the quality without taking assets from councils will retain democratic control.

Replacing the mess Labour has made will be less difficult thanks to the work of the Taxpayers’ Union which is working on legislation to replace it :

The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has commissioned a Bill to repeal and replace the Government’s Three Waters scheme. Law firm Franks Ogilvie has been working on the Bill for several months, with an experienced parliamentary drafter and a Technical Advisory Group.

The Local Water Infrastructure Bill builds on the model proposed to Parliament by Communities 4 Local Democracy.  That model was supported by a large number of asset-owning councils across New Zealand and is similarly supported by the Taxpayers’ Union. 

The project expects to result in a Bill ready to be completely fleshed out soon after the election. Some of the technical details will be best done by drafters and officials with access to all the information held within the Government, and the PCO will need to review the work to ensure consistency with their current drafting style. Some important provisions of the Bill will be fully drafted and available to all parties to allow for a swift repeal and replacement of Three Waters should a Parliamentary majority exist to do so after the election. . . 

The replacement will return the assets the government has taken from councils:

The Local Water Infrastructure Bill will instead restore the local authority ownership of water service infrastructure. But it does not leave the status quo. Costs and responsibility are to be clarified by transferring water service assets and operations into Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs) with their own boards of directors and separate accounting.

CCOs are a tried and true mechanism. The council owned water utilities will draw on the familiar board procedures and directors duties of the Companies Act to insulate management from ordinary political pressure, and to oblige them to focus on efficient management of their water service businesses. Councils will retain the power to sack and replace boards over the long term, but with certain protections against routine interference in the water businesses.

Local authorities will continue to have oversight of water asset management, but their water utilities will keep water operations at arms-length from other council activities, making it easier to see whether money is being spent effectively and making infrastructure investment decision-making easier to regulate for reliability and long term adequacy. . . 

The link above will take you to an extensive Q & A on the proposed Bill.

Three Waters isn’t the only legislation National will repeal. Labour’s RMA replacement will also go :

National will repeal Labour’s RMA replacement bills by Christmas 2023 if elected on October 14, National’s RMA Reform and Urban Development spokesperson Chris Bishop says.

“The Labour Government has spent six years working on RMA reform but has managed to design a complex new regime that will make it even harder to get things done and actually make our planning framework worse than the mess it is now.

“The Government’s new bills will increase bureaucracy, remove local decision-making, and put our decarbonisation goals at risk. It will stymie the investment and sustainable development of the environment that New Zealand needs, including in renewable electricity generation.

“The new bills will also significantly increase legal complexity and litigation. New Zealand simply cannot afford the extensive litigation that the bills will inevitably produce.

“We can all agree the RMA needs fixing, but the new framework must actually improve things and be worth the considerable cost of change. What the Government has come up with is not the solution.

“Submitters to the Environment Select Committee lashed the new RMA regime, with many submitters telling the Government to slow down and start again. But the Government has ignored them.

“National is committing to repealing the RMA replacement acts by Christmas. It is important that the acts are wiped from the statute books as soon as possible so the army of officials currently working on the transition to the new regime can down tools.

“National will campaign on our own changes to the RMA, some of which we have already announced, including one-year consenting for major infrastructure and renewable energy projects, alongside our Going for Housing Growth plan. If elected, we will legislate for these in our first term.

“We will also begin work on a longer-term programme to repeal and replace the RMA.”

Both Three Waters and the RMA replacement will increase costs at the expense of local control and democratic accountability.

The RMA is in desperate need of reform but Labour has managed to replace it with something even worse.

These two pieces of legislation are another two very good reasons to vote this government out and replace it with a National-led one.

Govt must cut costs & Bruce Cotterill knows how

Bruce Cotterill says the government must cut costs and he has a plan to do it :

It’s interesting that the Greens want a discussion about wealth. The announcement of their new “Greens with envy” tax policy certainly started a conversation.

For as long as most of us have lived, we’ve been regarded as a prosperous country. But we’re not any more. Sure, it’s still a nice place to live, the climate is moderate and the scenery is magnificent. But wealthy and prosperous? Sadly, no longer.

We’re now having daily conversations about child poverty, homelessness and youth crime. Our educational establishments are failing. Our universities are in decline. And despite the good intentions of our champions at the medical coalface, our healthcare system is not coping with the needs of the people.

These factors, in turn, mean our once-envied standard of living is slipping alongside a weakening economy, infrastructure failures and arguments about racial equality.

Prosperous countries don’t have those discussions. They don’t need to. They have that stuff sorted.

Some of our issues have gradually built up over many years, or even decades. Others are very recent. But there is no question that we have big problems to solve.

Those big problems mean that both Labour and the Greens are expected to go into the election demanding a greater share of our wallets. The Greens have already announced their controversial tax policy, complete with unaffordable wealth taxes (yes, unaffordable, even for the wealthy) and increased tax rates on some individual and company income. Labour is yet to announce theirs. . . 

The wealth tax would drive people, many elderly, who are asset rich but cash poor in to poverty.

And why would they want to raise taxes anyway?

Is it because they have highly valuable programmes that need to be put in place that will ultimately benefit all New Zealanders? Or is it because they see the current system as unfair? Or perhaps, is it because they feel some sort of resentment towards people who are successful?

In the Greens’ case, it would appear to be the latter. Let’s face it, they’ve seldom had a worthwhile programme to implement and their entire purpose has typically centred on stopping things from happening rather than starting them. And in my view, experts are telling us the so-called global climate emergency is diminishing, so the Greens need a new reason to exist.

So they have moved from a Green party to a socialist party. Immediately before their big tax announcement, their revenue spokesperson grabbed a headline. “Wealth in Aotearoa is concentrated in the back pockets of a wealthy few”, she said. “It’s time we get in and fix this.”

Fix what? Success? Aspiration? Financial security? Oh dear. It really is about envy after all.

I have an alternative sentence with which a politician can grab some headlines: “The amount of money wasted by this Government and their coalition partners is disgraceful. It’s time we get in and fix this.”

We don’t need to raise more money from taxpayers. We have plenty of money. In fact, the Government is collecting more tax than ever before. In the year ended June 2022, we taxpayers contributed almost $108 billion to the government coffers to pay for the operation of the country. This compares with approximately $70b in 2017, a 54 per cent increase in just five years.

What we need to stop is the irresponsible spending. We’re spending over $1b more every week than we were just five years ago. And we’re borrowing every dollar to do it.

That would be OK if it was going into the right places. The areas of need. Delivering solutions. Solving problems. Fixing stuff. But it’s not. We’re spending millions of dollars every week on problems that are getting worse. Despite the spending, we’re not seeing results.

More money has been collected in taxes, more has been spent but poverty is worse, the housing crisis is worse, the health crisis is worse, educational failures are worse, crime is worse . . .

For most households the formula is pretty simple. When we spend more than we earn, we have two clear options. We have to decide, usually quickly, whether we are going to earn more or spend less. Earning more might be an option if we have the time or ability to take on another job. But spending less is usually the obvious, and often painful, option.

And that is where this country is at. While the farmers do their best to generate export receipts and tourism slowly recovers, we need to spend less. Not just a little bit less, but a lot less. Somehow, we need to fix education, the health system, reduce crime, make life-saving medicines more accessible and build infrastructure, all while spending less money.

It might sound difficult, but the answers are obvious.

We need to stop wasting money. We need to stop pouring more into the same old failed initiatives or failed people. As a country, we need to cut costs. We need to do it on a scale we have never contemplated before and we need to do it quickly, probably within the next 18 months.

The taxpayer is not a bottomless pit. So how about a plan to pull spending back to 2019 levels? We should then hold it there for two years. Thereafter, let’s allow ourselves an annual increase of between 1 and 3 per cent per year. That’s the sort of discipline we need.

Cost management is a mindset. It’s a mindset that you need to carry with you as you consider every move. Good questions get better outcomes. Do we have to do that? Does it have to cost that much? Can we do it another way?

Like most tough decisions, it starts at the top.

Someone sent me an article about the pared-down existence of Members of Parliament in Sweden. They have no official cars or private drivers. They’re expected to use public transport. When in the capital, they live in small apartments and use tiny public service-type offices. They’re treated like ordinary citizens and they are paid roughly twice as much as a schoolteacher.

If nothing else, the average Swedish politician would have a clear understanding of what a normal life feels like.

I’ve only been to the Beehive a couple of times, but I suggest the politicians in the Wellington bubble are as far removed from normality as it’s possible to be in this little country. They have big offices, cars, drivers, dining rooms, flights and expense accounts that most of us – the people they serve – can only dream about. But should we be led by people living elite lives in elitist environments, on our tab?

That sounds like a good place to start. Do we really need the Crown limousine fleet? What about the offices? The biggest tenant in Wellington is government. Is anyone asking how we could halve the office space used by government in Wellington?

The government is our biggest car owner. They’re on a misguided campaign to convert them all to electric vehicles. Why are we rushing to an unproven technology? Most vehicles are replaced after three years. Why? Today’s cars last forever. What if we held them for five years instead? Computers don’t wear out in three years any more either. If we upgrade assets a year or two later, we’ll save a bundle.

Every time I fly to Wellington, half the people on board appear to be working for the government. It’s not just the flights either. Travel means taxis, expensive carparking at airports and sometimes hotels. Do people in government jobs have to travel as much as they do?

Why do government employees need credit cards? Can’t they pay work-related costs with their own card and claim that cost back? If you have to put in an expense claim for your spending, you will think about it before you do. Why do government departments need to run advertising campaigns in the nation’s media? They don’t need to advertise their services.

I once had the opportunity to observe the operations of a small government department. They had approximately 520 people. Of those, 27 worked in the HR department. Another 52 worked in “communications”. At the same time, Spark, one of our biggest companies, had 6000 people, eight in HR and three in communications! It was a monstrous waste of time and money and the entire department was totally ineffective.

Any private business that operated the way the government did would be out of business.

We’ve put on an additional 15,000 public servants in the past five years. That’s $1.2b in salaries alone, every year. Why? What are they doing? Do we need them all? Teachers and nurses, yes. But what about the others?

So, to those political parties who want to raise more tax revenue from us all, I ask one question: why? Before you go back to the well, you need to be sure that you are using your water as efficiently as possible. And you’re not. . . 

The more you think about this stuff, the more obvious some of the solutions become. Do we need all the government departments? We have a Ministry for Children and another one for Youth. A Ministry for National Security and Intelligence and another one for the SIS. One for Veterans and another for Seniors. Are our kids better off because of the Ministry for Children? How about the separate ministries for each of the Environment, Conservation and Climate Change?

All of these departments have budgets that their executives will try to spend each year, so they get the same funding the following year. The system is flawed. The mindset is flawed.

So there are plenty of places to look. All we need is the mindset to change. Instead of asking the taxpayer for more money, how about a 10-year plan to get to a point where we can ask the taxpayer for less?

In my experience, I’m yet to see an organisation that can’t reduce costs by 10 per cent. Given the wastage in government, I’d be very surprised if you couldn’t get 20 per cent.

We need a new plan, with new cost structures and the increased transparency that comes with that.

Cost cutting is difficult work. It’s tough, it’s emotional. It affects people’s lives. But sometimes it is very necessary to ensure the survival of the enterprise. Or in this case, the country. . . 

Steeply increasing the minimum wage, failing to adjust tax thresholds for inflation, and inflation itself have all helped increase the amount of tax the government has taken.

Far too much of what they have taken has had no positive impact on the major problems facing the country and far too much has been wasted.

The next government must cut the waste and start taxing less.

Government spending has driven inflation up, making your weekly shop more expensive. In order to get prices back under control the government needs to stop pumping money into the economy and make it easier for businesses to produce more for less. https://t.co/ljzfQPfWDn pic.twitter.com/muUZj0um7m

— New Zealand Taxpayers' Union (@TaxpayersUnion) June 24, 2023