Ele Ludemann: 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.

Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.