As of September 18, the Opportunities Party have promised $13.7b in new spending over the next parliamentary term. This is equivalent to $7,939 per household.
The Opportunities party will provide an unconditional basic income (UBI) to all people with children below the age of three, and all elders over 65. However, they will means-test Superannuation so these two policies are projected to be revenue neutral. This mean-test of Super is also projected to pay for the extension of the free early education for children aged 3-5, which on its own would cost about $990m per year.
TOP’s most expensive policy (which is not offset by a reduction in other spending areas) is the 18-23 year-old UBI. This will cost approximately $2.8b per year in new spending (note we do not count the increase in GST take as an offset as it is not a reduction in other spending). This policy makes up the bulk of TOP’s new spending, totalling $8.4b over the next parliamentary term.
Other notable new expenditure is $450m per year on youth mental health support, as well as on Alcohol and Drug Support. This is to be funded by increasing the alcohol levy by 10% as well as introducing a cannabis tax.
A new infrastructure fund is to be funded through a $20 levy on tourists. Based on current tourism numbers, this is projected to raise $77m per year. Also, see the Green Party policy which also proposes a $20 tourist levy.
TOP propose to increase the refugee quota so that New Zealand has a similar per capita intake of other countries. Our current This would require at least lifting our refugee intake by 4 times to reach a similar country such as Ireland (on a per capita basis we currently accept five times fewer than Australia and fourteen times fewer than Canada). Quadrupling the quota is identical to the Green Party policy so we have used the equivalent costings, totalling $467m over three years as the quota is progressively increased.
TOP want to introduce an upper house into Parliament. To estimate the cost of operating an upper house we have used the current cost of running parliament as a baseline, which currently costs approximately $160m per year. Assuming some economies of scale and a crossover of operations, we have conservatively apportioned half of this cost, or $80 million per year, as the additional expenditure required to operate an upper house.
TOP will subsidise fruit and vegetables to the tune of $1b per year through a 20 percent tax on all junk food.