Introduction

The Green Party of Aotearoa (they do not use the term New Zealand) has launched a 52-page manifesto. We at the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union read the modestly titled “Think Ahead. Act Now. Our Green vision for Aotearoa” so you do not have to.

Crunching the numbers did not take long. There are literally no costings – none. However, reading through page after page after page of expensive policies confirm that any number would be very large indeed.

Here are the key terrifying points for taxpayers in the Green Party Manifesto for the 2020 general election.

[My comments in brackets.]

Healthy nature

• Establish a Minister for Animals and a Parliamentary Commissioner for Animal Welfare.

[More bureaucracy and another Commissioner job for ex-Green MPs. Is this really a priority in a COVID-19 environment with soaring debt? This is literally the third policy listed in their document.]

• Uphold the kaitiaki, proprietary, and customary rights of iwi and hapū over water.

[This would dramatically expand the rights of iwi and hapū over all water.]

• Create a fairer system for water allocation by introducing fees for commercial users like bottling plants. Iwi and hapū would be involved in designing the framework.

[Why would iwi and hapū have input into a commercial framework?]

• Increase funding support for iwi and hapū, landholders, and community organisations to restore the health of forests and waterways.

• $1.3 billion to create thousands of jobs for nature over the next four years, including 6,000 jobs in conservation.

[The NZTU has never seen a robust definition of what a job for nature is. Does it count jobs that would have already been created?]

• The Green Party is not in the pocket of big fishing companies.

[Gee… I wonder who that is a dig at?]

• Phase out low-grade plastic products that can be easily replaced with reusable alternatives, especially plastic water bottles, cotton buds, and fruit stickers.

[While people are losing their jobs, the Greens are focused on banning cotton buds and fruit stickers.]

• Review the New Zealand-Aotearoa Tourism Strategy in light of COVID-19.

[A five-agency review of the Tourism Strategy in light of COVID-19 was already announced last week. Just a shame we will not be getting any tourists any time soon.]

Fairer communities

• Develop a Kids in Nature programme where schools get operational funding to enable students to learn in outdoor classrooms, build their outdoor recreation skills, and go kayaking, bush walking, and snorkelling.

[Taxpayer funded snorkelling for rich city kids.]

• Roll out Te Reo Māori as a core school subject through to Year 10.

[Can students snorkel and learn Te Reo Māori at the same time for double NCEA credits?]

• Embed ecological sustainability and civics education in the curriculum.

• Fund arts, culture, and creativity in schools, including supporting the Creatives in Schools programme.

[Is there going to be any time left in school for maths?]

• Secretive donations and unequal access by lobbyists creates an uneven playing field.

[Probably talking about that miscreant Jordan Williams at that terrible Taxpayers’ Union.]

• Uphold human rights by lowering the voting age to 16 and extending voting rights to all people in prison.

[All people in prison. Clayton Weatherston’s vote will be worth the same as yours!]

• Entrench Māori seats in Parliament.

[This would effectively make it impossible for future Parliaments to remove Māori seats as Labour and the Greens will always support them.]

• Make local elections fairer and more accessible by… removing barriers to the establishment of Māori electoral wards.

[The main barrier is that most people do not want Maori wards.]

• Strengthen accountability by reforming the Official Information Act and providing greater transparency of political lobbying.

[Presumably a reference to Greenpeace or Forest and Bird, noted lobbyists with Parliamentary passes.]

• Significantly reduce alcohol advertising and sponsorship of sporting and cultural events.

[Have they checked whether there are companies or charities ready and willing to step up to fill the massive funding gap this would create?]

• Remove the ability of big alcohol and supermarket corporates to challenge Local Alcohol Policies.

• Require health warning labels on all legal drugs, including alcohol.

• Guarantee equal gender representation in Government appointments, while addressing other gaps including ethnicity and disability.

[Quotas! Where are we going to find all those male nurses?]

• Increase funding to Family Planning clinics to ensure contraception and abortion care is available everywhere.

• Ensure Aotearoa’s defence forces promote peace, justice, and environmental protection (such as fisheries enforcement) throughout the Pacific and the world.

[Groovy man!]

• [Defence Force] Establish a Conflict Prevention Unit.

[Even groovier man!]

• Oppose Aotearoa’s participation in the Five Eyes spy network.

[Some pretty serious geo-political consequences in that short sentence.]

• Work with global partners to support the forgiveness of unjust Global South debt, and fair debt relief measures, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis.

[A trillion-dollar sentence right there.]

• Incorporate matauranga Māori into the health system, and fund provision of primary healthcare through Māori organisations, overseen by a new Māori health agency.

• Investigate a levy on sugary drinks to fund affordable dental care.

• Support water-only policies in schools, hospitals, and sports clubs.

[No more beers after the match for you, peasants!]

• Facilitate finance for development of papakāinga [housing] on Māori land.

[We’re halfway through with no reference to tax. The only references to economic growth are negative.]

• Review the use of algorithms and risk profiling in immigration decisions.

[We suspect most people would support risk profiling.]

• Reform sentencing, bail and parole laws to enable the gradual replacement of most prisons with community-based rehabilitation.

[Abolish most prisons!]

• Oppose the use of the Public Works Act to acquire Māori land.

• [Page 31] Introduce a new tax of 1 per cent on an individual’s net wealth above $1 million and 2 per cent on net wealth over $2 million. This tax would only affect the wealthiest 6 per cent of New Zealanders.

• Create two new top income tax brackets for a more progressive tax system that redistributes wealth.

[Oprah voice: You get more taxes! You get more taxes! You get more taxes!]

• Support green roofs and other “soft” infrastructure.

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot is “soft” infrastructure?]

Clean economy

• Phase-out the most environmentally degrading agricultural inputs, such as synthetic fertilisers and harmful pesticides, and ban Palm Kernel Expeller (PKE) imports.

• Support farmers to transition to organic agriculture.

• Make donations to non-profit art and creative organisations tax-deductible, like charities are.

• Ensure funding of arts and culture organisations does not solely rely on gambling revenue, and work with venues to secure revenue that doesn’t rely solely on alcohol consumption.

[Again, who is going to step up to fill up this funding gap? Probably the taxpayer.]

[Arts and culture is listed under economic policy but there is no section on tax…]

• Embed creativity in future Wellbeing Budgets and the Treasury’s Living Standards Framework, so it influences policy-making right across government.

[Hopefully we can pay off our huge national debt with creativity. What’s the exchange rate on that?]

• Establish a Public Interest Journalism Fund, making grants available for projects and journalists, with criteria to ensure diversity of voice in media is considered as part of the grants process.

[Formalise Government funding for selected journalists. Yet somehow the influence of lobbyists is the bigger problem.]

• Implement a ‘digital services tax’ on digital advertising revenue, to disincentive sending revenue offshore and provide a new stream of funding for local media.

[Basically, try to force government agencies and businesses to use New Zealand advertising even though Facebook or Google are more effective and cheaper. This goes even further than the media companies’ desperate pleas to the Epidemic Response Committee.]

• Increase RNZ’s funding, including RNZ Concert, which could then employ journalists losing jobs in the private media sector.

[“Funding” = taxpayer money for what is considered by New Zealanders to be the most left-leaning media outlet.]

• Make electric cars more affordable and invest in better cycle lanes, buses, and trains.

[Taxing tradies to subsidise Teslas.]

• Commit government departments to buying more goods and services from Aotearoa businesses.

[This would breach multiple trade agreements.]

• Use government procurement to support local suppliers and open-source software, including hosting government data onshore, to deliver broader value to Aotearoa.

[NZ Made even if there are cheaper and better alternatives from overseas.]

• Review regulatory frameworks that distinguish between commercial businesses and non-profit organisations, to support social enterprises to thrive.

• Commit to open data so people can innovate, while protecting individual privacy and data sovereignty, including Māori data sovereignty.

[Second reference to Maori data sovereignty in the document.]

• Design people-friendly streets that are safer for walking and cycling, particularly around schools.

• Expand electric vehicle charging stations across Aotearoa.

[Current usage – 1%-3% of the time they are active.]

• Move to default union membership so people automatically join a union when they start a new job, but can opt out.

[Will this include the Taxpayers’ Union?]

• Restore the right to solidarity strikes and political strikes.

[The 70s called – they want their strikes back!]

• Progressively shift to five weeks annual leave.

[Another burden on employers.]

• Improve redundancy processes and provide a minimum of one-month full pay for people made redundant.

• Extend the living wage beyond the core public sector, including to contractors.

[Costly implications for many government agencies and businesses.]

• Develop specific employment and equity standards to be used when selecting contracts for government procurement.

[Again, no focus on value for money, just virtue signalling.]

Sources

Green Party Manifesto

Taxpayer-funded billboards promoting National MP Lawrence Yule have now been deemed candidate advertisements by the Electoral Commission.

The Commission's decision was made in response to a complaint by the Taxpayers' Union, which understood the large billboards were recently erected and therefore could not be considered part of Mr Yule's standard display of contact details.

As a result of the Commission's decision, the money spent on these billboard will be apportioned into the election period, and will count towards Mr Yule's election spending limit.

Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, "Mr Yule claimed he had written approval to erect these billboards with taxpayer money, but now we see the Electoral Commission find against him. Either the Commission has made a remarkable u-turn, or Lawrence was telling porkies."

"The question now is whether taxpayers will get their money back. That's a matter for Parliamentary Services, who, according to Yule, approved the billboard. However, now that the Electoral Commission has determined these billboards are candidate ads, Parliamentary Services needs to demand Yule repay costs for the portion of time the billboards have stood during the election period."

The Taxpayers' Union has written to the Speaker of the House to ensure this action is taken.

The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union can reveal that councils are allocating up to eight percent of total build costs for iwi engagement for COVID-19 response projects.

Taxpayers' Union Executive Director Jordan Williams says, "While trawling through council applications for 'shovel-ready' funding, we came across a proposal from the Waipa District Council that allocates eight percent of the total build costs for iwi engagement. When compared to project management costs of just six percent of the budget, eight percent — or $2,000,000 — for iwi engagement is outrageous."

"Ratepayers would be disturbed to know that eight cents on the dollar of these projects are going toward iwi engagement. Particularly since they're already on the hook for an expensive Resource Management Act process: $609,000 for the full $25,000,000 proposal."

​"The Council has framed this consultation as 'mana whenua will be invited to be involved through co-design of some aspects in the proposal and the sharing of iwi narratives of the region.' But there's a difference between inviting mana whenua to participate and making ratepayers hand over millions for iwi engagement."

"Greasing up local iwi so they agree to shoo away taniwha really isn't necessary, especially for minor cases like the Council's proposal. The proposal is a package of projects such as toilet facilities and playground upgrades. These projects aren't major builds, they're community facilities. Ratepayers are especially feeling the pinch right now and a taniwha tax cannot be justified." 

The Taxpayers' Union is conducting an audit of council 'shovel-ready' proposals to determine how widespread these practices are.

Attachments:

• ‘Shovel ready’ Infrastructure Projects: Project Information Form (see page 5)
• OIA: QUERY IN RELATION TO COMMUNITY SERVICES DEVELOPMENT AND RESTORATION 

Auckland’s water crisis has been in the media over recent weeks, and the 2020 drought reminds us a lot of the water restrictions in 1994.  Auckland’s population is now 50% larger than 1994, has water infrastructure kept up?  Just how vulnerable are we to dry years?  Is the Waikato river the solution?  Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director, and Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance Founder Jordan Williams sits down with the CEO of Water Care Raveen Jaduram for a deep dive into Water Care - its business model, how it’s funded, and how it trades the risk of drought with affordability.

To subscribe to the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union visit www.taxpayers.org.nz/sign_up

To subscribe to the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance visit www.ratepayers.nz/join

*** If you are struggling to pay your Water Care bill and need some assistance, including details on the Water Utility Consumer Assistance Trust is available at https://www.watercare.co.nz/Help-and-advice/Help-with-your-account/Need-help-paying-a-bill and http://www.waterassistance.org.nz ***

Support the show (http://www.taxpayers.org.nz/donate)

You can subscribe to Taxpayer Talk via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio and all good podcast apps.

The third annual Jonesie Awards were hosted at Parliament today, celebrating the best of the worst of Government waste.

Every year, we host a glamourous Oscars-style award ceremony to highlight and lament the most absurd examples of wasted taxpayer money to emerge in the last 12 months.

Behind the tuxedos and gilded statuettes is a serious message: politicians and bureaucrats in both local and central government happily fritter away your hard-earned money on bizarre pet projects and ill-planned schemes without fear of consequence.

The Jonesies serve as a shot across the bow for anyone in charge of a government chequebook: rein in the waste, or see your name up in lights at the next Jonesie Awards.

Local government nominees

Dunedin City Council: Responding to COVID-19 with dots

Dunedin City Council responded to COVID-19 by spending $40,000 on red and blue dots for its main street. The dots were variously justified as a tool to assist social distancing, a way to attract people to the city, and as a “traffic calming” device. The Council also spent $145,000 on a new tourism slogan: “Dunedin, a pretty good plan D”.

Napier City Council: Golden handshake for a failed CEO

After a series of headline-grabbing failures, Napier City Council gave its CEO Wayne Jack a reported $1 million payout to leave before his contract expired. Mr Jack’s final official act was to throw himself a $4,000 farewell tea party. The Mayor complained that she was not invited.

Wellington Mayor Andy Foster for Extraordinary Leadership

When nine-term councillor Andy Foster was unexpectedly elected Mayor last year, he promptly enrolled himself in a $30,000 leadership course at Arrowtown’s Millbrook estate. However, he has refused to say what, if anything, he learned – and has since spent more money on a team facilitator to smooth over problems on his Council.

Auckland Council: Temporary cycleways for COVID-19

Auckland Council installed 17 kilometres of temporary cycleway in response to COVID-19. Like Dunedin’s dots, the initiative was intended to assist social distancing. All works had to be reversed in a matter of weeks. The total cost is estimated to be more than a million dollars.

Rotorua Lakes District Council: $743,000 for the Hemo Gorge sculpture

Rotorua’s 12-metre, 3D printed Hemo Gorge sculpture was initially planned to open in 2017 at a cost of $500,000. Three years later, it is still under construction, and costs have blown out to at least $743,000.

WINNER: Wellington Mayor Andy Foster for Extraordinary Leadership

Central government nominees

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Responding to COVID-19 with horse tracks

The Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First Party Leader led the Government’s COVID-19 response by announcing a $72 million funding package for the racing industry. This package included two synthetic horse tracks. No-one has been able to establish how horse tracks relate to coronavirus.

Rt Hon Trevor Mallard: $572,000 for a Parliamentary slide

As part of his initiative to make Parliament more “family-friendly”, the Speaker of the House commissioned the construction of a playground on Parliament’s lawn. The playground, which essentially consists of a slide and some stepping stones, was budgeted at $400,000, but ultimately cost $572,000.

Hon Chris Hipkins: $87 million for unwanted internet modems

An $87 million package to give students the means to study remotely during COVID-19 lockdown resulted in thousands of unwanted modems being sent to wealthy schools. Epsom’s Auckland Grammar alone received 137 unwanted modems, and even Mike Hosking’s child was a beneficiary of the policy.

Hon Shane Jones: Three train trips for $6.2 million

The Regional Economic Development Minister re-opened the Wairoa-Napier rail line last year, predicting that up to six train services would run per week. As of last month, only three services had run in total: a cost of more than $2 million per train trip.

Hon Kelvin Davis: $10 million for AJ Hackett Bungy

In response to a tourism downturn due to COVID-19, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis singled out one of Queenstown’s most successful businesses – AJ Hackett Bungy – for a taxpayer handout. AJ Hackett received a $5.1 million grant, plus a potential $5.1 million loan, all on top of its substantial payout received under the COVID-19 wage subsidy scheme.

WINNER: Rt Hon Winston Peters for responding to COVID-19 with horse tracks

Lifetime Achievement Award

Hon Phil Twyford is this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award Winner for excellence in government waste.

First elected as a list MP in 2008, Phillip Stoner Twyford was thrust into power as Minister of Housing, Urban Development, and Transport in 2017.

His most high-profile election promise was to build 100,000 KiwiBuild homes in 10 years, with an initial investment of $2 billion. Two years into that period, KiwiBuild has delivered just 395 houses – fewer than the number of houses blocked by protestors at Ihumātao. At the current rate, Phil Twyford’s promise will be fulfilled in 436 years.

Even with the taxpayer subsidy, these homes are too expensive or located in places people don’t want to buy. As a result, many finished homes have sat on the market for six months or more, and the Government has promised to buy back homes that do not sell.

Last year, the Prime Minister finally removed Phil Twyford from the Housing portfolio.

However, his record of waste now extends far further than KiwiBuild. As Transport Minister, Twyford blew out the cost of SkyPath – a cycleway across Auckland’s Harbour Bridge – from $67 million to $360 million, with more cost increases expected once construction actually begins.

Twyford has also increased fuel taxes by 12 cents per litre – and even more in Auckland – across three years.

This tax hike was justified on the basis of paying for light rail from Auckland Central, down Dominion Road to the airport. Last month, after two and a half years and $5 million was spent investigating the project, the light rail proposal was shelved.

Despite the main justification for fuel tax hikes being void, Twyford has no plans to reverse his increases to the tax on commuters.

In his maiden speech in Parliament, he remarked: “At the end of our times here, some of us will be remembered, but most of us will not.”

He need not worry. We are confident that taxpayers will never forget Phillip Stoner Twyford.

The Taxpayers’ Union’s Jordan Williams and Neil Miller, sit down with political commentator and Stuff columnist Damian Grant discuss the runners and riders of the sudden National Party leadership race.

You can subscribe to Taxpayer Talk via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio and all good podcast apps.

The Electoral Commission has confirmed that the 'Aroha' posters of Jacinda Ardern, promoted by artists Weston Frizzell and advertiser Phantom Billstickers, does indeed constitute a party advertisement for the Labour Party.

This judgment comes after the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union laid a complaint regarding the posters. The Commission's response to the Union can be viewed below.

Union spokesman Jordan Williams says: "It's a relief to have clarity on this matter. As a campaign organisation, we're forced to comply with strict rules around political advertising, especially in the lead-up to an election. It's a matter of democratic integrity that these rules are applies equally, regardless of a campaigner's political slant."

"These posters were obviously advertisements, even if the artists didn't think of them as such. You can imagine a scenario where a poster of Jacinda Ardern – or Todd Muller for that matter – was on every street corner, a week out from an election. This could absolutely influence voters, so the posters should have authorisation statements and count toward campaign spending limits."

"In its letter to the artists, the Electoral Commission notes that some posters may still be up, and that the artists will have to take 'corrective action'. If the Commission is not satisfied with this action, it has the power to refer the advertiser to the Police."

"Initial signs suggest the artists are not taking this warning seriously. They continue to actively promote the poster – without an authorisation statement – on their social media. Regardless, the posters have already reached hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders through social media and news coverage. Strong actions will be needed to remedy this influence. Perhaps, for example, the advertiser could fund poster space for campaigners with different political views."

This blog post is written by Taxpayers' Union Economist Karan Menon.

Facing the biggest economic shock in our lifetime, Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr is signaling his support for the use of “alternative monetary policy” to jog the Kiwi economy.

He is currently holding the Official Cash Rate at 0.25%, the lowest it has been since the OCR was introduced in 1999, till March 2021.

The cash rate is predicted to be cut even further by the end of the year to fall below zero – that means banks will now be charged on their deposits with the Reserve Bank. The intention of this expansionary monetary policy is to curb a deflationary spiral (an overall decrease in price levels) caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to disincentivise retail bank deposits held in the central bank.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) is already implementing another form of ‘alternative’ monetary policy with its LSAP (Large Scale Asset Purchase) programme.

The LSAP programme will reduce market interest rates further and thereby reduce borrowing costs for retail banks as their wholesale borrowing costs have reduced. This is due to interest rates being inversely related to bond prices. As the RBNZ purchases government bonds, the demand for bonds increases, thereby increasing the price of those bonds and decreasing interest rates.

The RBNZ will purchase $60 billion of government bonds over the next 12 months to achieve these reductions in interest rates on mortgages and term deposits. This value roughly amounts to 29% of NZ GDP.  This process is known as an open market operation where money supply is linked to the sale and purchase of government bonds

These tools are used by the RBNZ to control inflation – in this case, to keep it from dropping too low.

The RBNZ is given operational independence to keep inflation between 1 and 3 percent on average over the medium term, but with the recent COVID pandemic, sharp projected contractions in economic activity will likely reduce inflation and employment targets below RBNZ’s objectives.

Therefore, the RBNZ aims to lower the borrowing costs for households and businesses and increase spending across the economy. Retail banks are in the business of lending, and this lending is financed by depositor funds or borrowed funds. The ability to service this lending is based on a bank’s liquidity which is calculated by taking the total lending as a proportion of total deposits.

With expansionary monetary policy decreasing “hoarding behaviour”, we can expect lower retail interest rates on both mortgages and deposits for businesses and households.

The complication with decreased interest rates on deposits is that we could see (and in fact already are seeing) investments diverted away from bank deposits to other financial investments with higher rates of return.

The relationship between expansionary monetary policy and the diversion of investments can be seen internationally. The US currently has its cash rate at 0%, while its stock market has seen steady increases. The NASDAQ closed on a high Tuesday and the S&P 500 index saw a 0.43% gain. The increases in those indices obviously have additional explanations, but deposit interest rates are also decreasing, implying investors are looking to the financial market for higher returns.

Real economic conditions in the US are simply not reflected in the US stock market. A wave of optimism is sweeping through Wall Street, which stands in contrast to the stark economic realities of the US. Unemployment, which hovered around 4% in February shot up to 13% in May.

The real-world macroeconomic implication of expansionary monetary policy, and the subsequent diversion of investments, would be to diminish the capacity of retail banks to lend and further, lending would be on the back of bank borrowings.

Adrian Orr’s intention of increasing investment spending and incentivising businesses to spend more on their operations is in fact reasonable. The risk, however, is that the outcome of his approach will be an over-extension of the banking sector, which could further exacerbate the economic crisis. If in fact the RBNZ achieved its goal to encourage spending for both households and businesses, banks would be unable to increase their cash position in the case of any further shocks to spending.

If banks become unable to lend, any good achieved by Orr’s expansionary monetary policy would be wiped away and the economy would be left in an even worse condition than currently projected.

In our newest episode of Taxpayer Talk, Jordan sits down (in-person!) with Helensville MP Chris Penk who has written a book investigating the claim that the Government had "gone early and hard" in its fight against
COVID-19. Support the show (http://www.taxpayers.org.nz/donate)

Flattening the Country is available at https://chrispenk.national.org.nz/flattening_the_country.

You can subscribe to Taxpayer Talk via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio and all good podcast apps.

The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has launched a tool for Christchurch ratepayers to submit against Christchurch City Council’s proposed rate hike options.

The official consultation form for the Council’s updated budget is frankly a scam. Ratepayers are asked to choose between three different rate hikes – 3.5 percent, 4.65 percent, and 5.5 percent. This is a false choice, engineered to manipulate submitters into endorsing the 3.5 percent rate hike, when in reality many or most ratepayers would prefer a freeze or even a cut.

With the submission period closing on Monday, we’re encouraging Christchurch ratepayers to submit against the proposed rate options. Our submission form, available at www.ChchRates.nz, provides different rate options, and submissions are sent straight to the Council’s consultation inbox.

Christchurch City Council cannot seriously cry poverty while setting aside $118 million for a sports stadium, and paying 531 of its staff salaries higher than $100,000.

In April, Lianne Dalziel said she was “laser-focused” on delivering a rates freeze to reflect the hardships caused by COVID-19. But she and a majority of her Councillors have been swayed by self-interested Council staff warning of redundancies. That’s disgraceful – the responsibility of a Council is to protect ratepayers, not to provide livelihoods for its own staff.

With unemployment forecast to spike in coming months, the case against increasing council taxes is stronger than ever.