The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through an Official Information Act request that The Arts Foundation Te Tumo Toi has received $1,180,300 of funding from Creative NZ since 2021/22.
This includes funding for lobbying/advocacy purposes, although The Arts Foundation was set up in order to raise private funds for the arts.
Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union Spokesman, James Ross, said:
“Taxpayer-funded lobbying is rife with examples across the public sector. But it especially stings when taxpayers’ money is being given to a charity set up to seek private funding, just for it then to use the cash to lobby other bits of government."
“Time and again Creative NZ have been shown to be wasting taxpayers’ money on nonsense projects including – to name a few – Indigenised Hypno-Soundscapes, a ballet called the Sl*tcracker, and Covid dance videos. This is just the latest in a long string of questionable uses of taxpayers’ money.”
“Creative NZ should’ve been for the chop long ago, and the huge ecosystem of taxpayer-funded lobbyists needs to go with them.”
The Taxpayers' Union's annual Jonesie Awards (the Jonesies) today have once again shone a light on the 'best of the worst' of Government waste. Hosted in Parliament's Legislative Council Chamber, there were laughs, there were tears, and there was more competition than ever for our coveted Golden Hogs.
Since 2018, the Jonesies - modelled on the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation's 'Teddies' hosted at the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa - have awarded councils, departments, and politicians for the most weird and wacky waste throughout the year.
Commenting on the event, Taxpayers' Union Spokesman, Jordan Williams, said:
"From whalesong to training wheels, officials boozing up and lessons in sitting down - this year's Jonesies had it all."
"$4 million Whalesong FM for sick kauri trees was music to the ears of the awards committee, and Ayesha Verrall takes the prize for central government waste in approving the spend as the former Minister of Science and Innovation."
"Another shiny plaything will be adorning the trophy shelf in Hastings District Council. Congratulations to the kids running the show."
"Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau was miles ahead of the competition for the Lifetime Achievement Award – and with her shiny new golden bicycle, she'll be a tough one to catch."
"Congratulations to all our winners this year, but we've barely scratched the surface of Government waste, so look forward to seeing our contestants again next year."
Local Government Nominees:
1. Auckland Transport (taking ratepayers for a ride): Auckland Transport has found another way to take ratepayers for a ride. In order to convince people to start using their empty cycleways. Auckland Transport spent more than $450,000 on 'free' bike riding lessons...for adults.
2. Hastings Council (Where the kids are in charge): After Hastings Council purchased a $1 million earthquake-prone building only to sell it off 3 months later for only $150k, the Council needed a rebrand. Unfortunately, this new campaign rebrand cost ratepayers more than $70,000. With their new save-face campaign falling flat on its face, the council tried a new strategy: paying to put the kids in charge.
3. Auckland Unlimited (For helping Auckland find its happiness): In a misguided attempt to make Aucklanders happier about their city, Auckland Unlimited decided to spend $737,000 of ratepayer money on a video of a half-naked guy from Finland.
4. Auckland Council ($263,000 for a few (mis)(steps)): A $263,000 price tag has Auckland ratepayers asking if the council was building a stairway to heaven. With an average cost of $8,200 per step, the build is sure to "make you wonder".
5. Metlink ($1.3 million for seven luxurious loos): Instead of shoring up their shortage of bus drivers, Metlink decided to build seven toilets - exclusively for the use of bus drivers - with each one coming with an average pricetag of $185,000. Take a look at these diamond-encrusted dunnies.
The 2025 Winner for Local Government Waste - Hastings District Council!
Central Government Nominees:
1. Ayesha Verrall (Healing trees with whale sounds): Former Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology Ayesha Verrall handed millions of taxpayer dollars to practice new, ground-breaking, revolutionary science - healing kauri trees with whale sounds. The Taxpayers' Union is anxiously waiting to find out exactly how many trees have been saved.
2. NZ Film Commission (For parties and propaganda): From funding Ardern and Swarbrick's propaganda documentaries, to having four back-to-back parties within a fortnight. Add on their yearly Hollywood booze-ups at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Film Commission have really been rolling out the red carpet this year.
3. NZTA (A giant cone-spiracy): The Transport Agency has cone-spired to spend more than $786 million on road cones and lollipop signs. Are they trying to build roads, or just trying to block them?
4. MBIE (For wasteful workshops): MBIE has commissioned more than a million dollars' worth of exclusive workshops for staffers. Whether it's white privilege, learning how to sit, or studying the algorithms of whiteness...the war against work never stops at this government ministry.
5. Creative NZ (for having fun "dancing"): Now we all know art is subjective. But subjecting taxpayers to pay $75k for a video that received only 60 views seems a little much. So the Taxpayers' Union has decided to help out by bringing this masterpiece to a wider audience.
The 2025 Winner for Central Government Waste - Dr Ayesha Verrall
2025 Lifetime Achievement in Waste Award: Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau
This year’s winner has experience with wasting money not only in her current position but also during her three years at the eye-wateringly wasteful Film Commission. This was followed with a position in the Green Party. This year’s winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award is Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau!
And she hasn’t slowed down. Since she was elected Mayor in 2022, Whanau has wasted more of ratepayers' money. Whether it was the Town Hall tab coming to a tremendous $4,000 per household, a planned $30 million dollar fence along Wellington’s idyllic waterfront, Ms. Whanau has shown time and time again why she is a deserving recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award.
But no matter her $189,000 salary or her famous 2003 lotto win, Ms. Whanau consistently reminds us how not only is she wasteful of others' money, but how she is wasteful of her own as well.
In an interview earlier this year, the mayor said that due to the tough times brought on presumably from her continually rising rates, she had to ‘sell her car’. After her car-selling sob story, the Taxpayers' Union uncovered a more than half a million-dollar taxpayer-funded bike rack installed just outside the mayor’s office, but there was one problem: despite the cost, no one was using it!
So, on the recommendation of Porky the Waste Hater, the waste-watching academy at the Taxpayers’ Union has decided to award a gift fitting of both the waste and grift Tory Whanau has imposed on the ratepayers of Wellington.
More bad news for the Coalition Government following the results of the latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll, as they fall behind the Centre-Left bloc.
The poll, conducted between 02 and 04 February, shows National up 2.3 points to 31.9 percent, while Labour has risen 0.4 points from last month to 31.3 percent.
The Greens are up 3.7 points to 13.2 percent, while ACT is down 0.8 points to 10.0 percent. New Zealand First is down 1.7 points to 6.4 percent, while Te Pāti Māori is down 0.9% to 4.4%.
The headline poll results and information about the methodology can be found on the Taxpayers' Union's website at https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/poll_feb_25_basjfgas
For the minor parties, Outdoors and Freedom is down 0.8 points to 0.9%, TOP is down 1.6 points to 0.5% and New Conservatives are up 0.2 points to 0.2%.
This month's results are compared to the last Taxpayers' Union–Curia Poll conducted in January 2025, available at https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/25jan_tuc_poll
Based on these results, National is up 1 seat to 39, whilst Labour remain on 39.
Despite this, the Centre-Right bloc has dropped 3 seats to 59, compared to the Centre-Left bloc’s 61 (+3 seats).
The Greens gain 4 seats to 16, while ACT drop 2 to 12 seats. New Zealand First is down 2 to 8 seats, while Te Pāti Māori drops 1 to 6 seats.
Commenting on the results, Taxpayers’ Union Spokesman James Ross said:
“As long as the Government keeps failing to fix the current economic bonfire, they'll keep getting battered at the polls. It's no coincidence the proportion of people who think New Zealand is heading in the right direction keeps plummeting."
"If a poll showing they'd lose power if there was an election held today isn't a wake-up call, nothing will be. By burying the heads, the Government's playing a dangerous game of chicken with the electorate.
"Managed decline has lost its appeal. With Budget 2025 around the corner, now's the time to start laser-focusing on economic growth."
Here are the headline results for February's Taxpayers’ Union – Curia Poll:
Party |
Support |
Change compared to January 2025 |
National |
31.9% |
↑2.3 |
Labour |
31.3% |
↑0.4 |
ACT |
10.0% |
↓0.8 |
Green |
13.2% | ↑3.7 |
Māori |
4.4% |
↓0.9 |
NZ First |
6.4% |
↓1.7 |
Other |
2.7% |
↓3.1 |
National is up 2.3 points to 31.9% from January while Labour is up 0.4 points to 31.3%. The Greens are up 3.7 points to 13.2%, while ACT is down 0.8 points to 10.0%. New Zealand First is down 1.7 points to 6.4%, while Te Pāti Māori is down 0.9 points to 4.4%.
For the minor parties, Outdoors and Freedom is at 0.9% (-0.8 points), TOP is on 0.5% (-1.6 points), and New Conservatives is on 0.2% (+0.2 points).
Here is how these results would translate to seats in Parliament:
Party |
Seats |
Change compared to January 2025 |
National |
39 |
↑1 |
Labour |
39 |
nc |
ACT |
12 |
↓2 |
Green |
16 |
↑4 |
NZ First |
8 | ↓2 |
Māori |
6 |
↓1 |
This shows how many seats each party would win in Parliament, based on the decided vote. National is up 1 seat seat from last month to 39 while Labour remains unchanged on 39. The Greens are up 4 seats at 16 while ACT is down 2 seats at 12. New Zealand First is down 2 seats on last month to 8 while Te Pāti Māori is down one to 6.
This calculation assumes that National would not win more than 39 electorate seats.
The Centre-Right bloc is projected to win 59 seats, a decline of 3 from last month. Meanwhile, the Centre-Left bloc has gained 3 seats, bringing their total to 61. Based on these numbers, Labour, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori could form a Government.
Preference for Christopher Luxon is down 3.8 points at 20.7%, while Chris Hipkins is up 2.3 points to 17.6%.
David Seymour is on 6.4% (+0.1 points) while Winston Peters is down 0.8 points to 8.0% and Chlöe Swarbrick is at 8.9% (+0.4 points).
24.5% of respondents named the Cost of Living as their top issue, followed by the Economy at 17.0%, Health at 13.9%, Māori/Treaty issues at 7.6%, Poverty at 4.7% and Employment at 3.8%.
34.2% of respondents said the country was moving in the right direction, compared to 50% who said it was moving in the wrong direction. This gives a net right/wrong direction result of -15.8% (down 1.8 points).
For the full polling report, covering the detailed insights the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition are use to receiving, join our Taxpayer Caucus – our club of most generous financial supporters who make our work possible.
Media Summary Statement
This poll should be formally referred to as the “Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll”.
Any media or other organisation that reports on this poll should include the following summary statement:
The poll was conducted by Curia Market Research Ltd for the Taxpayers’ Union. It is a random poll of 1,000 adult New Zealanders and is weighted to the overall adult population. It was conducted by phone (landlines and mobile) and online between Sunday 02 and Tuesday 04 February 2025, has a maximum margin of error of +/- 3.1% and 5.4% were undecided on the party vote question.
Notes
The scientific poll was conducted by Curia Market Research and commissioned by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. The full polling report is being released exclusively to members of our Taxpayer Caucus. As is well known, but for full disclosure, David Farrar co-founded the Taxpayers' Union and previously served on its board. He is also a Director of Curia Market Research Ltd.
The Taxpayers’ Union – Curia Poll was conducted from Sunday 02 and Tuesday 04 February 2025,. The median response was collected on Monday 03 February 2025
The target population is adults aged 18+ who live in New Zealand and are eligible and likely to vote. The sample population is adults aged 18+ who live in New Zealand and are eligible and likely to vote who are contactable on a landline or mobile phone or online panel. 1,000 respondents agreed to participate, 800 by phone and 200 by online panel. The number of decided voters on the vote questions was 908. There were 54 (5.4%) undecided voters and 25 (2.5%) who refused the vote question.
A random selection of 15,000 NZ phone numbers (landlines and mobiles) and a random selection from the target population from up to three global online panels (that comply with ESOMAR guidelines for online research). If the call is to a landline, the person who is home and next has a birthday is asked to take part. Those who take part through an online panel are excluded from further polls on the same topic for six months.
Multiple call-backs occurred to maximise the response rate. Those who said they were unlikely or very unlikely to vote were excluded.
The poll was part of a wider omnibus survey for multiple clients. Questions on voting sentiment are asked before any other questions. The questions were asked in the order they are listed.
The results are weighted to reflect the overall voting adult population in terms of gender, age, and area.
Based on this sample of 1,000 respondents, the maximum sampling error (for a result of 50%) is +/- 3.1%, at the 95% confidence level. Results for sub-groups such as age and area will have a much higher margin of error and not seen as precise.
The polling questions and the order in which they were asked can be found here.
The second Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll for the year is out, and it's not good news for the Government.
SHOCK POLL: Labour, Te Pāti Māori and the Greens would have enough seats to form Government 📊
Under these numbers, Labour, with te Pāti Māori and the Greens would be able to form a Government – that's the first time since March 2022, when the Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll last shows the left ahead.
Although National is up 2.3 points to 31.9 percent from last month, it's not enough to fend off the left block.
Labour is up 0.4 points to 31.3 percent, the Greens are up 3.7 points to 13.2 percent, and Te Pāti Māori are down 0.9 points to 4.4 percent.
Meanwhile, ACT are down 0.8 points to 10.0 percent, New Zealand First are down 1.7 points to 6.4 percent.
That means the centre-right bloc are projected to hold 59 seats, not enough to command a majority in the 120-seat Parliament. Compared to last month, the centre-left bloc has gained three seats, bringing their total to 61 seats.
Head over to our website for the 'top voting issue', preferred Prime Minister, and other data.
Watt went wrong with Paris emissions target? 🫷
As you know, the Taxpayers' Union has always supported sensible climate mitigation policy, and New Zealand's world-beating emissions trading scheme. But Climate Change Minister Simon Watts' decision to sign New Zealand up for even more aggressive climate targets than Jacinda Ardern and James Shaw is economic madness.
How can you credibly say you want to "grow the economy" when you sign up to extreme targets to cut emissions that Treasury estimate could cost taxpayers up to $24 billion – or $12,000 per New Zealand household?
Perhaps the reason this was so misjudged was because Simon Watts was talking to the wrong people (or just the side with a particular viewpoint).
Last week, we exposed the Minister for having refused to meet with the Federated Farmers for more than a year – despite agricultural emissions making up one half of New Zealand's emissions profile. According to publicly available Ministerial diaries, the Minister has instead been meeting with anti-agricultural groups such as Greenpeace!
This is consistent with what we've faced with Minister Watts's office. In fact, Minister Watts is the only Minister in the current Government to have refused to meet with your humble Taxpayers' Union!
Despite being Minister of Revenue (i.e. responsible for the tax system) the Minister wouldn't even talk to New Zealand's largest taxpayer group.
We tried to reach out again last year when the IRD was found to have leaked taxpayer information of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders in a data breach to social media companies. No response.
Then a few weeks back, when Simon Watts was given the Local Government Portfolio. After all, Simeon Brown would bounce ideas off the Taxpayers' Union and, well, ensure he was engaged with ratepayers. But with Watts' office, again, radio silence. In fact, we understand Watts is instead meeting with the lefties Nanaia Mahuta's friends at Local Government New Zealand – the very organisation trying to undermine Simeon Brown's efforts to put a cap on rates!
So, last week, given the climate target announcement, we asked him onto our podcast. I'm not holding my breath.
Simon Watts was quite happy to hitch his cart to our 'Stop Three Waters' roadshow events, but as soon as he got the Ministerial limo, the phone went off the hook. With the Feds also being locked out, it really makes you wonder...
Watt was that?! The Climate Change Minister's train crash interview 💥
As a farmer said to me over the weekend - at least James Shaw was over the detail.
There is still time for Mr Luxon to overrule this wayward Minister: use our email tool to email the Coalition's Party-leaders and ask them to stop this economic self-sabotage and set emissions targets that are actually achievable.
Adrian Orr spends $1k a night on a hotel room and laundry. Time to bring back Don Brash? 🌟
Before entering politics, former Governor of the Reserve Bank, Don Brash established himself as a taxpayer-hero when, in 1999, the Reserve Bank released details of his travel spending. The original press release (recently purged from the RBNZ's eyewateringly expensive website) concluded with:
"Unlike many central bank chiefs, Dr Brash travels without an entourage. On all of his overseas trips and most of his New Zealand ones, he travels entirely without the aid of staff. Furthermore, as a matter of policy he flies economy class within New Zealand and Australia and business class internationally.
"In line with a Bank policy he instigated, he routinely washes his own clothes when travelling to avoid incurring the expense of using laundry services. Dr Brash is always very mindful of his accountability to the New Zealand taxpayer."
How times have changed...
The Taxpayers' Union can reveal that current Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr and a lucky colleague spent $32k on a flash foreign getaway to Washington DC, courtesy of you, the taxpayer.
Or maybe not so lucky. While Mr Orr lived it up at the front of the plane in Business Class, Premium Economy was just fine for the bag carrier.
Now here's the kicker. Both of their rooms cost a few dollars shy of $1,000 a night each!
Reading the receipts, it seems Orr's room stay ended up about $700 more expensive than his workmate's thanks to extra meals, as well as exorbitant laundry services.
Seems like the Governor was about as successful at keeping food off his clothes as he was at keeping the lid on inflation (or his expenses under control).
Adrian Orr's not the only one who's bloated... 🐖🏦
Speaking of appetites, seems like the Reserve Bank's got one to match its head honcho.
What was once a lean, mean inflation-wrecking machine even a few years ago is now the poster child for Wellington bloat. Since 2018, RBNZ has ballooned in size by more than two and a half times.
The Strategy, Governance, and Sustainability team has grown from 29 to 63, and the Transformation, Innovation, People and Culture more than tripled from 11 to 38. And even the Governor's personal retinue has gone from three to five.
The worst bit is RBNZ's got worse at its job. When it sat at around 200 staff it was the envy of the world. At two and a half times that size, the Reserve Bank's failures to properly manage inflation have seen it take all the heat out of the economy. We've suffered a longer per-capita recession than after the Global Financial Crisis and we're currently knee-deep in the middle of the worst economic downturn in more than thirty years.
Too many cooks spoil the broth?
TAXPAYER VICTORY: The stopping the workshop gravy train 🙌
Department of Internal Affairs have been caught wasting almost a million dollars sending bureaucrats to yet more workshops - this time, using "indigenous knowledge" to become "change agents."
92 staff spent 80 hours each prepping for the course, five straight days getting grilled at the marae, and then eight hours of debriefing over the next month.
Running the maths quickly, that's just shy of 12,000 staff hours at an average Public Sector salary of $48.89 an hour. Yeesh
Slap another $375k of course costs on top of those $575,000 staff costs and what do you have? A big waste of time and money.
Every rock we look under, we find more of these workshops raking in hundreds of thousands from the taxpayer. Te Kurahuna, Pakeha Project, Courageous Conversations, sitting lessons, bravery training...
Minutes after we went to the media with this one, we had a call from Minister Brooke van Velden's office. The Minister's office told us that they've now stopped all future training with Te Kurahuna Ltd.
And - get this - the Minister's already managed to save $1,316,000 through her programme scrapping just some of DIA's workshops. Other Ministers, take note. Cheers to a Taxpayer Victory!
Have a good week.
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Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has today dismissed a Better Wellington–Curia pollshowing 53 percent of locals supported any future rates rises to be capped with inflation, while only 29 percent opposed.
“It’s really quite sad that Mayor Whanau is so dismissive of her constituents” said Sam Warren, Local Government Campaigns Manager for the Taxpayers’ Union.
“Under Whanau, rates increased by 18.5 percent, on average, last year alone. Successive rates increases are still on the table to fund Whanau’s poor policy decisions.”
“Instead of listening to locals, Mayor Whanau has brushed off the poll as fake news. She instead remains committed to driving the city into the ground – literally rating people out of their own homes in the process.”
“Former Local Government Minister, Simeon Brown, was actively exploring rates capping as instrument to keep future rates increases reasonable – which the Taxpayers’ Union has long championed. We continue to push this as a key topic with local elections looming.”
“Our message to Mayor Whanau: Read the room, or locals will find someone who will.”
The National-led coalition was elected on the promise of growth and responsible spending, and “Delivering on their election promises would be better late than never” said Taxpayers’ Union Spokesman James Ross.
“New Zealand has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world. It also has next to no foreign investment, and negative growth. The connection is clear.”
“Nicola Willis’ plans for corporate tax reform needs to have more meat than the paltry income ‘tax relief’ delivered last year, which failed to even account for bracket creep.”
“If we want growth, that means a slash to the corporate tax rate in combination with high bang-for-buck policies like full capital expensing, and the spending cuts to make that possible.”
“Now’s the time to, in Willis’ words, ‘be bold.’ Kiwis have had enough of managed decline.”
The National Party was once seen as the party for farmers, but it seems that’s no longer the case. The Taxpayers’ Union can confirm that Climate Change Minister Simon Watts refused multiple requests by New Zealand’s largest farming group to meet ahead of his decision to ramp up the country’s already $24 billion Paris Agreement contributions.
Taxpayers’ Union Spokesman, James Ross, said “What is Simon Watts’ job? Because if it’s taking a balanced approach to stakeholders, he’s not doing it.”
“Publicly disclosed Ministerial diaries show Minister Watts is happy to get cosy with anti-agriculture activist groups like Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Aotearoa Circle, but his staff wouldn’t even reply to emails from Federated Farmers. Nor did Watts meet with Beef + Lamb, or even a Chamber of Commerce in formulating his Paris target.”
“Agriculture accounts for half our emissions. Forget just bad policy, not meeting with the major stakeholders in the industry the Minister has announced he plans to decimate is either extreme arrogance or severe incompetence.”
“National MPs were more than happy to join protest marches against James Shaw and Jacinda Ardern’s climate policy. It’s one thing to get into government and adopt the same policies, it’s quite another to ghost the stakeholders who got you there.”
“When are we getting a Minister who takes climate change – and the bill for tens of thousands every Kiwi household is getting stuck with – seriously? This isn’t a game, Minister.”
“More than 9,000 New Zealanders have emailed the Prime Minister, and leaders of ACT and NZ First asking them to overrule Watts’ extreme and costly 2035 target.”
Ashburton District Council has paid social media influencers $7,000 in an attempt to promote tourism in the area.
Commenting on this, Local Government Campaign Manager for the Taxpayers’ Union, Sam Warren, said:
“Rates in Ashburton increased by 17.90 percent on average last year alone. You’d think council would be more interested in working out how to keep this number down.”
“Businesses aren’t struggling due to a lack of influencers, but they are struggling with crippling rate rises, year-on year."
“There’s no shortage of areas to focus on, but ratepayer-funded holidays for social media influencers isn’t one of them. Instead, why not focus on the obscene cost overruns from the new $62.1 million library?"
"What we have is another Council trying to do too much. Stick to the basics – roads, waste and pipes."
At 8pm last night – timed, presumably, to avoid pick up on the morning news shows – Climate Change Minister Simon Watts released New Zealand’s 2035 Nationally Determined Contribution to combatting climate change under the Paris Agreement.
The target, which locks unavoidable agricultural emissions into New Zealand’s international targets, are even more ‘ambitious’ than the 2030 targets made when Jacinda Ardern/James Shaw flew to Glasgow. They will cost future taxpayers literally tens of billions of dollars in penalties.
Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director, Jordan Williams, said “Ardern’s 50% emissions reduction by 2030 target was ludicrous. Treasury estimates that in just five years taxpayers will be on the hook for up to $24 billion - that’s $12,000 per New Zealand household. The Government has now signed us up for another bill for five years later.”
“To not only lock this cost in, but go even harder for 2035 is economic sabotage. Watts and his Cabinet colleagues are not going to be around in a decade to have to pay the bill, but are doubling down on Paris at the very time our trading partners are pulling back.”
“Half of New Zealand’s emissions are agricultural. To achieve the 51-55% reduction Simon Watts has put NZ on the hook for would mean we either must shut down parts of our agricultural sector, or just about everything else. To say this is fantasy does Mickey Mouse a disservice.”
“The only way New Zealand avoids paying tens of billions in international carbon credits is if every square inch of Otago and Southland is planted in pine. But even the Government’s own experts advise that pathway is not credible.”
“So this decision will see New Zealanders having to stump up billions more to buy international credits in a decade’s time.”
“The Taxpayers’ Union has long supported sensible emissions reductions using our world leading Emissions Trading Scheme. But such a scheme can only operate with realistic targets and collective international action. Sacrificing our economic prosperity at the altar of good intentions when other countries are pulling back is nothing short of economic sabotage.”
“Minister Todd McClay was on radio this morning talking about how the Government want to ‘power up’ agricultural exports. He’s sure in for a shock.”
“Meanwhile, Simon Watts has just harpooned the Prime Minister’s ‘Going for Growth’ plan. Mr Luxon, Mr Peters, and Mr Seymour need to step in and overrule this decision.”
Dunedin City Council has agreed to open consultation on a $4.4 million boost in funding towards local events and festivals – described by one promotor as a ‘a drop in the ocean’.
“It’s an unfortunate lesson in corporate welfare” said Sam Warren, Local Government Campaigns Manager for the Taxpayers’ Union.
“If there was a business case for these events, pumping endless cash into them wouldn’t be required.”
“Promoters are concerned about competing with Christchurch’s events, which receives even more public funding. Christchurch will then compete with Dunedin – Dunedin with Christchurch, and so on. It’s a race to the bottom, funded by ratepayers.”
“One promotor said $4.4 million was not enough, a ‘drop in the ocean’. It’s a slippery slope that quickly becomes a money hose.”
“Last year Dunedin locals suffered a 17.5 percent average increase to their rates. Council should be looking harder at finding savings, not funding nice-to-haves.”
The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal, through an Official Information Act request, that Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr and a staff member spent $32,048.39 on a six-day trip to Washington DC to meet with central bankers from around the world.
Costs included business-class flights (for Orr), accommodation, meals and laundry.
Commenting on the high costs, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“Given New Zealand is still suffering through its worst economic downturn in over three decades thanks to the work of the Reserve Bank, an ‘all hands on deck’ approach wouldn’t go amiss. Not least from the man running the show.”
“Hopefully the Governor’s $14,025 business-class flights left him well-rested. If not, spending $972 per night on his hotel surely did.”
“Seeing as RBNZ now has more than two and a half times more staff than it did in June 2018, let’s hope the rest of the bank’s employees show a bit more spending restraint than their head honcho.”
“Clearly the international jaunts and hiring sprees haven’t helped the Reserve Bank do its job. It’s time for the Governor to put his head down and focus on undoing some of the economic damage that’s set to be his lasting legacy.”
After initially declining Official Information requests made by the New Zealand Herald, KiwiRail has finally released its board members’ letters of resignation following interventions made by the Ombudsman.
“State-owned enterprises are now too comfortable burying the lead when they should be held accountable to its shareholders – the New Zealand taxpayer” said Sam Warren, Taxpayers’ Union Spokesman.
“We’re seeing a growing reluctance from a number of agencies to comply with requests from Official Information, despite a clear legislative requirement to do so.”
“Hiding behind veils of bureaucracy and baseless excuses of ‘commercial sensitivity’ has allowed SOEs to game the OIA process designed to improve transparency.”
“It’s well and good the Ombudsman acted on this, but discouraging to know that this was even required. So much more needs to be done in this space to improve accountability.”
Tomorrow’s expected announcement on what the Luxon Government has signed New Zealand taxpayers up for in terms of Paris Agreement emission targets for 2030-2035 are a first real test of whether the Government’s claimed focus on economic growth is genuine, says the Taxpayers’ Union.
“This is where the rubber hits the road,” says James Ross, Policy Manager at the Taxpayers’ Union.
“In the context of the US having pulled the plug on the Paris Agreement, and with the UK’s ‘net zero’ intentions in question, no responsible New Zealand government would sign up for a second round of ‘ambitious’ and impossible targets if they are serious about growing the economy.”
“Treasury estimate that the Ardern/Shaw-era 2030 targets will cost Kiwi taxpayers up to $24 billion - that’s twelve Dunedin hospitals or $12,000 for every New Zealand household.”
“If the Government does a rinse and repeat, or sets targets that apply to agricultural emissions, that would be close to economic sabotage, and make a joke of Mr Luxon’s comments about ‘going for growth’.”
“The Taxpayers’ Union has long supported sensible emissions reductions using our world leading Emissions Trading Scheme. But such a scheme can only operate with realistic targets and collective international action. Sacrificing our economic prosperity at the altar of good intentions when other countries are pulling back would be an economic and political stink bomb.”
Responding to news that this Government has been breaking records with its heavy use of urgency, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“Urgency can’t just become the short-cut when Governments want to skip over the hassle of consulting the public. Rushed laws undermine transparency and lead to bad outcomes.”
“Repeal Bills going through under urgency is one thing. But between the last Government and this one, we’ve seen RMA reforms passed under urgency, then repealed under urgency, and now being replaced in the short-term under urgency – this legislative yo-yo needs to be a lesson about what rushed reforms lead to.”
“We can’t allow the dangerous precedent to be bedded in that tough issues are rushed through Parliament to side-step scrutiny. There’s a place for urgency, but it should be “break glass in case of emergency”, not just the default “go faster” button.”
“National were rightly quick to criticise the last Government’s overuse of urgency. Now they need to walk the talk.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has floated the possibility of selling assets which fail to return value after the next election, putting TVNZ firmly in the firing line. Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, responded to the reports by saying, “better late than never”.
“Finally, the PM has hinted at the writing on the wall. Owning failing companies like TVNZ who are deep in debt while continuing to lose money by the day is a losing strategy for the taxpayers that own them, and a losing strategy for New Zealand. It's time to cut the cord and save taxpayers from the subsidies or bailouts they will inevitably be on the hook for.”
“However, for the taxpayers who own TVNZ, the government has to do a little less talk and a lot more action. Waiting to sell TVNZ until after the next election means taxpayers will see a much lower return on investment while the dying media monster continues to post additional millions of dollars in losses.”
“While it is good that the government has begun to have this desperately needed conversation, they need to realise now is the time to sell TVNZ, not years down the line.”
Today it has been revealed the budget for Dunedin’s new landfill has almost doubled to $92 million following recommendations made by council staff.
“How on earth did they get it so wrong with their initial $52 million proposal only four years ago?” said Sam Warren, Local Government Campaigns Manager for the Taxpayers’ Union.
“Councillors voted not to pursue a partnership with private operator who could harbour the cost and better manage the project – citing this would be too complex and expensive to establish”.
“Now it’s ratepayers on the hook for an additional $40 million, which we all know will likely grow even higher when construction begins in 2027, as things often do in council.
"Remember, last year alone the city faced an average rates increase of 17.5 percent.”
“Also in the background, officials recommended against exporting waste to other areas by truck, which would be odds with their zero-carbon policy and relationship with mana whenua.”
“It seems in an effort to maintain autonomy and not share profits with a more capable provider – Dunedin City Council has chosen the least efficient and most expensive option. Time will tell if this project can be done, even at the escalated cost.”
Responding to the Government’s plans to disband Callaghan Innovation, Taxpayers’ Union Spokesman James Ross said “corporate welfare has no place in New Zealand.”
“Callaghan Innovation has shown itself to be a toxic organisation, with a culture that leads to waste on a wallet-shattering scale. The Taxpayers’ Union has worked for years exposing the agency’s waste, and this is a major win for Kiwi taxpayers.”
“This should mark the end of corporate welfare across the board, with a shift to fostering growth through healthy competition.”
“The agency’s role as corporate-handout-granter-in chief can’t simply be reshuffled to another agency as part of this shake-up of the Crown Research Institutes.”
“Given that one Crown Research Institute – Landcare Research– had chucked $4m at a project playing whalesong to trees, clearly getting science funding back to basics has been in order for a long time.”
The Taxpayers’ Union says Christopher Luxon’s State of the Nation speech on the economy strikes, but misses the mark, with no announcements that will increase New Zealand’s productivity or unshackle the private sector that drives growth.
Taxpayers' Union Spokesman, Jordan Williams, said “the speech was more about feels and repeating old announcements than concrete policy changes to improve New Zealand’s prosperity.”
“The only exception is, bizarrely, another government agency, apparently to attract foreign investors.”
“The speech represents shifting deck chairs, not the sort of economic reform the times call for.”
“People don’t invest in a country because a government agency tells them to. Claims that this model is seen in Ireland or Singapore are fantasy. Investors in those countries don’t have among the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world. Today’s speech would have meant something had it tackled our tax settings or securities law which make investing here so unattractive.”
“New Zealand’s lack of foreign investment isn’t because of a lack of bureaucrats. It’s because we don’t offer competitive investments. Today’s speech lacks the seriousness or urgency in ‘going for growth’.”
Trigger warning: this email is likely to upset you
This email is longer than usual, but important. It will likely see kickback from those who like to attack anyone who dares to criticise spending when it relates to indigenous matters.
The media won't touch it. But, frankly, unless we take on these sorts of rorts, New Zealand's reputation for accountable government won't last long.
Remember when we told you about the whale music being played to trees to 'cure' Kauri dieback? 🐋🎶🌳
A few months ago the Taxpayers' Union went public exposing the taxpayer-funded "science" project our researchers uncovered to (and this is no joke) record whales, mixing those sounds with recordings from healthy Kauri forests, to take into unhealthy Kauri forests, play back the audio recordings and assess whether the whale music could be effective in 'soothing' Kauri trees and beating myrtle rust and Kauri dieback.
You really couldn't make it up.
To recap, it was part of the "National Science Challenges" which are to bring together "the country's top scientists" and use "the best science to address the Challenge[s]".
One of the challenges relates to protecting New Zealand's biodiversity, including our iconic trees.
Recall that MBIE officials insisted that as part of the project, "matauranga Māori" (i.e. traditional Māori knowledge) must be on the same footing as "colonial science" (their description, not mine!).
MBIE's justification for this project is that according to Māori legend knowledge, sperm whales and kauri trees are brothers.
The hypthosis taxpayers are forking out to test, is whether the whales have a "calming" effect on the trees, and therefore help the trees resist disease. (We're not making this up, it's literally on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment website!)
They spent HOW MUCH?! 🤯
After we blew the whistle on the project, officials spent months playing games and refusing to answer our basic questions on the "Oranga (wellbeing) project".
It's all rather murky complex (the project is managed by MBIE, but the actual payments are from Landcare Research) and after much determination (i.e. staff time! 😠 ), James and the research team have finally got to the bottom of how much was spent on the Ngā Rakau Taketake project.
Officials are still refusing a line-by-line breakdown (I wonder why...) but, in total, this matauranga Māori-based "research" cost taxpayers $4,027,020.
FOUR MILLION DOLLARS to mix music for trees 🎧
That's right, four million (plus GST) was paid to investigate whether recording whale sounds, mixing them with recordings from healthy Kauri forests, and playing them to unhealthy Kauri forests and other nonsense such as "The language of the domain of Tāne" – all in the name of “healing” them and "science".
Here's what the four million paid for:
Sonic tapestries of rejuvenation and well-being About the project The Oranga (wellbeing) project was set up to fight against kauri dieback and myrtle rust and consisted of five “research projects”. 1 Rongoā solutions for kauri ora 2 The language of the domain of Tāne 3 Hapū solutions for myrtle rust 4 The sovereignty of seed 5 A ‘Critical Friend’ approach |
The whale song feeds into the first two points of the project, and the project was carried out by an organisation Te Tira Whakamātaki Limited (which received the funds).
So who is Te Tira Whakamātaki Limited? 🧐
As part of this investigation, we've uncovered that the "research" was outsourced to a private "not for profit" company: Te Tira Whakamātaki Limited.
And that's when we came to a stunning realisation – which now explains why the departments have been so cagey about giving us information on the project...
According to Te Tira Whakamātaki Ltd's website, its "Co-funder and Trustee" is Melanie Mark-Shadbolt.
And here's the startling thing: Ms Mark-Shadbolt is also the Co-Director of the very same BioHeritage Science Challenge Science – i.e. the Government initiative funding the project!
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I had the team work through the finances and Charities Commission records of Ms Mark-Shadbolt's company. The company's costs are almost entirely salaries (surprise, surprise!), and its charitable purpose is merely "Provides advice, information, and advocacy".
Nice work if you can get it.
Why aren't the media asking questions? 🚨
It's bad enough that this taxpayer money was spent in the first place to "research" what we all know is nothing more than a myth (whales being brothers of the Kauri, and that they're able to communicate with each other).
But when the provider of these nonsense projects (playing music to trees) is also one of the two Co-directors of the overall "science challenge" what hope is there the taxpayer will get value for money or scientific knowledge will be advanced?
And here's the kicker: The project leaders openly admit that this isn’t even real research. They describe it as a way to give Māori knowledge equal footing with science, claiming it doesn’t need to meet scientific standards because it’s about “restoring mauri (life force)” rather than achieving measurable, effective results.
And yet, MBIE continues to call it “top science quality” while burning through millions of taxpayer dollars.
So, instead of putting resources toward actual science and solutions, this project uses public money to fund what can only be described as mystical performances in the forest.
Only the Taxpayers' Union are willing to call out this grift 📣
In the ideal world, the media (and Opposition political parties) would be all over this. But no one likes calling-out government waste if it relates to indigenous projects. We will no doubt be labelled things even for sending this email.
Because it is Māori related wasteful spending, newsrooms fall over themselves not to cover it. We even get individual journalists contact us about some of our stories saying they'd love to pick them up, but their colleagues and editors would go berserk.
We cannot buy into making apologies. If anything shows that the Taxpayers' Union continues to be needed to find, expose, and fight wasteful spending it's this. Will you support our work so we can continue to fight the War on Waste?
Will you back taxpayers in 2025? ✊
The Government has no money. Families are struggling. New Zealand is literally getting poorer. The Taxpayers' Union must continue to shine sunlight onto wasteful spending, no matter what the PC-brigade would rather we not talk about.
This is why we need your support: to use 2025 to take on these (at best) “feel-good” projects.
On this particular spend, we want to go to the Auditor General and ask him to investigate the process and prudence of paying millions to Te Tira Whakamātaki to play music to trees. But we need your support to dig deeper and uncover and prove exactly who approved what, and when.
>> Support the 2025 War on Waste <<
We are counting on your support to make Government waste a national issue this year and demand accountability for every dollar spent. Will you stand with us to get the job done?
Thank you for your support.
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p.s. The Taxpayers' Union doesn't waste money playing whale music to trees. But to expose and embarrass Wellington to cut the waste, there is no polite way to put it: we can't do the work, if we can't keep the lights on.
The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through an Official Information Act request that Landcare Research gave $4,027,020 on the Oranga (Wellbeing) Project - including treating Kauri dieback with potions made from Whale-oil and music from whale song (yes, seriously) as part of the MBIE-administered National Science Challenges.
Research methods in this project included healing Kauri trees through using "sonic samples of healthy whales to construct a tapestry of rejuvenation and wellbeing.”
Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Jordan Williams said “when did science become a laughing stock?”
“Kauri dieback is a natural disaster. I’m no biologist, but I can confidently say a whale-song mix-tape isn’t going to stop it. Nor are pagan potions made from whale-oil on the basis, apparently, that whales once walked the Earth and are the brothers of Kauri trees.”
“At the same time the Government’s plugging economic growth through science and innovation, we find out that the Strategic Science Investment Fund has been used to play nautical noises at trees.”
“The Taxpayers’ Union are all for blue-sky thinking. But if the Government’s chucking millions at any ‘research’ project which comes begging, a common-sense check might be needed if even this one’s made it past the keeper.”
“At $4 million, the very least taxpayers could at least expect is a copy of the CD.”
Statistics New Zealand has today released the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures, with inflation remaining at 2.2%. However, domestic inflation in particular is still stubbornly high at 4.5%.
Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“Punishingly high interest rates have driven us into the worst economic downturn in over three decades. With domestic inflation still sitting high at 4.5%, the crisis is far from over.”
“Treasury opened the books last month, and they were on fire. With spending, debt, and deficits out of control, this Government isn’t going anywhere near far enough to tackle domestic inflation.”
“We need to see aggressive cuts to interest rates now, in the hope this can undo some of the lasting damage that will be the Reserve Bank Governor’s legacy. But that can’t happen unless Nicola Willis gets the Government’s runaway spending back in line.”
The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union can reveal through an Official Information Act request that Dame Cindy Kiro, Governor-General of New Zealand, has spent $23,082.11 on London Heathrow Airport VIP facilitation charges since 2022.
Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union Spokesman, James Ross, said:
“The Governor-General is already taking home $447,900 a year, plus an allowance of $40,551. Totalling almost seven times the median wage, no one can accuse Dame Cindy Kiro of being underpaid.”
“If the Governor-General needs the red carpet rolled out through airports on the far side of the world, is it too much to ask for her to pay for the VIP fast-tracking herself?”
“Most of us manage to carry our own bags through the airport every time we go abroad. An on-demand valet service isn't what many taxpayers would call an essential cost of travel.”
“Overseas travel is too often treated as a way of milking taxpayers for a splash of luxury. But that stings a little bit more when the person doing it already lives in a taxpayer-funded mansion.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the Government's new focus on economic growth and the re-energised Economic Development Portfolio as Economic Growth held by one of the most senior Ministers.
Taxpayers’ Union Co-founder, Jordan Williams, said “Economic growth isn’t everything, but it is almost everything. Our ability to afford a world-class health, education, and social safety system depends on having a first-world economy. Nothing is more important."
"For a generation New Zealand has coasted off the back of economic reforms from the 1980s and 90s. If that continues, we will continue to wave goodbye to our best and brightest at Auckland Airport. Willis is the logical choice to do the necessary heavy lifting.”
“With Simeon Brown taking the health portfolio, ratepayers will be relieved to see the Local Government portfolio going to the National party’s former local government spokesperson, Simon Watts."
"With a substantial reform agenda set by Simeon Brown in the coming months, Watts will need to hit the ground running and deliver before this year's council elections. Watts was instrumental in helping 'Stop Three Waters' and we look forward to reviving our partnership with Minister Watts in the local government portfolio."
The National Party will have little reason to celebrate following the results of the first Taxpayers-Union Curia Poll for 2025.
The poll, conducted between 9-13 January, shows National down 4.6 points to 29.6%, while Labour have risen 4.0 points from last month, overtaking them with 30.9%.
This is the first time the Labour Party has led National since April 2023, when Labour enjoyed the leadership bounce following Chris Hipkins replacing Jacinda Ardern.
The Greens are up 1.2 points to 9.5%, while ACT is down 2.2 points to 10.8%. New Zealand First is up 2.7 points to 8.1%, while Te Pāti Māori is down 0.2% to 5.3%.
The headline poll results and information about the methodology can be found on the Taxpayers' Union's website at http://www.taxpayers.org.nz/25jan_tuc_poll
For the minor parties, Outdoors and Freedom is on 1.7% (down 0.3 points), TOP is on 2.1% (+1.0 points), and Vision NZ is on 0.6 (+0.4 points). New Conservatives are up 0.5 points to 0.5%.
This month's results are compared to the last Taxpayers' Union–Curia Poll conducted in December 2024, available at https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/final_poll_dec2024
Based on these results, National is down 6 seats to 38, whilst Labour is up 5 seats to 39.
The Greens gain one seat to 12, whilst ACT is down 3 to 14 seats. New Zealand First is up 3 seats to 10, whilst Te Pati Maori remains on 7.
The combined seats for the centre-right are down 6 to 62, whilst the combined seats for the centre-left are up 6 to 58.
This month, the Taxpayers' Union is also releasing the Country Right Direction/Wrong Direction data, showing the full context of voter sentiment.
Commenting on the results, Taxpayers' Union spokesman, Jordan Williams, said:
"Tough news about the dire state of the economy hit the headlines in December, so it's not a coincidence the Government's taken a big hit in the polls."
"Just one year into this Government, a two-to-one ratio of voters say New Zealand is headed in the 'wrong direction'. That is anything but an endorsement of National's softly-softly approach to economic and fiscal matters."
"For many families, Christmas provides a real economic mirror. The data shows people are doing it tough. Nicola Willis' lack of boldness in the economic sphere appears to be hurting National's electoral prospects."
Hi,
Next week the Labour and National Parties have their respective caucus 'retreats' before Parliament resumes the week of the 27th. And it's all bad news for Christopher Luxon, according to the latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll.
NEW POLL: Nats fall behind Labour for the first time since
The clear message from voters on what's concerning them 📣
Despite the media's attention on Māori / Treaty issues, just eight percent of respondents cited it as their major voting issue (compared to a combined 40 percent who said the economy or cost of living). Note too that the December poll (which these results are compared to) was just a few weeks after the high profile hīkoi.
For many families, Christmas has been a painful economic mirror, and this poll appears to reflect it – or as Bill Clinton's campaign strategist, James Carville, famously said: "It's the economy, stupid".
More information about the poll and how to get your hands on the full results can be found here.
Willis out-Mao-ing Mao? 😳 More mandarins than Communist China 🇨🇳🍊
Thanks to the supporter who flagged this Spectator UK "Steerpike" piece (requires sub) which outlines how, incredibly, on a per capita basis the UK has more civil servants than communist China.
Here at the Taxpayers' Union, we wanted to see how New Zealand compared to both Britain and our buddies in Beijing. 👀
To clarify: we're only counting actual mandarins (i.e. bureaucrats) not front-line personnel like doctors, nurses, and teachers – or those working for government-owned businesses.
China’s 8 million bureaucrats work out to about 0.56 percent of the population. Far too many if you ask me. 😉
Incredibly, the UK has more. Some 0.8 percent of the UK population are bureaucrats.
So how do we compare? Well, with nearly 63,000 taxpayer funded bureaucrats (even after Nicola Willis’ so-called ‘cuts’) that's some 1.18 percent of the population.
That's right, on a per-person basis, New Zealand employs twice as many bureaucrats as Communist China.
It's not often the Taxpayers' Union holds [checks notes] Communist China as the better model of government efficiency, but here we are! Time for some reining in, Comrade Nicola?
More seriously though, no one could accuse the UK Government of being lean. The short point is, Wellington needs a proper clear out if the Government is to get on top of its fiscal mess.
New Public Service Commissioner talking truth about the bloat 📈
Nicola Willis might not be taking matters seriously, but good news from the Public Service Commission, with its new head Sir Brian Roche now publicly questioning the state of Wellington's bloated bureaucracy.
Roche says he wants fewer excuses and more action. Cutting to the heart of the issue, Roche reminded chief executives “[w]e are funded by one source of money — and that is the taxpayer — and…we need to try to simplify and streamline, not fragment and complicate.”
Could Roche be the taxpayer champion we’ve been waiting for? 🦸🏻♂️
Not since the valour of Sir Roderick Deane (in the mid-1980s) has New Zealand seen a State Services/Public Services Commissioner show real leadership and slim the size of the public service while improving performance.
So if Sir Brian means what he says, and can survive its toughest challenge yet (the bureaucracy itself!) he's worth every penny.
Your humble Taxpayers' Union has approached Sir Brian's office to ask him onto our Taxpayer Talk podcast. If he agrees, it'll be a good sign that the new public-service-Sheriff is indeed the champion for taxpayers we've been hoping for. On the other hand, if he's just another insider whose actions won't reflect the talking points, we doubt he'll accept.
We'll keep you posted...
US (the Trump administration is expected to pull out of the scheme) the key sponsor of the initiative won't even be applying the rules!
Say, Waaaaaatt? 👀
We'd love to give you some answers on why the Minister isn't putting the kibosh on this backward step (and answers to other questions – such as what Ministers are doing to rein in IRD leaking taxpayers' data) but this Minister's phone is off the hook.
Last year, your humble taxpayer advocates asked to meet with Minister Watts (as we have with loads of other Ministers). But, this Minister said no. The only one to date who has refused to meet with our friendly team.
Not a good sign, is it? Even Nicola Willis will take a meeting (and credit to her).
$35k of taxpayer money propping up race-based ticket pricing event 🤯 🎶
A music event down in Christchurch has been charging racially-tiered ticket pricing. And here's the kicker - your money is footing the bill.
The event charged three tiers of tickets: $15 for early birds, $20 for Māori and Pasifika attendees, and $30 for everyone else.
"Browntown" received a $35,000 grant from Creative NZ last year, supposedly to promote wider community involvement in the arts. But should your hard-earned taxpayer money be supporting events that charge more or less depending on the attendee's race?
The real issue here is that taxpayers are still being lumbered with the costs of Creative New Zealand bureaucrats supporting their pet projects (even if they breach anti-discrimination laws).
As long time readers of Taxpayer Update know full well, it's long past time some Creative New Zealand's ridiculous funding handouts were scrapped.
That's all for this week, have a great weekend.
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Here are the headline results for January's Taxpayers’ Union – Curia Poll:
Party |
Support |
Change compared to December 2024 |
Labour |
30.9% |
↑4.0 |
National |
29.6% |
↓4.6 |
ACT |
10.8% |
↓2.2 |
Green |
9.5% | ↑1.2 |
Māori |
5.3% |
↓0.2 |
NZ First |
8.1% |
↑2.7 |
Other |
5.8% |
↑2.5 |
National is down 4.6 points to 29.6% from December while Labour is up 4.0 points to 30.9%. The Greens are up 1.2 points to 9.5%, while ACT is down 2.2 points to 10.8%. New Zealand First is up 2.7 points to 8.1%, while Te Pāti Māori is down 0.2 points to 5.3%.
For the minor parties, Outdoors and Freedom is at 1.7% (-0.3 points), TOP is at 2.1% (+1 points), and Vision NZ is at 0.6 (+0.4 points).
Here is how these results would translate to seats in Parliament:
Party |
Seats |
Change compared to December 2024 |
Labour |
39 |
↑5 |
National |
38 |
↓6 |
ACT |
14 |
↓3 |
Green |
12 |
↑1 |
NZ First |
10 | ↑3 |
Māori |
7 |
nc |
This shows how many seats each party would win in Parliament, based on the decided vote. National is down six seats from last month to 38 while Labour is up five seats reaching 39. The Greens are up one seat at 12 while ACT is down three seats at 14. New Zealand First is up three seats from last month to 10 while Te Pāti Māori remains on 7.
This calculation assumes that National would not have an overhang and lose at least five electorate seats.
The Centre-Right bloc is projected to hold 62 seats, a decline of six from last month. Based on these numbers, National and ACT would need NZ First's support to form a government. Meanwhile, the Centre-Left bloc has gained six seats, bringing their total to 58.
Preference for Christopher Luxon is down 2.6 points at 24.5%, while Chris Hipkins is down 4.6 points to 15.3%.
David Seymour is on 6.3% (+0.5 points) while Winston Peters is up 3 points to 8.8% and Chlöe Swarbrick is at 8.5% (+4 points).
22.3% of respondents named the Cost of Living as their top issue, followed by the Economy at 17.5%, Health at 11.6%, Māori/Treaty issues at 8.0%, the Environment at 5.8% and Education at 4.5%.
39% of respondents said the country was moving in the right direction, compared to 53% who said it was moving in the wrong direction. This gives a net right/wrong direction result of -14% (down 17 points).
For the full polling report, covering the detailed insights the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition are use to receiving, join our Taxpayer Caucus – our club of most generous financial supporters who make our work possible.
Media Summary Statement
This poll should be formally referred to as the “Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll”.
Any media or other organisation that reports on this poll should include the following summary statement:
The poll was conducted by Curia Market Research Ltd for the Taxpayers’ Union. It is a random poll of 1,000 adult New Zealanders and is weighted to the overall adult population. It was conducted by phone (landlines and mobile) and online between Thursday 09 and Monday 13 January 2025, has a maximum margin of error of +/- 3.1% and 5.4% were undecided on the party vote question.
Notes
The scientific poll was conducted by Curia Market Research and commissioned by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. The full polling report is being released exclusively to members of our Taxpayer Caucus. As is well known, but for full disclosure, David Farrar co-founded the Taxpayers' Union and previously served on its board. He is also a Director of Curia Market Research Ltd.
The Taxpayers’ Union – Curia Poll was conducted from Thursday 09 and Monday 13 January 2025,. The median response was collected on Sunday 12 January 2025.
The target population is adults aged 18+ who live in New Zealand and are eligible and likely to vote. The sample population is adults aged 18+ who live in New Zealand and are eligible and likely to vote who are contactable on a landline or mobile phone or online panel. 1,000 respondents agreed to participate, 800 by phone and 200 by online panel. The number of decided voters on the vote questions was 908. There were 54 (5.4%) undecided voters and 25 (2.5%) who refused the vote question.
A random selection of 15,000 NZ phone numbers (landlines and mobiles) and a random selection from the target population from up to three global online panels (that comply with ESOMAR guidelines for online research). If the call is to a landline, the person who is home and next has a birthday is asked to take part. Those who take part through an online panel are excluded from further polls on the same topic for six months.
Multiple call-backs occurred to maximise the response rate. Those who said they were unlikely or very unlikely to vote were excluded.
The poll was part of a wider omnibus survey for multiple clients. Questions on voting sentiment are asked before any other questions. The questions were asked in the order they are listed.
The results are weighted to reflect the overall voting adult population in terms of gender, age, and area.
Based on this sample of 1,000 respondents, the maximum sampling error (for a result of 50%) is +/- 3.1%, at the 95% confidence level. Results for sub-groups such as age and area will have a much higher margin of error and not seen as precise.
The polling questions and the order in which they were asked can be found here.
I am delighted to be able to share with you the Taxpayers’ Union's 2024/25 Annual Review and Campaign Plan for 2025.
If you have trouble viewing, click here to download the report.
Flicking through it, I’m sure you will agree that we can be incredibly proud of what Jordan, James, Michelle, Amber and the team are achieving, despite our relatively small size. After all, without you, the Taxpayers' Union would not be possible.
2024 in review
With so many of the voices you see in the media (and those paid to lobby politicians) entirely taxpayer funded, the Taxpayers' Union provides the balance. Everything you read in the Annual Review was made possible by the goodwill of the tens of thousands of New Zealanders who have chipped-in with a membership or donation.
And I think the report demonstrates that it's been put to good use! From the huge win on the Te Mana O Te Wai issue (which would have imposed co-governance of water management/environmental policies across all councils) to the successful campaign for referendum safeguards on Māori wards (ensuring that the rules of local elections are ultimately in the hands of voters not the politicians) the Taxpayers' Union has bravely fought for democratic accountability in the areas where the media often do not tread.
And again it was the Taxpayers' Union who held the IRD to account after it was revealed that tax officials had shared unencrypted taxpayer data with overseas tech companies. Thanks to the pressure applied, the full extent of this breach was forced to be uncovered: IRD now admit that 268,000 New Zealanders had their privacy breached. This is precisely why a voice for taxpayers is so important!
Meanwhile, the Union's exposé on the Health Research Council and the Marsden Fund's wasteful spending forced the Government to respond and narrow the scope of the fund criteria to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent where they’re truly needed.
These successes remind us why the Taxpayers' Union is so vital.
The achievements you’ll see in the report are the fruits of tireless work and bucket loads of passion. When I speak to the Board members, or pay a visit into the office, it is clear that every member of the team – and our volunteers – really loves what they do.
The year ahead
But let's not kid ourselves that a prosperous future of New Zealand is yet secured. As was laid bare with the opening of the Government's books the week before Christmas, 2025 is make-or-break. The country is in the longest per-capita recession since records began, our productivity has flatlined, and local government is still an absolute mess.
Sadly, there's just so much more to be done.
Jordan, even the Taxpayers' Union can't save the world if they can’t keep the lights on. To keep the momentum going, will you chip-in with a donation so the good work can continue?
Thank you for making the work of the Taxpayers' Union possible.
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David Farrar |
Hi,
The politicians might still be sitting under their Pohutukawa trees eating ice creams, but like rust, government waste never takes a day off.
It's only week two of 2025, but here's what we've found so far...
MBIE's New Year's Resolution: The Ministry of Silly Walks Sitting up Straight 🪑
Some say that bureaucrats spend too long on their backsides. Well, hold on to your seats for this one, because we can reveal that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment have spent $500,012 to learn how to sit at their desks correctly.
MBIE has spent half a million dollars on coaching staff on how to sit up straight! 💸
That's right – half a million dollars over the last two-and-a-half years teaching bureaucrats how to sit.
As I put it to my comments to the media:
"The public service can posture all it likes about their being no fat to be trimmed, but when MBIE’s happy to chuck hundreds of thousands away on posture training it’s taxpayers who are left bent out of shape."
Sacking back-office consultants is one thing, but how about the Government sack these back-alignment consultants too?
Speaking of sitting at a desk... officials caught accessing p*rn from work machines 👀
Turns out, sitting incorrectly isn't the biggest blunder public servants have made recently.
In just six months, the Ministry of Māori Development has recorded 217 instances of explicit content being accessed on the clock.
Just to hammer home that these aren't just some flukey Google accidents, over the same period the Ministry of Women recorded only one incident.
Time is money, so when bureaucrats sit watching *ahem* entertainment in the office maybe they lack enough to do?
But is it racist to call out bureaucrats watching p*rn at work?
Ccalling out public officials for using taxpayer computers to access adult material is far from our most important or valued work. We asked a number of government agencies mostly because wanted to know whether the Government is implementing the sorts of internet filters and security that are standard in the private sector.
Other than some anecdotal feedback giggles from our friends in the media, the story wasn't covered by any of the mainstream outlets.
But then, we got an out of the blue request from Māori Television. They wanted to know whether we had targeted the Ministry of Māori Development and whether we'd asked other departments about their computer use...
Of course when it comes to snuffing out government waste we take an equal opportunities approach – but it raises the question about fourth estate priorities when an agency is embarrassed, the media are more interested in 'why are you asking this', or even seeming to imply a racial motive, rather than holding a taxpayer funded agency to account...
As the media become so agenda-driving, is it any wonder so many New Zealanders support the Taxpayers' Union?
Police dogs chasing criminals, but biting taxpayers 🐕👮
Call us old fashioned, but if you get yourself injured whilst breaking the law we don't think taxpayers should be on the hook for patching you up again.
The Taxpayers' Union can reveal that ACC has paid out $217,674 for 255 claims for police dog bites over the last four years.
And even they recognise that the figures are likely be an under-estimate! It only includes claims where "Police Dog" was voluntarily mentioned – so the real bill is likely to be even higher.
This is at the same time as those of us with (non-criminal) jobs are facing 16 percent hikes in our ACC levies over the next three years, and drivers have another 24 percent tax hike coming over the same period.
We say, that if you put yourself in harm's way, and are caught breaking the law, 'accident compensation' costs should be on you not the taxpayer. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
Unelected Iwi council reps 'call out' elected councillors (for daring to disagree) 🙅♂️🗳️
Unelected reps sitting on the Taranaki Regional Council got themselves into a tizz last week when the elected councillors rejected spending ratepayers' money on taking an Official Council Position and submitting on ACT's Treaty Principles Bill.
Here at the Taxpayers' Union, we say that council should stick to their knitting. Spending ratepayer money on lobbying (especially on matters not directly related to core services) is compelled speech. Why should Joe-and-Jill-ratepayer be forced to pay rates money to lobby for things they may not agree with.
Well, you'd think the sky had caved in. After the Council decided to remain impartial, the six (yes, six) unelected appointees formally lodged complaints and declared "no confidence" in the elected council members being an 'impartial governing body'.
Someone needs to sit these reps down and explain to them how democracy works. The Council specifically rejected taking a view on a contentious piece of national legislation. Sounds pretty 'impartial' to us!
Here at the Taxpayers' Union, we say that unelected, undemocratic appointees have no business trying to ram through political campaigns unrelated to the council's core job. Whether it's Iwi reps or the kids with voting powers in Hastings, they also need to learn democracy comes first.
Like what we do? Why not join the team? 🫵🥸
If you like bureaucrats buying you drinks, we don't suggest becoming an intern or researcher at the Taxpayers' Union. But if you're looking for a role that mixes public policy, economics, politics, communications and advocacy, we have a deal for you! We are looking for talented additions to our team.
So if you've got a passion for keeping more money in taxpayers' pockets, and fighting for more transparency and accountability within government, drop us a line.
Have a great week.
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REVEALED: Ministry of Regulation senior managers’ $260k golden payslips
The New Zealand Taxpayers Union can reveal through an Official Information Act request (see below) that the new Ministry of Regulation paid their Establishment Unit senior managers up to $257,941 each. This follows earlier reporting that the average salary at the organisation was $54,834 more than the average across the Public Service.
Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager James Ross commented:
“When the Government’s bureaucracy-slashing department starts turning into a bloated bureaucracy itself, questions have to be asked about this Government’s commitment to cost-saving.”
“The three Establishment Unit Senior Managers are taking home up to $258k each - well over three times the median wage. At a time when Kiwis’ standards of living are plummeting in real terms at a rate of knots, the irony of these new cost-saving positions being paid somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of a million dollars a year each won’t be lost.”
“Every story about the Ministry of Regulation seems to be about staffing cost blow-outs. The red tape slashing Ministry needs teeth, sure, but all we seem to hear about are teething problems.”
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through an Official Information Act request (see below) that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has sent $500,012 on consultants for posture training and workstation assessments in the last three years.
Commenting on this, regular desk user (self-trained) and Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“Here’s one to make taxpayers sit up straight and listen: over half a million dollars has been wasted by one government department alone teaching bureaucrats how to use a desk and chair.”
“The public service can posture all it likes claiming there’s no more fat to be trimmed, but when MBIE’s happy to chuck hundreds of thousands away on posture training it’s taxpayers who are left bent out of shape.”
“MBIE could do with getting their values back in alignment with cash-strapped taxpayers. They can start by sacking the back-alignment consultants, when a few printed-off diagrams stuck around the office would do the same job for a fraction of the cost.”
More than 100 local businesses and major property owners have called on the Gore District Council to put its new district plan on hold, saying it is inconsistent with a directive from Central Government to do away with nice-to-haves.
“The district plan is well overdue for an update – but it would be entirely irresponsible to release a plan if it is already at odds with Central Government” said Local Government Campaigns Manager for the Taxpayers’ Union, Sam Warren.
“In December, Minister Simeon Brown announced a raft of change for the New Year. While pausing for another nine months would have cost implications for Gore District Council, it would allow time for the new, more sensible direction to be made clear.”
“Considerable resources have gone into the plan so far, but if the plan is already outdated on its release and doesn’t follow the more sensible approach towards council spending set out by the Minister, it will only end up costing Gore residents more in the long run.”
“Gore District Council has already stung its residents with an average rates increase of 21.4 percent this last year alone – one of the highest in the country. It’s clear more thought needs to be given on how it can make better spending decisions. If the new Government directive can better guide Council in this space, it’s certainly worth waiting just a little bit longer for.”
The New Zealand Taxpayers Union can reveal through an Official Information Act request that ACC has paid out $217,674 for 255 claims into police dog bites over the last four years.
This information includes 595 bites with 68 to the arm and 59 to the lower leg.
Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“ACC is funded by levies. Taxpayers shouldn’t be picking up the bill for hardened criminals who get themselves hurt whilst out committing crimes."
“ACC’s finances are already in the doghouse, with a $7.2 billion deficit this year and Kiwis facing down massive ACC levy hikes. It’s going to take a lot more than $220k of savings to fix that, but there’s a principle involved - criminals should not be the tail that wags the dog.”
“That’s also just the costs we know about. Given declaring cause of injury is voluntary, and not every criminal who injures themselves getting collared is bitten by a police dog, just how much are we paying so people can avoid the consequences of their own actions?”
“If everyone else is getting stung by the unfortunately much-needed cost-savings, those who have actively chosen to put themselves in harms’ way shouldn’t be able to take the taxpayer for a ride.”
The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union can reveal through an Official Information Act request (see below) that over the last six months, the Ministry of Māori Development has recorded 217 instances of staff accessing explicit material blocked by their web-filters.
Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“Taxpayers don’t pay bureaucrats to sit watching adult videos, so why does it keep happening?”
“When bureaucrats in your department keep being disciplined for wasting taxpayers’ time getting distracted at the office, something’s gone wrong.”
“Our investigations so far reveal this is an embarrassingly common problem government-wide, but when one department has recorded this happening a couple of hundred times there’s only so often this can be called an accident.”
“After the agency’s significant staffing increases over the last six years, is it just that staff have too much time on their hands? Maybe it’s time to roll back the bloat and start scrapping those departments who seem not to have enough work to do.”
Today's the last day at the office for the year, and this email is to sign-off for the year and recap on what has (unfortunately, for taxpayers!) been a busy 10 days.
'Twas the week before Christmas: The economic bad news continues... 🚨🎄
Last week's quarterly GDP stats were worse than anyone was expecting.
In the space of three months, the economy shrank 1.0 percent. In the three months prior to that, it shrank 1.1 percent.
While the headline "growth" (or in this case "shrink") number is one thing, what determines what a country can afford is GDP per capita, or 'per person GDP' – the amount the whole economy produces divided by the population.
And on that measure, it's even worse:
Sorry to spoil your Christmas, but these new figures show that the average Kiwi is $1,711 poorer compared to what was produced last year.
When we talk about wasteful government spending and overtaxation, this is those chickens coming home to roost. But where's the plan to fix it?
As laid bare in the opening-of-the-books last week, Nicola Willis is spending more than Grant Robertson.
And before you say the deficit is because of 'tax cuts', the Treasury figures show that Nicola Willis' tax-take as a share of the economy is bigger than at any point under Ardern/Hipkins.
And debt's still spiralling! Interest payments are set to reach $7,000 per household by 2028/29. There isn't a recipe for growth on the menu.
Merry Christmas 👀
Stats NZ struggling with numbers? 20,000 job losses in Wellington out by [checks notes] 18,000 🤔📊
It's a real shame that Stats NZ are, well, struggling with statistics given the political overdrive the media and opposition parties went into after Stats NZ published employment figures that 20,000 had lost their jobs in Wellington.
This was, apparently, evidence to show 'nasty cuts' since the new Government came in.
It turns out, Stats NZ got it wrong. Really wrong. So how much were they out by? A thousand? Five thousand? Surely not more?
They were off by 90 percent! Last week Stats NZ corrected their figures and there has only been about 2,000 job losses in the capital (and that's during our worst recession since 1991, don't forget).
And most job-losses weren't within government!
Sir Humphrey reported safe 🤵♂️
At its peak, there were more than 65,000 "core public servants" – an 18,000 increase from six years prior.
And of those 2,000 job losses, Nicola Willis revealed this month that only 865 bureaucrats had actually been made redundant (and about half of those were voluntary)!
It might be the New Year soon, but the team at the Taxpayers' Union all have the same resolution. Pump those numbers up, because last week's HYEFU opening-of-the-books showed one thing - if we're going to get New Zealand growing again the public service needs to do some shrinking.
Taxpayer-funded Waipareira Trust to lose charitable status over political donations 🎯
The Te Whanau o Waipareira Trust's latest annual report has certainly raised a few eyebrows. In just four years, the net assets for the taxpayer-funded charity have more than doubled - to $103.8million.
The report showed a net annual surplus of $20.6 million - a 24 percent return on revenue. Most commercial enterprises could only dream of those sort of numbers, with a higher profit than 93 of the top 100 companies in New Zealand!
This is the same trust paid $385,307 in no-interest, related-party loans to fund Chief Exec John Tamihere's 2019 Auckland Mayoral campaign. As well as Tamihere's 2020 general election campaign where he stood as a Te Pati Maori candidate-slash-co-leader, and of course further donations to Te Pati Maori's 2023 election campaign.
Entities associated with the Trust have also been facing down investigations over alleged misuse of census data for use in Te Pati Maori's 2023 election campaign.
The Democracy Project's Bryce Edwards took a deep dive into the Trust back in July.
Well, turns out you can't keep that up forever. After a four-year-long investigation, Tamihere's outfit is set to lose its charitable status.
Four years too long, if you ask us. Taxpayer-funded 'charities' should not enjoy tax-free charitable status.
Driving home for Christmas will cost more next year 🚗🚧
Now from groups that don't pay enough tax to one who are paying far too much: you.
Road tolling to pay back the cost of making a road makes sense – people in Ashburton and New Plymouth shouldn't be made to stump up for highways in Tauranga they'll never use. But here's where it gets tricky. Transport Minister Simeon Brown's announced tolling on three roads (including Auckland's Penlink, Tauranga's Northlink, and the road from Otaki to north of Levin) to pay for ongoing maintenance.
This is a change from previous toll regimes where tolls are used to fund/finance the building costs of new roads.
But it's permanent, it's a tax. Plain and simple. And let's be frank, we already have taxes that are meant to pay for road maintenance (i.e. fuel taxes and the road user charge).
And wasn't this supposed to be the government of 'no new taxes'? 🤔
And last but not least... Merry Christmas from the Taxpayers' Union 🥳🎄
This is the time of year to be thankful, and we know that our work wouldn't be possible without you. We've had some huge wins this year, but not kidding ourselves that there is a big job ahead to force Wellington to make the tough but necessary decisions in the New Year.
So from the whole team, wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas.
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Responding to today’s release of the third quarter GDP figures by Statistics New Zealand, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross said that “New Zealand’s back in recession after a second quarter of negative growth, but with the economy shrinking by 1% in just a single quarter the scale of the damage is shocking.
“Reserve Bank Governor Orr has almost throttled the life out of the economy with his earlier far too aggressive monetary tightening. He has now been forced into an aggressive loosening of monetary conditions, but it looks too little too late.”
“Tuesday’s release of Treasury’s Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update should’ve been the wake-up call that the country’s in real trouble. The forecasts show the Government has lost control of it’s spending, spending growth is well outpacing revenue growth making a balanced budget impossible. Finance Minister Willis’ claim of a surplus in 2028/29 is a mirage conjured up by deleting those pesky ACC deficits.”
“The Government needs to take its spending problem seriously to balance the books. Sir Bill English made the hard choices to get back to surplus after the Global Financial Crisis and this Government needs to do the same. Continuing to fiddle whilst the books burn is not a fiscal strategy - Willis missing her targets has the country on course for disaster.”
“Can someone please wake the Government up?”
On 24 October the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union published a statement about Toni Grace, partner of Rt. Hon. Chris Hipkins. The statement said that Ms Grace travelled to the UK and Europe at the taxpayers’ expense. This statement was untrue.
On 17 December 2024 the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union published a tweet stating that Ms Grace had been given a tax-payer funded car for her personal use. This statement was also untrue.
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union unreservedly apologises to Ms Grace for the distress caused by these publications
As predicted by your humble Taxpayers' Union last week, the Government is well and truly 'taking out the trash' with bad news – and Nicola Willis is hoping that with the festive season in full swing, you don't notice!
But before we get to the depressing fiscal news bundled into the half-year opening of the books, we need to tell you about another set of policy wins in local government.
So let's start this Taxpayer Update with the good!
Yet More Policy Victories: Simeon Brown gives ratepayers an early Christmas Present 🎁🎉
Yesterday's final Cabinet Meeting of 2024 delivered much Christmas joy here at the Taxpayers' Union (we watch the weekly livestream – so you don't have to 🤓 ).
The Prime Minister and Local Government Minister announced a new reform package for local councils to get local government "back to basics".
The announcements go even further than the PM's speech back in August to the Local Government NZ conference. The package is a huge win for our Local Government Campaigns Manager, Sam Warren.
Just a few weeks ago, Sam and Jordan (pictured) went to see Local Government Minister Simeon Brown with the Taxpayers' Union wish list of local government reform, including:
- Adopting a UK or Australian-style rates cap connected to inflation, population growth (or both). This is a no brainer. While households have struggled with the cost of living crisis, town halls haven't cut back at all. This year, the average rates bill is being hiked by 14% and most of the extra money isn't even going on infrastructure, but rather unaffordable nice-to-haves.
- Scrapping the "four well-beings" in the Local Government Act. These have lead to an explosion in the scope of what councils have been doing (you can fit almost any boondoggle within the excuses, sorry, well-beings of social, economic, environmental, and cultural.
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Changes to council financial disclosure requirements to enable better accountability and enabling better benchmarking and financial comparisons between councils. Since 2014, the Taxpayers' Union has published league tables of councils financial and democracy data.
While some councils use the Taxpayers' Union data to benchmark, unfortunately many others do their darnedest to obfuscate and undermine the process. For example, the Minister did not know that there is not a uniform expenses classification or general ledger accounts across different councils. Nor are the councils even applying the same accounting policies (such as how assets are valued in their annual accounts) which makes it far, far harder to do meaningful comparisons.
We think a lot of that is not by accident, and needs central government to come in over-the-top and set a uniform set of accounting, classification, and asset valuation policies across the sector.
- Giving elected officials the ability to require information from council CEOs and officials. It is difficult to expect good governance when, unlike company directors, local councillors do not currently have statutory rights to demand information from the organisations they are supposed to be governing.
The very policies announced yesterday are the same policies your humble Taxpayers' Union have been championing for ratepayers!
And not only has the Government listened, officials have even been instructed to work with the Taxpayers' Union to develop some of the finer details of new information disclosure and benchmarking requirements given our staff's experience in local government freedom of information and league table benchmarking.
I call that a nice Christmas win!
If you're facing rates bills that are eye watering, you may want to watch the full Post-Cabinet press conference available here.
Journalists question whether local government is actually wasteful 🤣🤣🤣
You can imagine the astonishment in our office when the PM struggled to give examples of local government 'white elephants' and waste.
Yes, seriously, Wellington's journalists were really questioning whether local government is 'wasteful'. Wellington, of all places...
Rest assured Sam is printing out just the first [million?] examples to rush down to the Beehive – and we'll be sure to invite Mr Luxon to our Jonesie Government-Waste Awards scheduled for early in the New Year...
Simeon Brown's media release summarising the reforms is here.
Also, we are reliably informed from a very senior source in the Minister's office – which may or may not be the Minister himself – that further Cabinet decisions regarding the disclosures are to be made in February. Sam and the team will be working over the summer for a good cause then! 😉
Now for the bad news:
Nicola Willis gets petty: tells Treasury to ban CTU economist she doesn't like from Treasury briefing lock-ups 🤪
This morning a small group of media (and a few analysts from the Australian banks) were at Treasury's half year "lock-up" to work through the latest Treasury forecasts in the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU).
We would normally be in the room, and asking questions of the Minister and senior Treasury Officials. But, having been invited to submit names, last week we learned that having 'consulted' with the Minister, Treasury had decided to ban all of those who might criticise the Government's fiscal management pressure groups, unions, universities, NGOs, major corporates (except the banks), and think tanks.
Reliable sources in the Treasury tell us that the Minister specifically wanted the Council of Trade Unions' Economist Craig Rennie (who used to work in Grant Robertson's office under the last Government) from being in the room and able to easily give commentary to media.
But the only way Treasury could justify that was to ban every one of the groups who provide expert analysis to the media: including Business NZ, Federated Farmers, the NZ Initiative, and us!
Basically, the Minister's thrown us (and others) under the bus to avoid a critic having early access to the information designed to ensure the Government's fiscals are transparent!
It's not often we agree with the Council of Trade Unions, but here we are...
Earlier today, we wrote a joint letter with the NZ Initiative think tank, echoing the CTU's own letter sent yesterday.
Seriously Nicola, New Zealand deserves better.
The Minister is, at best, employing a cheap PR ploy to attempt to control today's media narrative. At worst, it’s a petty and vindictive move to exclude a Labour Party-aligned economist the Minister has taken umbrage with.
It doesn't come easy to say this, but we need Nicola Willis to get over herself and stop being so, well, political.
Instead, New Zealand needs a Minister of Finance to get on with the job: cut wasteful spending to balance the books.
In an interview last week, Nicola Willis said that she does not want to be "slave to getting back to surplus". That's a cute line, but unless she cuts spending, all New Zealanders will soon be a "slave to debt". I know which one I'd rather...
Even before today's new figures, for every New Zealand household the Government, sorry, taxpayers, are paying more than $5,000 in interest this year alone.
And it's getting worse. Nicola Willis is borrowing at an even faster rate than [yes, that's right] Grant Robertson.
We know the Minister of Finance reads these Taxpayer Updates, so we have a message for her: Minister, banning critics is not a path back to surplus.
What Willis was hiding: a worse fiscal strategy than Grant Robertson 🤫💸
Because of Nicola Willis's pettiness we don't have our usual comprehensive report to cut through the spin and highlight what the Minister's press releases are deliberately not mentioning. But that's the way Nicola Willis wanted it today.
So with the very limited time, here are the immediate take aways:
❌ The surplus has been pushed back, yet again. It's now at the very end of the forecast period (2028/2029).
❌ Total government spending has gone up - and Nicola Willis is choosing to continue to increase it each and every year in cash terms. Total government spending is 43.6% of GDP this year (compared to 'just' 41.0% last year and 35.9% in 2017).
❌ Net Core-Crown Debt has exploded. It is now forecast to peak at at at least $115,000 for every NZ household by 2028/2029.
❌ Interest costs will be just shy of $7k per household by 2028/2029.
❌ All of this is despite revenue being a higher proportion of the economy than in at any point under the six years of the last Labour Government. It now sits at 40.5% of GDP. Under Ardern/Hipkins, it never topped 39% of GDP.
❌ There are no signs of meaningful reform that would boost New Zealand's lagging productivity in both the government and private sectors.
And the ugly:
Cooking the books: Willis changes how surplus is calculated 🧑🍳📚
But the real news is that Nicola Willis has instructed Treasury to change the way surplus/deficits are measured using what's called "OBEGAL" (the Operating Balance Excluding Gains and Losses).
Despite the union "lock-out" a concerned source within Treasury gave us the heads up that Nicola Willis was working with the Treasury Secretary to change the calculation so it all doesn't look quite so bad. Basically, because ACC's books are in dire straits, instead of confronting the problem, Nicola Willis is pulling a sleight of hand and excluding it.
Make no mistake, this is the Public Finance equivalent of cooking the books.
When Grant Robertson manipulated the fiscal indicators back in 2022 (changing how Net Core-Crown Debt was calculated to make the debt numbers look better), the then Opposition Finance Spokesperson jumped up-and-down.
And to give Grant Robertson some credit, at least he had the excuse of coming into line with international precedent.
But who was that Opposition Finance Spokesperson? One Nicola Willis. 😱
The fact is, despite the Government being elected on a platform of cutting spending, they continue to spend even more than Grant Robertson, and kick the fiscal can down the road.
In the coming days, our economic team will work through the material and give you a more thorough analysis.
Another Minister takes out the trash: announcing a tax hike just in time for Christmas 🎅💵👆
Speaking of ACC, ACC Minister Doocey is set to get coal in his stocking this Christmas, after a massive ACC levy hike was announced this week effective from 1 April.
So if you get a crisp $20 in any Christmas cards, hold on to it, because next year's looking like it's going to be a tight one, and the hikes keep coming until at least 2027.
By 2027, ACC's jobs tax will be another $140 a year per employee.
As ever, small businesses are going to get hammered because a ACC can't keep costs down.
So much for 'no new taxes'...
At least Judith Collins makes Santa's good list...🎅🏻🛷
Marsden Fund grants have long been a woke slush fund. You know it, I know it, and thanks to our taxpayer-hero of the week Judith Collins, everyone knows it.
Incredibly, the Government's decision to take up the Taxpayers' Union's call and narrow the remit of the Marsden Fund – returning it to focus solely on science rather than the social science nonsense of (to pick just one example) $360,000 study of “big things” such as large vegetable sculptures placed next to state highways – hasn't been supported by all.
The media ran with the usual complaints from self-entitled academics and their proxies. But, sadly, the Opposition followed suit.
In Parliament, the Science Minister was able to easily knock it back – using the example above, Judith Collins appeared to have been forwarded this and other grants highlighted by the Taxpayers’ Union to supporters calling for the very change in policy Labour was criticising.
Check out the video of Judith Collins using our examples of waste here.
Enjoy the rest of your week.
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Now we know why Nicola Willis’s office seem to have worked with Treasury to change the criteria of experts able to attend the HYEFU lock up: it seems she didn’t want the CTU, the Taxpayers’ Union, or other experts who would normally attend these things holding her to account for a Grant Robertson-style sleight-of-hand in how OBEGAL is calculated.
“This is the Finance Minister equivalent of cooking the books,” says James Ross, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at the Taxpayers’ Union.
“Nicola Willis is guilty of manipulating the fiscal indicators in the same way then Opposition Finance Spokesperson Nicola Willis jumped up-and-down about when Grant Robertson changed the way Net Core-Crown Debt was calculated to make the numbers look better in 2022. But at least Grant Robertson had the excuse of coming into line with international precedent.”
“The fact is, despite the Government being elected on a platform of cutting spending, Nicola Willis continues to spend even more than Grant Robertson, and kick the fiscal can down the road. Changing measures, or banning those pointing out the elephants in the room, doesn’t avoid the fact Nicola Willis is not doing what she was elected to do.”
In an unusual move, the Taxpayers’ Union is standing with comrades at the Council of Trade Unions following Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ petty decision to have Treasury officials ensure CTU Economist Craig Rennie could not attend today’s Half Year Fiscal and Economic Update.
Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director Jordan Williams said, “We don’t agree with the CTU on much, but it’s outrageous that the Minister has had Treasury impose a ban on peak bodies, think tanks, unions, universities and large corporates to justify the uninviting of a single left-wing economist the Minister does not like.”
“The worst kept secret in Wellington is that today’s opening of the books will show that Nicola Willis has not done her job in getting Government spending under control. She makes the claim that she does ‘not want to be a slave to surplus’ but as a result will soon have the whole country slave to her debt.”
“Banning the CTU, the Taxpayers’ Union, and groups like Business NZ and the Federated Farmers is not a strategy to get back to surplus. At best, it’s a cheap PR ploy to attempt to control the media narrative. At worst, it’s a petty and vindictive move to exclude a left-wing economist the Minister has taken umbrage at.”
“We think the media should make the point of going to talk to Craig Rennie and the CTU this afternoon after the lock-up to ensure the Minister’s ploy to suppress commentary she does not like does not work.”
Yesterday, the CTU wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury which is available on its website. In a joint letter with The New Zealand Initiative, the Taxpayers’ Union has backed up the CTU, making the same points (available here).
Groups affected by the new guidelines regularly provide their analysis of budget figures to their own readers, who number in the hundreds of thousands, and provide expert analysis to journalists attending the restricted briefings. Both functions assist in transparency and accountability to the public, which are purposes of the restricted briefings.
Mr Williams asks, “How does it promote the interests of ‘transparency and accountability to the public’ or assist public understanding when Bloomberg will be able to tell foreign investors what’s in the Government books, and provide considered analysis, faster than organisations representing New Zealand workers, business, and taxpayers?”
The joint letter points out that substantial errors in previous Budget Economic and Fiscal Updates have been uncovered by the very analysts that will now be prevented from attending future budget lock-ups.
“Make no mistake, the move to ban the likes of Business NZ and the CTU’s expert economists from budget and financial briefings does nothing to enhance public understanding in public finance. It is a cynical and unbecoming move by a Minister who, clearly, needs a summer holiday,” concludes Mr Williams.
Notes to editors: The Taxpayers’ Union will also have spokespeople available in Wellington including Ray Deacon (Economist) and Jordan Williams any time after the public release of the HYEFU information at 1pm.
Minister for Local Government Simeon Brown has today announced in the final post-Cabinet Press conference for 2024 a raft of changes designed to refocus local government and keep rates down.
“At long last sanity will be returned to councils” said Sam Warren, Local Government Campaigns Manager for the Taxpayers’ Union.
“Local rates have increased an average of 14 percent this year alone, the highest increase seen in 20 years. Returning councils’ focus is long overdue.”
“For years now the Taxpayers’ Union has been lobbying for the changes announced today – it’s certainly a massive win for us, and a massive win for all ratepayers”, Warren continues.
“Removing the four well-beings that have dragged council’s attention away from core services is a huge step in the right direction. The message is clear; stop blowing money on nice-to-haves and focus on the basics like roads and pipes.”
“The Minister has also announced a yearly benchmarking tool to improve transparency on council performance. Suspiciously similar to the Taxpayers’ Union’s own benchmarking tool - Ratepayersreport.nz - we’ll forgive the Minister for what I’m sure is very sincere form of flattery.”
“Ratepayers will have greater ability to compare council performance on issues such as council debt, unit ratings and forecasts, and a number of other important KPIs that put pressure on councils to remain accountable.”
“Perhaps most importantly, Minister Brown has expressed interest in exploring rates pegging similar to those used overseas to stop the endless bloat at councils. If the Minister plays his cards right, the days of councils ramming through double-digit rates hikes year after year could be coming to an end.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling the recent taxpayer-supported $5m loan given to a private corporation for the purchase of a big Ruapehu skifield “an abuse of taxpayer money”.
Commenting on the latest of nine multi-million corporate welfare cheques, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“This can no longer be seen as a mistake of government judgement. Once is a waste, twice is incompetence, but nine times is a scandal. How much longer is this grift going to continue?
“If Shane Jones really meant it when he said the eighth payment was “the last chance saloon”, why are we now talking about a ninth payment? Since 2018, more than $50 million of government-backed support has been handed over to this failed project.
“The Ruapehu skifield keeps failing to stay afloat in no small part because Government departments are tying it up in consent restrictions and red tape. Taxpayers keep getting stuck with the tab for cleaning up the Government’s mess.
“It’s time for the abuse of taxpayer money to stop, and start investing in things that will actually benefit hardworking Kiwis.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is commenting on the Government’s “job cuts” released during scrutiny week. Only 865 redundancies were announced across the public sector, with spending going up 0.7 percent.
Commenting on the relatively small cuts, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“If the Government is serious about cutting waste and returning taxpayers’ money, they need to start spending less instead of spending more on an already bloated bureaucracy.
“With half of the reported redundancies being voluntary, the cuts made are an absolute drop in the bucket when considering the size of the Public Service is now more than 63,000 full-time equivalent staff.
“For all the bashing of the last Government, it is clear this Coalition has failed to get New Zealand’s books ‘back on track’. If they are true to their word, it’s time to start spending less - instead of spending more - on bureaucrats.”
The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through an Official Information Act request that the Inland Revenue Department has spent $54,990 on remote worker travel to the Wellington office, including flights, meals, taxis and accommodation.
The revelations, which predate recent changes to public service working-from-home policies, highlight how lax oversight has allowed such wasteful spending to flourish.
Commenting on the findings, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“While tradies, farmers, and hospitality workers don’t get anything close to the luxury of working on the sofa in their dressing gowns, on the rare occasion these bureaucrats show up for work they’re flown in to the office on the taxpayer’s dollar."
“Taxpayers have also footed the bill for one IRD employee’s $1,182 in meals and accommodation and another’s $368 in taxis. The same ‘public servants’ who are supposed to set an example of accountability and fiscal prudence are living it large at our expense.”
“Other large agencies like the Department of Internal Affairs and Ministry for the Environment couldn’t even answer how much they’d spent because they “don’t hold a register of remote employees who travel to work”. How can they expect to control costs when they don’t even know what they’re spending?”
“The Public Service Commissioner needs to ensure these new return-to-office guidelines are enforced and that past excesses like these are never repeated.”
The Taxpayers' Union is slamming Tauranga Mayor Mahé Drysdale and his Council's decision to appoint unelected, unaccountable, iwi representatives onto every one of the Council's powerful standing committees, with full voting rights.
Responding to today's vote, Taxpayers' Union Executive Director, Jordan Williams, said:
"This is a fundamentally undemocratic move. By shifting so much power to the Committee, Drysdale is screwing the scrum so that he has extra votes in the pocket."
"But it's also undemocratic in that appointments are not accountable to voters. In the same way the Taxpayers' Union ridiculed the Hastings District Council's decision to appoint teenagers from their 'youth council' to Council committees, Iwi appointments are inherently unaccountable to voters."
"The people of Tauranga only recently got their local democracy back. Now, without even putting it out for public feedback, Mayor Drysdale is driving it into a ditch. He's clearly out of his depth."
It's silly season in Wellington, with Christmas joy (i.e. taxpayer funded) knees up well underway.
There's also the usual December "take out the trash" silliness where exceedingly well paid government spin doctors dump the bad news at the very time the media and public aren't looking...
But here at the Taxpayers' Union, we're still at it and will be at right up until the fat man in the red suit arrives in a few weeks.
Merry Christmas (to the Debt Monster) 🎄
This week we're expecting the Government's solution to the Interislander debacle (quite why Kiwirail isn't expected to fund its own asset purchases, just like the privately-owned Cook Straight ferry operator does has never been clear), and next week, on the Eve of Christmas comes Nicola Willis' Budget Policy Statement, and Half Year Fiscal and Economic Update. There, we're expecting the inevitable announcement that budget surplus is being pushed back, yet again.
So the Government Debt Clock won't be stopped for Christmas, in fact it's ticking at a faster rate than when Grant Robertson was in-charge. The only one who's happy is the Debt Monster.
Meanwhile, Labour thinking about how to make New Zealand more prosperous tax you more 🤦
The Labour Party was hammered at last year's election, and last week Party members gathered in Christchurch for their annual conference to discuss the rebuild.
You'd think that they'd learn some lessons and take the message, right? After all, Labour's increase in Government spending (gross core Crown spending by 83 percent in just seven years ! ) resulted in high inflation and, arguably, worse public services.
But it seems Christopher Hipkins missed the memo.
Instead of debating the challenges the New Zealand economy faces, our structural overspending, and lack of productivity growth in both the private and public sectors, the Labour Party's main agenda item was to debate [re-checks notes] which new tax they should introduce!
➡️➡️➡️ Walk this way to higher taxes ➡️➡️➡️
To help Labour Party delegates find their way to the venue, your humble Taxpayers' Union were on hand to help. 😉
Even Stuff liked the gag! Young Alex (who came to work for us from our sister group, the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation) got his first interview on the 6 o'clock TV news to give the taxpayer perspective.
NEW POLL: ACT & Te Pāti Māori gain in final Taxpayers-Union Curia Poll for 2024 📊
There will be sighs of relief in the Beehive with the centre-right commanding a comfortable majority in our final poll for 2024, despite a hard month and media attention on the hīkoi.
The poll, conducted 1 to 3 December, has both National and Labour down 4.6 points from last month, National at 34.2% and Labour at 26.9%.
Despite some progress on the "Preferred PM" results (see below), it's not much progress for Chris Hipkins, 26.9% is the exact result Labour got at last year's general election.
The Greens are down 1 point to 8.3%, while ACT are up 4.5 points to 13%. That puts ACT ahead of the Greens for the first time since February 2024.
New Zealand First is down 1.1 points to 5.4% while Te Pāti Māori is up 3 points to 5.5%.
For the minor parties, Outdoors and Freedom is on 2% (+0.7 points), TOP is on 1.1% (+0.2 points), and Vision NZ is on 0.2% (-0.2 points).
Converting that to seats in Parliament, these results would mean National and ACT would not need NZ First to form a Government. The total number of seats for the Centre-right is 68, while the left has only 52 seats in the 120 Parliament.
In terms of Preferred Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon is up slightly from last month to 27.1% (+0.6 points) while Chris Hipkins is up to 19.9% (+4.4 points). David Seymour is at 5.8% (-1.6 points) matched by Winston Peters (-0.5 points) at 5.8% and Chlöe Swarbrick at 4.5% (-0.7 points).
This month we're also publicly releasing what participants said was their "most important issue" that would influence how they would vote.
Although it is getting much media attention, just 8.4% of voters listed the Treaty as their top voting issue. That could suggest that media attention does not necessarily correlate to importance in the minds of most voters.
You can read more results over on our website.
EXPOSED: New Zealand's infrastructure benchmark - more traffic cones than sheep? 👀 🚧 🐑
That's more than $390 per household on road cones and lollypop signs.
And it gets worse. The $786 million is 'only' what comes from central government. It doesn't include what your council is spending on cones (those higher rates have to be going somewhere!).
Politicians and talking heads in the media complain about New Zealand's "infrastructure deficit" and argue that we must spend more. But according to the OECD (a think tank funded by the governments of most developed countries) New Zealand spends at higher levels than Australia and the median OECD country on infrastructure.
So why aren't we enjoying world class infrastructure? Like so many areas of spending coming from Wellington, it's not how much we're spending, it's what we're getting (or not getting) due to New Zealand's very poor productivity.
And it's no state secret. As our friends over at the NZ Initiative think tank have pointed out:
Despite this comparatively high spending, New Zealand reaps a relatively poor return from its infrastructure investment. Alarmingly, we rank near the bottom 10 per cent of high-income countries for the efficiency of our infrastructure spending.
A cone-spiracy? 🤷
Your humble Taxpayers' Union suggests that when you're spending so much on traffic management there are (so we are told) more cones than there are sheep, overly zealous traffic management would be a good place to start to get more bang for our buck from NZTA.
No one is saying 'end all road cones' (well, maybe a few of us in the office), but when Alex and the team stumbled upon a single Wellington intersection with more than 200 road cones, surely something has to change?!
A tree-mendous waste of $1.2 million 🎄🎅🏻
Christmas is a time for family, and our Auckland ratepayer campaign has been digging deep.
It seems no expense was spared on this 18-metre ornament, with Council committing $800,000 of rates money.
We can only assume the baubles are made of solid gold (we asked, but Auckland Council refused to provide a breakdown of the $1.3million – so it's anyone's guess).
Wellington also managed three Christmas trees for about the same cost as Christchurch's one. You read that right: Wellington City Council actially kept costs down for something – it's a Christmas miracle!
Your household's $57 SolarZero charge: time for some sunlight ☀️🔥
Politicians love to give old fashioned corporate welfare new labels such as 'green investments'. But in the case of the $115 million taxpayer dollars basked onto SolarZero, a private company, through the so-called "Green Investment Finance Investment Bank" even an Orwellion name and $155million wasn't enough to stop the collapse.
According to the NZ Herald, Finance Minister Nicola Willis is "seeking advice" on the investment and why it went wrong.
Here's what the advice should say: Big gambles mean big losses, and taxpayers shouldn't have to front up with (in this company's case) $57 for every Kiwi household to subsides (via cheap capital) because a business or industry is green fashionable.
The Government was elected to cut wasteful spending. Corporate welfare funds like the Green Investment Finance Investment Bank would be a good place to start. After all, if you're a half decent investment banker, are you really likely to be working for the New Zealand Government...
More money muscled musseled out of Shane Jones 🦪💪
Speaking of corporate welfare, the hapless mussel farm in Opotiki has received yet another $16.5 million of taxpayer cash courtesy of Shane Jones.
Most Kiwis love a good seafood feast. But for those counting, this latest handout takes the total corporate welfare handouts to $52 million, for just one mussel farm!
We hope you like mussels because every NZ household has now stumped up $26 subsidising this one company.
Shane Jones says he wants to create a sustainable industry out of mussel farming in the area. But the company he's showering has never turned a profit. Not even once.
Speaking of creative accounting...
Official Dis-information? South Wairarapa District Council's audited accounts show wrong CEO pay numbers 🫢
They won't tell anyone what the extra money was for, except that it was in relation to "contractual obligations". Sounds like a golden goodbye to me...
Forcing every single one of the 7,400 households in the small district to chip in $10 as a goodbye a bit rich. But to then not disclose the payout (as required by law) is a bit poor, to say the least.
Have a great week,
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![]() Sam Warren Local Government Campaigns Manager New Zealand Taxpayers' Union |
The Minister of Finance's spat with left-wing economist Craig Rennie for, apparently, making up a quote during a previous Budget lock-up should not affect the decision on whether to allow the Taxpayers' Union to attend (and report on) the Half-Year Fiscal and Economic Update to be released next week.
Speaking in response to the Minister of Finance's comments at the Post-Cab, Taxpayers' Union spokesman, Jordan Williams said:
"With one-in-14 voters receiving our Taxpayer Updates, more people receive news from the Taxpayers' Union about the Government fiscal situation than most of the 'media' organisations that attend Budget lock-ups."
"It appears the Taxpayers' Union is being singled out to try and 'balance' the decision to bar Craig Rennie from attending. But his bad behaviour is totally irrelevant in terms of whether our economist and staffers should be allowed to attend."
"Grant Robertson once tried this trick and attempted to bar the Taxpayers' Union from attending a Budget lock-up. Wiser heads eventually prevailed. Indeed, we can recall an Opposition Finance Spokesperson commenting that Robertson should ensure we can attend and report on these very matters."
Radio New Zealand reported yesterday that Finance Minister, Nicola Willis, stated that tax changes for charities, and closing of loopholes, will be announced at next year’s budget in May.
Taxpayers’ Union Acting Head of Campaigns, James Ross, said “this looks like a move in the right direction.”
“Businesses should be treated in exactly the same way by the tax system. Exempting a business’ profits from taxation because it is set up to fund charitable or religious activities is not the correct approach.”
“It’s inconceivable that all of the profits are used for these activities. Most businesses fund capital replacements and expansions entirely, or at least partly, from retained profits. These expenditures are not charitable activities and, in the normal course of business, are funded from after-tax profits.”
“The correct approach is to tax the profits made by all businesses in the same way and then to provide the appropriate tax rebates to any profits distributed for qualifying charitable activities.”
“This is how the system works for all other businesses and individual taxpayers. It should be no different just because a business operates to fund charitable activities.”
“The current arrangements provide an unfair competitive advantage to businesses that have a broad charitable purposes tax exemption, because profits reinvested in the business are not taxed, unlike all other businesses. The Government is correct to fix this anomaly in the tax system.”
The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through Local Government Official Information and Meeting Act that Environment Southland has spent $32,871.17 to hunt one phantom wallaby that was ultimately never found.
The month long hunt involved Otago Regional Council, the Ministry of Primary Industries, thermal drones, biosecurity, dogs – and a team of management and comms staff.
“This result makes the National Wallaby Eradication Programme look more like a taxpayer funded social club than a crack team committed to stomping out pests” said Local Government Campaigns Manager, Sam Warren.
“One week alone saw $19,249.89 spent, with a staggering $13,000 towards staff and a further $6,000 on contractors – and that is without Council and MPI related costs on top."
“It’s hard not to wonder if the local hunting community would have done the job for less and actually manage to turn the phantom into a ghost."
“Review is urgently needed of this programme before the pest problem gets any worse, and ratepayers are left paying the bill.”
Waitaki District Council is defending its new logo following complaints from the public it more closely resembles certain aspects of the human anatomy.
“$100,000 of ratepayers' money has already been put towards this logo – which should probably come with an R-rating” said Local Government Campaigns Manager, Sam Warren.
“The Council used no less than two professional design firms for an outrageously expensive ‘W’ that doesn’t leave much to the imagination."
“Once the final design is confirmed, a further $200,000 – $300,000 will be spent on the changeover to replace existing signs. Meanwhile, rates in Waitaki have increased a whopping 13.73% on average this year alone. I’m not convinced a new anatomically-inspired logo is a priority at the moment."
“Other questions have been raised over the design’s shared similarities with a sustainable wool company. It’s crazy this amount of money has been wasted on a logo that, arguably, already exists."
“My advice is for council to ditch the expensive brand refresh and work on getting rates down for Waitaki locals.”
Waitaki District Council is defending its new logo following complaints from the public it more closely resembles certain aspects of the human anatomy.
“$100,000 of ratepayers' money has already been put towards this logo – which should probably come with an R-rating” said Local Government Campaigns Manager, Sam Warren.
“The Council used no less than two professional design firms for an outrageously expensive ‘W’ that doesn’t leave much to the imagination."
“Once the final design is confirmed, a further $200,000 – $300,000 will be spent on the changeover to replace existing signs. Meanwhile, rates in Waitaki have increased a whopping 13.73% on average this year alone. I’m not convinced a new anatomically-inspired logo is a priority at the moment."
“Other questions have been raised over the design’s shared similarities with a sustainable wool company. It’s crazy this amount of money has been wasted on a logo that, arguably, already exists."
“My advice is for council to ditch the expensive brand refresh and work on getting rates down for Waitaki locals.”
Labour faithful gathered this weekend in Christchurch for the party’s annual conference to consider their approach towards the 2026 election – with future tax policy high up on the agenda.
“Labour has never met a tax it didn’t like” said Taxpayers’ Union Spokesman, Sam Warren.
“With ‘change’ and ‘challenge’ being central themes for this year’s conference, what we got was more of the same.”
“Productivity in New Zealand is at rock bottom, and insolvencies are much higher than the global average – and despite Hipkins’ political deflection, higher taxes won’t grow the economy and improve our lives."
“According to Labour, it seems that no problem can be solved without taxing Kiwis more. Six years in the driver’s seat has proven otherwise."
“Without any semblance of a plan to boost economic growth and improve productivity, Labour is clearly not ready for the Treasury benches in two short years. It will be simple; a vote for Labour is a vote for more taxes and even more backwards thinking.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is slamming the disgraceful waste of $115 million in public funds sunk into the now-liquidated SolarZero by the Crown-owned New Zealand Green Investment Finance (NZGIF).
Commenting on this Taxpayer’s Union spokesperson James Ross said:
“When the government tries to gamble with taxpayers’ money, private companies line their pockets and taxpayers get the risk. Government picking winners doesn’t work.”
“New Zealand Green Investment Finance has become a high-stakes casino. SolarZero’s collapse saw $115 million of taxpayers’ cash - more than $57 for every household in the country - go up in flames."
“With over four times that much already committed by the fund, how much taxpayer cash do we have to waste before the Government quits its gambling addiction?”
“Bad investments, bad oversight, bad outcomes. That’s corporate welfare in a nutshell.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is weighing in on the recent news that Shane Jones convinced Cabinet to fork out another $16.5 million of taxpayers money on a loss-making mussel farm. This brings the total taxpayer tab for the project to $52 million.
Commenting on the story, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“Shane Jones has continued to lobby for tens of millions of dollars from the pocket of taxpayers to be handed to a management team who have already managed one mussel business into failure.”
“Not only has the mussel farm lost money every year of its existence, but the auditor has expressed uncertainty in its ability to continue. So long as Shane Jones is signing the cheques, taxpayers can say goodbye to their hard-earned money.”
“This is another example of why the Taxpayers’ Union named their annual Government-waste awards the ‘Jonesies’. Taxpayers expect value for their tax dollars, not for them to be thrown away for mussel-farm nostalgia.”
“The losses have been so bad, the corporate financiers can’t even put a number on it! With results like this, it’s time for the Government to reign in the slush funds, and stop allowing Ministers to dangle taxpayers’ money over the fire.”
Allegations of poor behaviour from Dunedin City Council’s Chief Executive, Sandy Graham, have cost ratepayers more than $250,000 in both legal fees and an investigative report that will not be released to the public.
“Two issues are concerning – Graham’s extremely costly behaviour, and the utter lack of transparency surrounding the report into her, which alone cost more than $132,500” said Local Government Campaigns Manager, Sam Warren.
“Citing reasons of privacy, details remain scarce as the report will not be made available for scrutiny. But it’s apparent that Graham’s repeated bad language and unprofessionalism are at the centre of this extremely costly investigation.
“Every reasonable effort must be made for the report to see the light of day, even if aspects are redacted to protect those who blew the whistle on Graham. Otherwise, an apology and employee improvement plan aren’t good enough at this high level.
“This year Dunedin locals have been hit with a staggering 17.5 percent rates increase. At the very least they deserve transparency and confidence in their Chief Executive who received a $31,678 pay bump, taking her renumeration to $418,080, according to the 2022/23 annual report from Council.
“We don’t expect perfect, but we expect much better. Either the incredibly expensive report into allegations over the well-paid bureaucrat’s behaviour is made public – or Graham must fall on her sword."
Commenting on the Reserve Bank’s decision to once-again slash the Official Cash Rate (OCR) by 50 basis points, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“This slashing of the OCR proves what we’re all feeling; New Zealand’s economy is limping. We’re in a worse per-capita recession than we were following the Global Financial Crisis.”
“The Government desperately needs to pull out all the stops to get us growing again. The only way to do that is investment.”
“Anti-business taxes (including one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world) and nonsense red tape will keep us stuck in reverse.”
“Slashing interest rates is half a solution at best, and sticking plasters won’t put New Zealand back on the right course.”
The Post today reports on the major developments coming from yesterday’s meeting to amend the long-term plan after the decision not to sell the airport shares left the council with a $500m shortfall.
The proposals are estimated to save the council $380m to $400m which falls short of the $500m target.
Commenting on the proposals, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said “what will it take for the council to take its finances seriously? The budget is still at least $100m short, around $1,250 for every Wellington household. Is that getting slapped on families’ rates bills?“
"Mayor Tory Whanau’s dogged insistence that vanity projects like the Golden Mile and Town Hall go ahead unchanged screams that she’s keen to be the captain going down with her ship. Rather than sinking the city, take the obvious solutions and fix the financial leaks.”
“The Golden Mile isn’t just a “nice-to-have”, it’s a project that local businesses actively don’t want. In a time of financial crisis, the Mayor’s wasting $1,750 for every household in the city to kill the CBD”
“Given the council’s appalling record with major project costs blowouts, ratepayers shouldn’t believe for a second the cost for the Golden Mile will be kept to its $140m budget.”
“With rates spiralling, at this rate there’ll be no one left in the city to enjoy Tory Whanau’s build-at-any-cost vanity projects.”
Responding to Winston Peters’ calls for growth in foreign investment in New Zealand, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“When New Zealand is the single worst country in the OECD at attracting foreign investment, who can be surprised that our economy is stagnating? Per capita, Kiwis have been getting poorer at a rate of knots for years and that trend doesn’t look set to change.”
“Cut anti-competitive red tape, lift the ban on foreign companies owning the plots of land their businesses are based on, and drop one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. That’s how you attract investment.”
“Investors skipping over New Zealand isn’t going to stop when we’re constantly talking about slapping on envy taxes like wealth taxes and capital gains tax. Kiwi families bear the brunt because we can’t put the debate to bed.”
The New Zealand Taxpayers Union can reveal through Official Information Act request the past two financial years has seen Television New Zealand blow $63,682.66 on Christmas parties.
Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer Alex Emes said:
“This year will be the litmus test for Chief Executive Jodi O’Donnell, who is now coming off the back of a year which saw TVNZ post a $85 million loss. Has the message got through, or will TVNZ carry on and be back asking for taxpayer handouts?
“In a year that has included programme failures and falling revenue, their current trajectory is only damaging public trust even further.
“Dividends for the taxpayers aren’t coming anytime soon, and NZ on Air cannot fund the entire organisation. Surely it’s time to get the risk of the taxpayers’ books and sell off the organisation altogether.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is weighing in on the recent COP29 agreement which lays out a plan to fund developing nations with $500 billion a year until 2035 on the backs of developed nations. This comes despite the fact New Zealand is already providing $216-per-household a year from 2022-2026. Based on the increase in the overall amount, this yearly per-household figure could be on track to triple.
Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer Alex Emes called the deal “a move towards global socialism” due to the agreed upon large transfer of wealth from countries like New Zealand to the third world.
“These COP negotiations seem to have become more about New Zealand taxpayers subsidising the pockets of dictators then their original intention of protecting the planet.
“This latest agreement shows how out of touch New Zealand’s leaders have become with Kiwi voters. Kiwis are facing higher prices and paying higher taxes all to hear that their hard-earned money has gone to fill the political egos of entitled politicians.
“Now, despite facing financial hardship from multiple large-scale climate events in the last year alone, this government continues to prioritise the needs of the rest of the world ahead of its citizens.
“The $216-per-household we’re already shipping overseas every year could’ve covered 2/3rds of the budget for the Dunedin hospital. With that amount now possibly set to triple, think what we could build if we focussed on using Kiwi tax dollars for Kiwi infrastructure.”
The latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll has revealed Kiwis overwhelmingly support extending the Official Information Act to cover the expenses of MPs and their offices.
Voters were asked: ‘Ministers’ expenses are covered by the Official Information Act and disclosed, but expenses for MPs who are not Ministers are not covered and kept secret. Would you support or oppose a law change to extend the Official Information Act to include spending by MPs and their offices?'
62% of respondents support the extension of the OIA to cover MPs’ spending, compared to just 13% opposed and 24% were unsure.
Voters for all parties in Parliament bar one had a clear majority in support, while Te Pāti Māori voters still have a sizeable plurality in support.
ACT supporters have the highest support. At 79% in favour compared to just 5% opposed, ACT supporters have a net support of +74%.
Te Pāti Māori supporters have the lowest support. But with 44% in favour compared to just 19% opposed, Te Pāti Māori supporters still have a net support of +25%.
The full polling report can be found here.
Commenting on the results of this poll, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“Kiwis support MPs having to front up to the public about what they’re chucking on their expense accounts, and it’s not even close. By a ratio of nearly five to one, voters want an end to the expenses gravy train."
“Whether it’s bottles of bubbly or trips to Hawaii, the fact is we have no idea what MPs are making us pay for. Ministers have to declare their expenses, why shouldn't MPs?"
“18,397 Kiwis submitted to Select Committee demanding that MPs open the books. The strength of feeling is obvious, and taxpayers are done listening to the excuses."
“Supporters of every party are clear that whilst taxpayers are picking up the tab, the secrecy needs to end. With the Parliament Bill up before Select Committee now, there’s no time like the present for our Parliament to catch up with the rest of the world."
The Taxpayers’ Union is voicing support for the more than 1000 South Wairarapa residents who have signed a petition to cap next year’s rates rise at 3 percent.
Commenting on this courageous act of common sense, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“The Taxpayers’ Union supports and applauds South Wairarapa ratepayers in their fight for common sense rate caps. Only through residents’ determination and hard work will ratepayers’ rights be recognised.”
“Rates across the Anglosphere - whether it is California, England, Victoria or New South Wales - are capped to avoid spiralling rates bills. The fact New Zealand has failed to cap rates is just another example of how successive Governments have fallen behind the rest of the world.”
“While the latest rates increase of 14.7 percent is both offensive and cruel to the ratepayers of South Wairarapa, this phenomenon is happening across New Zealand. With an average proposed rates rise of 15 percent across New Zealand, it’s time for ratepayers across the country to stand up, have their voice heard and fight back. If councils don’t listen, they might find themselves out of work come November.”
The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through an Official Information Act request that Sport NZ has spent $316,000 on two diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) surveys. The first, in 2020, cost the taxpayer $185,598.51. The second, in 2024, cost $130,310. Sport NZ has also committed another $46,500 to online resources to promote DEI, which will not be completed until mid-2025.
Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“The same agency responsible for the $170k ‘say thanks to your coach’ blunder – which cost more than $575 per e-card it sent – has blown over $300k on two DEI surveys.
“Ensuring sport is for everyone is commendable, but not every project needs to cost six figures. In fact, the surveys find the biggest barrier facing people in the sector is lack of cash. Maybe if Sports NZ got their act in gear and cut out their own waste, that wouldn’t be such an issue.”
“It must feel like a low blow to the scores of shuttered sports clubs Sport NZ is meant to support that this box-ticking exercise wasted enough money to buy 15,795 rugby balls.”
“At a time when New Zealanders are tightening their belts, Sport NZ should focus on achieving measurable results in grassroots sports rather than expensive self-congratulatory exercises.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is reacting to reports that show the New Zealand Transport Agency has spent more than $786 million dollars on road cones and temporary traffic management in the last three years.
Responding to the outrageous amount of money, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“You cone-not be serious. New Zealand has some of the most expensive infrastructure projects in the developed world, yet we’ve still got an infrastructure deficit as long as your arm.
"When just shy of $800m has been blown on traffic cones and lolly-pop signs, is it any wonder there never seems to be enough money to actually get anything built?
“It begs the question, how many road cones has NZTA ended up buying in the last three years? Which contractor was able to grift off this insane amount of spending?
“Perhaps if they were faster at building real roads, this excess spending wouldn’t be necessary. This is evidence of a broken system, and reason for major cost-saving, results driven reform.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is defending taxpayers after New Zealand’s COP29 National Statement laid out $30 million dollars in additional commitments to send taxpayers’ dollars overseas.Responding to this, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“This statement puts shipping Kiwis’ hard-earned tax dollars overseas for foreign countries ahead of focusing on the issues facing New Zealanders at home.”
“Despite being a country with only a fraction of the emissions, people and resources of other countries, this Government has just made $30 million in commitments to climate handouts in Azerbaijan, a country dedicated to fossil fuels.”
“This decision proves how out-of-touch this tax more, spend more, ship more overseas Government is with New Zealand taxpayers. Fix your house first before you go fixing the neighbourhood.”
Stuff today reported on a stoush between Napier City Council and Hawke’s Bay Regional Council. Hawke’s Bay disagrees with Napier’s decision to mark a potentially flood-prone parcel of land as suitable for developing 660 homes upon.
Commenting on this, Taxpayers' Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“While Hawke’s Bay ratepayers still carry the can in the event of a natural disaster, it’s natural for the regional council to be a tad gun-shy about development. That then begs the question, why are ratepayers carrying the risk?”
“Private insurance exists for a reason. It’s insurance firms’ entire purpose to work out what risks are financially sensible. Councils second-guessing this simply drives up costs.”
“If we’re wanting to climb out of a national housing crisis, we need to stop Councils getting stuck with the legal risks of consenting.”
“Flood defences should be factored into the private cost of a development, if that’s what potential homeowners want to pay for. Denying homebuyers that choice in the long run only ends up denying people the ability to buy homes at all.”
With one of the lead organisers of Hīkoi - Eru Kapa-Kingi - being a paid Parliamentary staffer working for Te Pāti Māori, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said “if taxpayer money is being spent, we need to see the receipts.”
“Parliamentary budgets are for helping constituents, not political campaigning. Parliament’s exceptional carve-out from freedom of information laws means we’ll never know if taxpayers had to stump up the cash.”
“Te Pāti Māori are far from the only party doing this. All parties use public money for campaigning, and then have the gall to tell us we’re not allowed to know how a cent of it is spent.”
“Taxpayers’ money is not a political slush fund. MPs shouldn’t be able to hide how they’re wasting our money, and it’s long-past time their budgets were covered by the OIA.”
"18,397 Kiwis submitted to Parliament demanding to open the books. How much longer are MPs going to bury their heads in the sand?"
The Taxpayers' Union is supporting the Department of Conservation’s discussion document that includes a proposal to charge for access to sites in the conservation estate, as long as that means taxpayers end up footing less of the bill.
Commenting on the Government-led directive, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“Taxpayers are right to applaud DOC’s decision to consider alternative paths of raising revenue without burdening taxpayers.”
“With 83 percent of DOC’s current budget coming from the taxpayer tab, the department is correct in looking for ways to only charge those using its services.”
“User pay systems are in use all around the world, and lower the burden on taxpayers footing the bill. The DOC now needs to use these resources to lower the extreme proportion of funding they currently receive from the taxpayer.”
The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through Local Government Official Information and Meeting Act that planned upgrades to the Wellington Botanic Garden, Begonia House have reached $25 million, with $7.8 million budgeted until 2027.
Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson, James Ross, said:
“Rates are so high that people can’t afford to stay in their actual houses, and the Council is locking in millions of dollars for a great big greenhouse. Where are the priorities?
“The Council can’t keep kicking the can down the road. Even whilst the project’s treading water, it’s costing ratepayers nearly $100 for each and every single household in the city. If the full project goes ahead, more than triple that.
“Reducing how often the plants get cycled out isn’t nearly good enough, especially given the Council has already wasted $318k on project management since July and is estimated to need another $2.64 million for a glazed roof alone. Wellingtonians need smaller rates bills, not a slightly bigger cafe.
“Every option needs to be on the table to fix Wellington Council’s financial shambles. If even ones like this aren’t obvious candidates for the scrap heap, then ratepayers can’t hold out much hope.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is responding to comments made by the head of New Zealand’s delegation to COP 29, Todd Croad, who is suggesting additional pathways of climate reparations for the Vanuatu government to be paid by New Zealand taxpayers.
Commenting on NZ’s decision to sign a $4million taxpayer funded bailout for Vanuatu, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“Instead of providing services for the people of New Zealand, MFAT has decided to ship boat loads of taxpayers’ money overseas to Vanuatu.”
“Not only do taxpayers appear to be on the hook for $4 million dollars of climate reparations, but the comments made by Mr. Croad discussing additional ‘pathways’ to forfeit more New Zealand tax dollars to Vanuatu are both out-of-touch and disrespectful to hardworking taxpayers.”
“Kiwis shouldn’t be responsible for picking up the climate reparations tab when New Zealand contributes less then 0.1% of global carbon emissions while large emitting countries such as China and the United States aren’t paying a dime.”
Following reports in the Otago Daily Times this morning that Dunedin Railway is being subsidised by ratepayers to the tune of nearly $550 per passenger, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes said “Andrew Simms is bang on the money. This gravy train needs to end.”
“If Dunedin Railways’ finances have gone off the rails, ratepayers can’t keep getting stuck with the bill. At some point, we have to pump the brakes.”
“Dunedin ratepayers have been smacked with a 17.5% rates hike just this year alone. Ratepayers can’t afford to keep coughing up freight-loads of cash for council vanity projects.
“The message to the Council is clear - dump the money pit, and let ratepayers keep more of their money.”
The latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll for November shows National up 3.9 points on October’s poll to 38.8%, while Labour gained 1.2 points to 31.5%. This represents a rebound for National from last month and the highest result for Labour in 17 months.
The Greens are down 1.1 points to 9.3%, while ACT are down 1.2 points to 8.5%.New Zealand First is down 1.1 points to 6.5%, while Te Pāti Māori are down 0.5 points to 2.5%.
The full poll results can be found here on the Taxpayers' Union's website here at https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/poll_nov2024_cutunz
For the minor parties, Outdoors and Freedom are on 1.3% (up 0.8 points), whilst the combined total for other parties is 1.7%.
This month's results are compared to the last Taxpayers' Union – Curia poll conducted in October 2024, available at https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/oct2024_poll
Based on these results, National are up four seats on the last poll to 48, while Labour gains one to 39 seats.
The Greens are down two seats to 11 while ACT is down one to 11 seats. New Zealand First are down one seat to 8 from the last poll, while Te Pāti Māori remains on 6.
The combined projected seats for the Centre-Right is up two from the last poll to 67. The combined seats for the Centre-Left is down one to 56.
On these numbers, National and ACT would require the support of New Zealand First to form a government. This calculation assumes that all electorate seats are held.
A summary of the results, including preferred Prime Minister scores, are available on our website here: https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/poll_nov2024_cutunz
Major Voting Issues – Appearance in Top Three
The Taxpayers’ Union is again publicly releasing the results of the “Major Voting Issue – Top 3” – which suggests that voters consider the Cost of Living the most important issue. The number of voters putting Health in their top 3 has dropped significantly.
37.9% of respondents named the Cost of Living as one of their top three issues (up 1.4 points), followed by the Economy more generally at 31.1% (down 2.6 points) and Health at 27.4% (down 8.1 points), Law and Order at 19.1%, Education at 18.0% and Treaty at 16.9%.
Get the full report – join the Taxpayer Caucus
As part of the same poll, favourability data for party leaders and other notable politicians is collected monthly. This month, results were obtained for Labour’s Finance Spokesperson, Barbara Edmonds, and Willie Jackson as well as Labour’s Leader, the Prime Minister, and the coalition parties’ leaders. All of these results are detailed in the full Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll report made available exclusively to members of the Taxpayer Caucus
Hi
A lot to cover this week: we expose yet another Government department's wasteful spending, #FactCheck Radio NZ on its [dis]reporting of a poll, plus a campaign win.
And, we reveal November's Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll.
But first, what happens when you threaten to expose MPs' spending rorts?
Parliament hits the panic stations, but eventually accepts 'Open the Books' submissions 🔥🚨
Last week we asked supporters to back our campaign to Open the Books at Parliament and bring MPs' spending into line with Ministerial spending and open to the public.
We were delighted that 18,397 backed the campaign and made a submission at OpenTheBooks.nz in just five days.
Plus, more than 200 have asked to present orally to the Select Committee and ask MPs to their faces why they think taxpayer-funded expenses should remain hidden.
It wasn't smooth sailing, first Parliament banned email submissions, so we printed them out to take down to Parliament. It took five of us to carry them all, and stacked up they were taller than Jordan.
Watch the video over on Facebook.
Suddenly (when it looked like they might have to do some work!) the Select Committee Officials were very happy to accept a digital copy of the responses after all. What a surprise!
This fight's not yet won, but if the reaction by MPs is anything to go by, we have certainly made a splash.
Yoga retreats and vegan platters? Stick it on the taxpayers' tab 😂🧘🥕
MPs aren't the only ones living it large on the taxpayer tab. In just six years, bureaucrats at the Ministry for the Environment blew north of $2 million on staff retreats, planning summits, and team-building workshops.
Now we're all for team building here at the Taxpayers' Union, but what's wrong with a quick round or two of minigolf? At the Ministry, it seems putt-putt golf has been replaced with golf resorts – at least in terms of budget...
Back in 2018/19, the budget for staff jollies, sorry, training was $98,000. But by 2022/23 the figure blew out to more than $822,000. That's an eight-fold increase in just five years.
Right now, Ministers are readying their 'budget bids' (and nominations for saving money) as part of the annual budget process. No prizes for guessing a department we will be nominating for a haircut...
Media not giving context: Those "nasty cuts" you heard about on RNZ? More like paper cuts actually... 📝✂️
With more than 18,000 extra bureaucrats hired over the six years of the last Government, there's plenty of scope for the Government to cut spending and reallocate resources to front-line services.
The Department of Internal Affairs has listened to the Ministers' calls and decided to make some cuts in its latest reshuffle.
But they fail to give you the context: in the five years to June, the same agency increased their staff count by 477 roles. 🤦
Radio NZ #FactCheck – Do 65% of Kiwis really support a Capital Gains Tax? 🗞️
Last week, the IPSOS Issues Monitor survey results were released, including on whether New Zealand voters want some form of capital gains tax.
We raised our eyebrows when we heard Radio NZ's Guyon Espiner putting it to Prime Minister Luxon that "recent polling showing [that] a majority supported a capital gains tax".
Here's the write-up that got us thinking:
That certainly doesn't match the polling we've had conducted. So we did an investigation of what was behind Radio NZ's claim.
If you don't like the answer, change the question... 👀
It's actually quite clever, albeit extremely misleading. Because Radio NZ can't find a poll to back their campaign in support of reporting on introducing a Capital Gains Tax that supports their "unbiased" position, they've combined the number of voters who supported any particular kind of tax on capital gains!
So they asked in the poll whether the voter supported introducing a capital gains tax on:
(a) investment property;
(b) the sale of a business;
(c) the sale of other assets; or
(d) the sale of the family home
Radio NZ then summated the responses (i.e. you only needed to support just one to count as supporting 'a capital gains tax') to produce a highly misleading claim that "two-thirds" of voters support a capital gains tax!
The question is also highly misleading. Because of the bright-line test, a capital gains tax already applies for investment properties bought and sold within a defined timeframe, property bought with an intention to sell it, and for those who deal in property.
Let's apply Radio NZ's methodology 😂
As ever, your humble Taxpayers' Union strives to be helpful to our friends in the media. Let's look again at those poll results:
57% support a CGT on investment property.
43% support it on the sale of a business.
22% for the sale of other assets.
Only 13% support a CGT on the sale of a family home.
In the same way Radio NZ interpreted the above, they could just as easily run the line to Mr Luxon that "recent polling shows that 90 percent of Kiwis oppose a capital gains tax"!
And by the way...
Just to break the media narrative further, our own polling shows that only 29 percent – less than one in three Kiwis – wants to see a capital gains tax increase the overall tax burden. Even those who do want a capital gains tax want to see other taxes cut or abolished to compensate.
Very clearly, the takeaway from this is that the vast majority of Kiwis think they're already taxed enough. It would be nice if the media reflected it.
BREAKING: New Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll: National bounce back, but Labour keep climbing 📉📊
This month's exclusive Taxpayers'' Union-Curia Poll is here.
National is up 3.9 points from October to 38.8 percent while Labour is up 1.2 points to 31.5 percent. The Greens are down 1.1 points to 9.3 percent, while ACT are down to 8.5 percent (-1.2 points). New Zealand First is down 1.1 points to 6.5 percent while Te Pāti Māori is down 0.5 points to 2.5 percent.
Translating this into seats, National is up four seats on last month to 48 while Labour is up one seat to 39.
The Greens are down two to 11 while ACT is down one on last month to 11 seats. New Zealand First is down one on last month to 8 while Te Pāti Māori is unchanged on 6.
On these numbers, the current coalition would be able to form a Government with 67 seats, compared to the Centre-Left bloc's 56.
As a follow-up to last month's release of our "Major Voting Issue - Top 3" results, there's been a major swing this month.
37.9 percent of respondents named the Cost of Living as one of their top three issues. However, Health fell 8.1 points down to 27.4 percent, putting it in third place behind Economy more generally at 31.1 percent.
See the results, including preferred Prime Minister, on our website here.
Your Taxpayers' Union needs you! 🫵🥸
The team here in Wellington are like truffling pigs, digging through the Government's books rooting out all the waste we can find. Some of the biggest stories we've broken over the years have come from you guys.
If you have a tip you'd like to share with us, we want to know about it!
Our tipline is completely anonymous. But the work we do here wouldn't be possible without the help of people tipping us off to the worst excesses of waste in Wellington.
So if you're reading this and have any info to share, just point us in the right direction and we'll bring the waste to light. Happy hunting!
That's all for this week, on to the next one!
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Here are the headline results for November's Taxpayers’ Union – Curia Poll:
Party |
Support |
Change compared to October 2024 |
National |
38.8% |
↑3.9 |
Labour |
31.5% |
↑1.2 |
Green |
9.3% |
↓1.1 |
ACT |
8.5% |
↓1.2 |
NZ First |
6.5% |
↓1.1 |
Māori |
2.5% |
↓0.5 |
Other |
3.0% |
↓1.1 |
National is up 3.9 points to 38.8% from October while Labour is up 1.2 points to 31.5%. The Greens are down 1.1 points to 9.3%, while ACT are down to 8.5% (-1.2 points). New Zealand First is down 1.1 points to 6.5% while Te Pāti Māori is down 0.5 points to 2.5%.
For the minor parties, Outdoors and Freedom is on 1.3% (+0.8 points), TOP is on 0.9% (-1.6 points), and Vision NZ is on 0.4 (+0.1 points).
Here is how these results would translate to seats in Parliament:
Party |
Seats |
Change compared to October 2024 |
National |
48 |
↑4 |
Labour |
39 |
↑1 |
Green |
11 |
↓2 |
ACT |
11 |
↓1 |
NZ First |
8 |
↓1 |
Māori |
6 |
nc |
This shows how many seats each party would win in Parliament, based on the decided vote. National is up four seats on last month to 48 while Labour is up one seat to 39. The Greens are down two to 11 while ACT is down one on last month to 11 seats. New Zealand First is down one on last month to 8 while Te Pāti Māori is unchanged on 6.
This calculation assumes that all electorate seats are held.
The combined projected seats for the Centre-Right of 67 is up two seats from last month. On these numbers, National and ACT would require the support of NZ First to form a government. The combined seats for the Centre-Left is down one to 56.
Christopher Luxon is down 1.2 points from last month to 26.5% while Chris Hipkins is down 1.4 points to 15.5%.
David Seymour is at 7.4% (+0.0 points) followed by Winston Peters (-2.1 points) at 6.3% and Chlöe Swarbrick at 5.2% (-4.7 points).
37.9% of respondents named the Cost of Living as one of their top three issues, followed by the Economy more generally at 31.1%, Health at 27.4%, Law and Order on 19.1%, Education on 18.0%, and Treaty on 16.9%.
For the full polling report, covering the detailed insights the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition are used to receiving, join our Taxpayer Caucus – our club of most generous financial supporters who make our work possible.
Media Summary Statement
Any media or other organisation that reports on this poll should include the following summary statement:
The poll was conducted by Curia Market Research Ltd for the NZ Taxpayers’ Union. It is a random poll of 1,000 adult New Zealanders and is weighted to the overall adult population. It was conducted by phone (landlines and mobile) and online between Wednesday 06 and Sunday 10 November 2024, has a maximum margin of error of +/- 3.1% and 3.4% were undecided on the party vote question.
The scientific poll was conducted by Curia Market Research and commissioned by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. The full polling report is being released exclusively to members of our Taxpayer Caucus. As is well known, but for full disclosure, David Farrar co-founded the Taxpayers' Union and previously served on its board. He is also a Director of Curia Market Research Ltd.
The Taxpayers’ Union – Curia Poll was conducted from Wednesday 06 and Sunday 10 November 2024. The median response was collected on Thursday 07 November 2024.
The target population is adults aged 18+ who live in New Zealand and are eligible and likely to vote. The sample population is adults aged 18+ who live in New Zealand and are eligible and likely to vote who are contactable on a landline or mobile phone or online panel. 1,000 respondents agreed to participate, 800 by phone and 200 by online panel. The number of decided voters on the vote questions was 908. There were 61 (6.1%) undecided voters and 31 (3.1%) who refused the vote question.
A random selection of 15,000 NZ phone numbers (landlines and mobiles) and a random selection from the target population from up to three global online panels (that comply with ESOMAR guidelines for online research). If the call is to a landline, the person who is home and next has a birthday is asked to take part. Those who take part through an online panel are excluded from further polls on the same topic for six months. Multiple call-backs occurred to maximise the response rate. Those who said they were unlikely or very unlikely to vote were excluded.
The poll was part of a wider omnibus survey for multiple clients. Questions on voting sentiment are asked before any other questions. The questions were asked in the order they are listed. The results are weighted to reflect the overall voting adult population in terms of gender, age, and area. Based on this sample of 1,000 respondents, the maximum sampling error (for a result of 50%) is +/- 3.1%, at the 95% confidence level. Results for sub-groups such as age and area will have a much higher margin of error and not seen as precise.
The polling questions and the order in which they were asked can be found here.
This poll should be formally referred to as the “Taxpayers’ Union – Curia Poll”.
Stuff reported yesterday that Wellington City Council has already begun tearing up recently completed roadworks on Thorndon Quay, to remove raised safety platforms.
“We could see this planning failure coming, half of Wellington saw this coming, so how didn’t the Council? Do Council staff not talk to each other?” said James Ross, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at the Taxpayers’ Union.
“Businesses along Thorndon Quay didn’t want these business-destroying roadworks in the first place, and now they have to go through it twice. If the Council’s plan is to reduce traffic by destroying Thorndon Quay as a shopping destination, then they’re well on their way.”
“When the decrepit pipes under Thorndon Quay go bang in the near future, the roadworks are getting dug up yet again. The Post called this ‘utter madness’, but that doesn’t go far enough to explain this gross incompetence. If this is the best the Council can muster, it’s no wonder ratepayers’ bills are tripling.”
The Taxpayers’ Union agrees with the Labour Party’s assertion that the Ministry of Social Development’s recent decision to stop publishing weekly updates on benefit numbers "stinks of a cover-up”.
Commenting on the attempt to sweep critical details under the rug less than a month after a record 392,211 people were reported to be on a main benefit, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“Minister Louise Upston’s decision looks like a deliberate attempt to sweep critical details about the effectiveness of serious amounts of spending from the public eye.”
“The public were rightly sceptical of the reasons for the previous Government sweeping health details under the carpet. Once again, Ministers seem far too quick to put their political interests ahead of facing up to harsh realities.”
“The Government can’t just turn off the scoreboard once they don't like the score. It’s time for Minister Upston to come clean, reverse her decision, and return to weekly updates.”
As the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill’s second reading has been postponed this week, “the Government might finally be seeing sense”, said James Ross, the Taxpayers’ Union’s Policy and Public Affairs Manager.
“Carbon-copies of this bill have been tried overseas, and the results have been disastrous. Ask Canadians who can no longer access news through Facebook what they think of the Online News Act.”
“The only options it leaves for tech firms are to either pull out of New Zealand or be exposed to near-unlimited liabilities. Clearly someone in the Beehive has cottoned on to the fact these tech companies aren’t bluffing.”
“A pause is good, but this Bill needs to be scrapped. National knew before the election bailing out untrusted media firms wouldn’t work, now that needs to be put into practice.”
Responding to Todd Stephenson MP’s calls for an end to taxpayer funding of political parties, James Ross of the Taxpayers’ Union said:
“As we said to the Justice Committee back in August, not a single Kiwi should be forced to fund a political party they disagree with against their will.”
“Ending the Broadcast Allocation would go a long way to solving this, and put $4m-per-cycle back into taxpayers’ pockets. But that only solves half the problem.”
“We’ve all heard about party-related spending like conference travel going straight on MPs’ expenses accounts. And you only need to look at a few party-political ads before you’ll spot the ‘funded by the Parliamentary Service’ banner. The rort goes much deeper than just the Broadcast Allocation.”
“Taxpayer funding of political parties won’t actually end as long as the Parliamentary Service isn’t covered by the OIA. 18,397 Kiwis submitted to Parliament demanding we open the books on MPs’ expenses, and the calls for transparency aren’t going away.”
Following news yesterday in the NZ Herald on Wellington, the Taxpayers' Union can reveal through official correspondence that Christchurch City Council has also undercut Auckland's $1.3 million Christmas tree, $800k of which was funded by Auckland Council's targeted rates.
“For only four percent of the total cost, Christchurch has managed to undercut Auckland's spending, while ratepayers don't need to worry about losing their Christmas Bonus" said Local Government Campaigns Manager, Sam Warren.
“Purchased by Christchurch in 2023 for $43,990 and transported for $11,880 – the central city tree shows that bigger doesn’t always mean better. With an installation and take-down price of $8,000, the Super City is again being shown up.
"With Wellington spending around the same as Christchurch this year for three trees and decorations, Auckland needs to take a look at other councils' spending to understand value for money."
Commenting on former Tasman and Gisborne Council Chief Executive Lindsay McKenzie’s appointment as Crown Observer at Wellington City Council, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“Some experienced hands to knock heads together at Wellington City Council won’t go amiss, but real cultural change is needed.
“Officers pulling strings behind the scenes has seen accountability melt away. That’s the real lingering blight on Wellington’s governance.
“Weakening democracy further by installing Commissioners will only make the issues worse. For Wellington’s sake, a Crown Observer can’t be the first step on this slippery slope.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is commenting on the recent news that Pure Tūroa will have to restart its consultation process to operate the Mt Ruapehu ski field. This comes after receiving $27.35 million from taxpayers over two years.
“Our comments eight months ago that the Government was throwing good money after bad, after bad, are truer now than ever” said Communications Officer, Alex Emes.
“The fact taxpayers have been on the hook for more than $27 million dollars, only to have it spent on a non-operational ski field, is the equivalent of setting money on fire.”
“The Government needs to put a stake in the ground and promise taxpayers there will be no more handouts towards this boondoggle.”
The Taxpayers’ Union’s Open the Books campaign has been calling for backbench and opposition MPs’ expenses - as well as Party Leaders’ budgets - to be covered by the Official Information Act.
“Why should MPs not be held to the same standards as Ministers? If you’re spending taxpayers’ money, the public need to see the receipts” said James Ross, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at the Taxpayers’ Union.
“More than 18,400 New Zealanders submitted their views to Parliament through OpenTheBooks.nz within the space of 5 days. The sense of outrage can’t be ignored.”
“MPs can’t bury their heads in the sand anymore. Kiwis know the expenses grift is completely unaccountable, and they’re demanding answers.”
“This is just the start. New Zealand’s Parliament needs to get with the times by fronting up to the public on what’s being chucked on the expense accounts, and this fight isn’t going away.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is asking “where does the buck stop” following Revenue Minister Simon Watts’ comments that IRD took “appropriate action” over its leaking of more than a quarter of a million taxpayers’ data. Despite leading the Department, Watts’ has simply “expressed [his] disappointment” over the leaks.
Commenting on the Minister’s weak response, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“Minister Watts needs start to show up for the - at least - 268,000 Kiwis who are victims of IRD’s betrayal and incompetence.
“Does he not realise that he is the Minister in charge of the people who perpetrated this travesty? The people who have been affected need to see action, instead of the Minister’s ‘disappointment’.
“Heads need to roll, and the only acceptable answer is the Minister ensuring those responsible pack up their desks and look for a new job. It's time he remembered he was elected to represent the people of New Zealand, not just the IRD’s spin doctors.”
IRD’s data leak was far worse then feared with IRD’s admission that despite earlier public assurances that all taxpayer data provided to social media companies was “hashed”, officials had emailed an unencrypted spreadsheet of taxpayer data to Meta (owners of Facebook) containing sensitive taxpayer information of more than quarter of a million taxpayers.
“Only yesterday, IRD Commissioner Peter Mersi took a swipe at the Taxpayers’ Union and falsely accused us of ‘misrepresenting facts’. But just 12 hours later, we learn that in fact there as a mistake: IRD’s data leak was far worse than anyone had imagined.”
"Since we became aware of IRD using taxpayer information to run targeted social media campaigns, New Zealanders have been assured that it's all ok because the data was hashed. They mislead the public about the protection that process provides, but at least it was something they could fall back on."
"Now they've come clean that it was a ruse all along. Unencrypted data was being sent by email from the IRD's social media team. It is beyond belief. Email is inherently insecure."
“Somehow, IRD’s data-protection is so bad, social media staffers are able to access information from the tax administration system. That alone is a blatant breach of trust for New Zealanders who must entrust IRD with their data.”
“IRD are trying desperately to down play this. They claim there is 'no risk of serious harm' when in-fact any foreign actor or sophisticated cyber criminal can easily penetrate a unencrypted email."
"This is the most serious breach of taxpayer information in the English-speaking world. None of our sister taxpayer groups are aware of anything near this scale or seriousness.”
“Commissioner Mersi’s comments to the media yesterday, political attacks, and lack of straight answers suggests that he has either been misled by his staff or is deliberately obfuscating the seriousness of the issue. Either way, heads must role.”
The IRD had been leaking taxpayers’ data to overseas tech firms in what Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, described as “shameful, and frankly it beggars belief that it is legal.”
“Even now, IRD Commissioner Peter Mersi is still refusing to front up to the millions of Kiwis his department has put at risk."
“Rather than saying IRD is ending the leaks because it was wrong to leak data, he’s blamed the Taxpayers’ Union’s campaign for drowning Inland Revenue in complaints from concerned taxpayers. Well we’re proud that the 9,000 of our supporters who wrote to the IRD demanding answers can claim this win.”
“Commissioner Mersi needs to stop burying his head in the sand, and explain to Kiwis how his department are going to clean up the mess of the data they’ve already leaked.”
“At the absolute bare minimum, we know 268,000 taxpayers have had their data leaked without even the skin-deep ‘protection’ of hashing. Heads need to roll over this.”
The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that the Ministry for the Environment has spent $822,362 dollars during just fiscal year 2023 on “internal events”. Since 2018/19, the ministry has spent more than $2 million. Yearly costs for internal events have gone up more than 8x since 2018/19 when annual costs were only $98,045. More details regarding spending details are available through the Taxpayers’ Union Official Information Act request.
Commenting on the exuberant costs, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes said:
“While every business dedicates some money towards events, the fact the ministry has been jacking up their events budget during a time when Kiwis were told to stay home is another example of rules for thee but not for me.
“With the money they decided to fork out on events, they could have instead planted more than 2000 hectares of trees. At least that would have been an attempt to do their actual job of helping the environment rather than playing around in workshops, retreats and lavish events.
“The Ministry needs to come clean on what has led to this latest budget blowout scandal, and how they plan to reign in their bloated event bills. The Taxpayer tab needs to end at all departments, and that includes the Ministry for the Environment.”
For the first time, a Parliamentary Select Committee is blocking members of the public from emailing submissions on a Bill before Parliament to MPs.
Nearly 10,000 individual New Zealanders have used the submission tool at OpenTheBooks.nz to ask the Parliament Bill Committee to remove the secrecy provisions that protect MPs from transparency on how they spend taxpayers money on themselves and their offices.
Ministerial expenses are already subject to the Official Information Act, and the Taxpayers’ Union argues that the same should apply to opposition MPs, backbenchers, and Party Leader’s Budgets.
“Blocking Kiwis from contacting their MPs to demand transparency is nothing short of arrogant self entitlement” says Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union.
“We’ve in the past seen Select Committees try to treat thousands of emailed submissions as just one, or even try to ignore them entirely, but never have we had literally thousands of members of the public actually be blocked from contacting MPs.”
“Online submission builders are a common occurrence on both sides of the political divide all around the world. They make it easy for the public to ‘have their say’ and increase the accessibility of the political process.”
"For the avoidance of doubt, this isn't some petition or spam tool. Every submission sent is able to be edited, and is manually sent by a member of the public."
“We knew that many backbenchers and opposition MPs would be annoyed we are highlighting their precious secrecy and carve out of freedom of information law. But to actually go as far as to block New Zealanders from sending emails to MPs is disgraceful.”
Submissions on the Parliament Bill close this Wednesday night. Regardless of whether the email block is lifted, the Taxpayers’ Union will print all submissions made at www.OpenTheBooks.nz and deliver them to Parliament.
The Taxpayers’ Union is launching a major campaign for Kiwis to demand MPs’ expenses no longer enjoy a special carve out from the Official Information Act.
"Submissions on the Parliament Bill close this Wednesday and we are encouraging taxpayers to make their voice heard at OpenTheBooks.nz," says James Ross, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at the Taxpayers’ Union.
"This campaign is to force MPs to justify why their spending should be a state secret when almost every other area of public spending is subject to public scrutiny. Government Ministers' spending is already covered by freedom of information laws, and it's about time opposition and backbench MPs were brought into line with normal practise overseas."
“In the UK, the expenses scandal blew the lid on widespread fraud – one MP even used Parliament's secret slush fund to clean a moat. Without transparency, we have no idea if the same sort of thing happening in New Zealand because non-Ministerial expense accounts and opposition party spending is a black hole."
"As it stands, the Parliament Bill actually opens up what MPs can spend taxpayer money on. For example, MPs won't even need their party leader's permission to pay for trips overseas."
"We say, MPs can't expect even more leeway to spend taxpayer money on themselves without the public having full transparency over every dollar."
The Taxpayers’ Union is weighing in on DIA’s ‘fat trim’ of 17 senior staff that were bringing home an average salary of $152,000. This comes after the bloated department has added 477 more bureaucrats in just 5 years.
Commenting on the relatively small cuts, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes said:
“It’s nice to see that the DIA is starting to make cuts at the top by beginning with the crème de la crème of the bloated bureaucracy at DIA.
“While there may be cries from the DIA that they have been hard done by, the 17 bureaucrats that were canned were bringing home exuberant salaries. DIA has been taking taxpayers for a ride over the last number of years, so it is nice to see a turn in the right direction.
“However, more needs to be done to return the DIA bureaucrat bubble back to normality. The agency still has about 2700 FTE who continue to milk the pocketbook of taxpayers.”
Today’s Otago Daily Times reports that the government was advised of serious concerns about Waikato University’s ability to fund its contribution to the new medical school and with the assumptions used in the cost-benefit analysis that had been prepared. This advice, from the Tertiary Education Commission and the Ministry of Education, came two months before the government decided to progress the project to a detailed business case.
Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, stated that “it is concerning that the government may be progressing a substantial investment without a cost-benefit analysis based on sound assumptions and fully considered viable alternatives such as expanding the capacity of the two existing medical schools.”
“We share the reported concerns of Green MP Francisco Hernandez that the government may be cherry-picking evidence to predetermine the outcome it wants rather than being informed through an evidence-based process. There is no substitute for a robust cost-benefit analysis, and it appears this may not have been done.”
“It is our view that the government should pause the development of the detailed business case until it has completed a much more thorough cost-benefit analysis. The business case should only proceed if the Waikato option is realistically expected to be superior to expanding either or both of the existing medical schools. Anything less risks wasting taxpayers’ dollars.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on Health NZ to “control their catering cravings”. This is the second spending scandal involving conference catering in just over a week for Health NZ.
Commenting on the colossal $95,584 catering costs, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes said:
“Once might be considered a mistake. But to have multiple of these meet and greets within one year is a belligerent effort to take advantage of taxpayers.
“The fact that the conference was exclusive to 400 Health NZ finance staff is truly ironic. How many Health NZ finance staff does it take to control a conference budget?
“Given that Health NZ’s books are in the bin, we are calling - once again - for Health NZ’s taxpayer tab to end.”
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through the Local Government Official Information and Meeting Act New Plymouth District Council has allocated $1,280,841 towards ramps and stairs for Fitzroy beach. This follows September’s news that Auckland Council spent $263,000 on four sets of stairs at Milford Beach.
"Accessibility, especially for the disabled, was obviously an important factor in the ‘Beach Street Access for all’ project by New Plymouth District Council” said Local Government Campaigns Manager, Sam Warren.
“However, with virtually all beaches in New Plymouth being connected by the coastal walkway and fully accessible from other points – was this massive price tag to fix some stairs and build a ramp truly justified in such challenging economic times?”
“Like all councils projects, the job is sure to blow out in costs, and $1.2 million already seems to be a large estimate for a relatively small project. Ratepayers would be within their rights to demand a breakdown of costs in projects like this. Perhaps they will discover the ramp is gold plated!”
“With local rates already raised by 11.5 percent, the Council must justify not only each project but every dollar allocated within it.”
The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through the Local Government Official Information and Meeting Act that Otago Regional Council has spent more than $200,000 redeveloping its website, which has virtually been unchanged since 2017. While Council branding remains mostly unaffected, the redevelopment apparently has more features, and enhanced relationships with Mana Whenua.
“Otago seems to have outperformed most of its northern counterparts by spending $221,764.12 without shelling out another bundle on changing its logo or corporate identity" said Local Government Campaigns Manager for the Taxpayers' Union, Sam Warren.
“Interestingly, the project contained $15,176.90 worth of local Māori engagement, which includes translation services and the integration of ‘Whakataukī’ – or Māori proverbs. Comparatively, the website testing phase cost Otago ratepayers a more modest $553.06"
"A few more features are well and good, but after looking at an indexed version of the council’s website from 2017, we aren’t actually convinced this project was much more than a vanity project footed by ratepayers.”
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is calling out Wellington City Council for the recent reports that they plan to blow $30 million on a new waterfront fence.
Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“If the council can't build a fence at a reasonable cost, how does that fare for actually difficult projects like pipe renovation? A $7 Million budget is more than enough for some safety measures."
“Wellington’s waterfront is one of the hallmarks of the city, surely there were alternatives to ensure citizens safety instead of setting back Wellingtonian households $370 each to fence off the harbour from citizens.”
“Ratepayers across the city are facing tripling rates over ten years, and people are already having to sell the family home to make ends meet. This Council's fencing failure needs to stop.”
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through an official information act request that Sports NZ's "Say Thanks to Your Coach" campaign cost $171,598, with Sports NZ contributing $131,598 and Coach for Life contributing a further $40,000. The campaign featured a website for a month, which was used to send e-cards and video messages.
Sports NZ’s ability to somehow spend more than $575 per thank-you email takes the gold for government waste. For the $171,598 cost, Sports NZ could’ve bought 8,580 rugby balls. Instead, they sent a few pixels.
While the Taxpayers’ Union genuinely applauds the work of New Zealand’s volunteer coaches, surely someone at Sports NZ could dream up a more cost-effective way to thank them? For starters, they could’ve bought the 298 coaches fourteen crates of Speights each and still had change to spare.
Sports NZ need pulling into line, because clearly someone at the agency doesn’t care about delivering value for money. The only question that matters now is how will they be held accountable?
The Taxpayers’ Union is warning the government to “proceed with caution” after Nicola Willis’ comments about performance pay for public service executives.
Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“While it would be a nice change to see bureaucrats paid just like the rest of us by pegging their pay to whatever value they provide, leaving the government to implement such an idea could go terribly wrong.”
“If the programme is drawn up to only top up and throw away more taxpayer dollars at the already bloated pockets of public sector chief execs, this decision would only increase the bureaucrat pay gap already crippling New Zealand.”
“While offering market-like incentives to start delivering value for the taxpayers’ money might improve outcomes, we also need to make sure underperforming bureaucrats’ salaries aren’t safe from being slashed.”
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on the New Zealand Transport Agency to “work on their negotiation skills” after documents were obtained from an Official Information Act request showing they spent $270,000 on design costs and $390,000 on installation for a 14 metre tall art sculpture outside a rest stop near Tekapo. The documents also show that more than $50,000 was spent on a piece of cultural panelling down the road in Burkes Pass.
Commenting, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“The first sentence on the NZTA’s website states ‘our primary function is to promote an affordable land transport system’. Whichever bureaucrat approved this expensive piece of artwork needs to be reminded that this object is neither affordable, nor a land transport system.”
“Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, but no one is stopping their car mid-journey just to see a 14m tall metal eyesore when the stunning Mackenzie Basin is in the backdrop. And the mountains didn’t cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands to commission.”
“The Transport Agency can’t tell the public how much they’re wasting on questionable art across the country, because even they have no way of keeping track of the massive sums. Maybe if these bureaucrats focussed less on decorations and more on roads, our highways wouldn’t feel quite so much like the surface of the moon.”