Taxpayer Update: NEW POLL: Nats and Labour slide 📊 | Chris Penk, shatters costs 🦸 | CEOs back fiscal watchdog ✅

BREAKING: Former Reserve Bank Governor under gag clause as part of $416,000 golden handshake

Before we get into the newsletter proper, we've just had land on our desk a copy of the agreement signed between former Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr and the Reserve Bank.

On Monday we learned Orr has been paid a $416,120 'golden goodbye' on top of his $766,180 salary as part of what the Bank and Minister of Finance described as a "restraint of trade".

But taxpayers (and the media) smelled a rat. When have you ever heard of a restraint of trade applying to a civil servant? As we said at time time:

"Heads should roll over this – it's a $416,120 reward for failure," 

"Just what were they worried about? Orr is so disgraced that the only Reserve Bank he could take over is in the third world. Heck, we should have been paying others to take him away!"

"Similarly, the idea a commercial bank would touch Orr is ridiculous. It was the commercial banks quietly telling people about Orr's outrageous behaviour in yelling at executives."

"I have never heard of a 'restraint of trade' in the public service. It's a golden parachute."

The idea the payment was about keeping confidences was also ridiculous: all Reserve Bank staff are already covered by a comprehensive non-disclosure agreement applicable to commercially sensitive information.

An hour ago, thanks to our friends at Newsroom.co.nz, we have a copy of the full agreement, and our suspicions were proved correct.

It isn't a 'restraint of trade' at all. It's a gag agreement!

And it isn't about prohibiting Orr from disclosing secrets, it's literally about prohibiting Orr from criticising the Reserve Bank, the Government, and even the Minister of Finance!

You can read the document for yourself here. 

Here is the statement I've just issued to the media. It speaks for itself:

MEDIA RELEASE

The Taxpayers’ Union is slamming the news that disgraced former Reserve Bank Governor, Adrian Orr, is subject to a gagging clause applicable to not just the Bank, but the Government and Minister of Finance. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman, Jordan Williams, said:

“The document obtained by Newsroom and shared with the Taxpayers' Union demonstrates how false the claims about the $416,000 so-called ‘restraint of trade’ really are. This is a classic gag agreement - designed to protect the reputations of the elite and shun public scrutiny.”

“Taxpayers’ money should be not be used to buy the silence of a disgraced former public servant. Nor should someone who, apparently, resigned be given a ‘golden goodbye’ for agreeing to keep their mouth shut.”

“Unless the Reserve Bank - and the Minister - waive the requirements on Mr Orr not to speak, it makes a mockery of public assurances of transparency.”

The Reserve Bank is one of New Zealand's most important public institutions. It's snubs to transparency, accountability, and focusing on keeping inflation low have cost New Zealand dearly.

---

 

Happy Wednesday! A bumper update today: this month's Taxpayers'-Union Curia Poll is bad news for the two big parties, we celebrate a major rates capping milestone, and expose the bureaucrats who spent 400,000 air miles fighting climate change in Azerbaijan. Let’s get into it.

NEW POLL: Major parties take hit in latest poll 📊🫨

The two Christophers won't be liking latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll with both National and Labour taking a hit.

Labour are down 2.6 points to 31.2 percent, while National are down 3.5 points to 29.6 percent. The Greens are up 1.3 points to 12.0 percent, while NZ First are up 2.5 points to 10.6 percent. ACT are down 0.1 points to 6.6 percent, while Te Pāti Māori are up 0.1 points to 4.4 percent.

On these results, Labour would have 40 seats in Parliament (down two from last month), National 38 (down four), the Greens 15 (up two), NZ First 13 (up three), ACT eight (no change), and Te Pāti Māori six seats (no change).

👉 On these numbers, the Centre-Left bloc could form a Government.

The combined projected seats for the Centre-Left remains on 61 seats, while the combined seats for the Centre-Right drops one to 59.

CAP RATES NOW? Luxon inserts council rates cap in Q4 Government Action Plan 🎉💪

Yesterday Christopher Luxon released the Government's Q4 "Action Plan" and there's some great news contained.

Just four months after we launched our "Cap Rates Now!" campaign at Fieldays, rates capping is now on the Government's official Ministerial action plan for this quarter. That’s a huge win for taxpayers and ratepayers (and supporter of your humble Taxpayers' Union)!

For too long, councils have been hiking rates faster than families can keep up – on average, rates are up 34% in just three years – while blowing budgets and wasting money on vanity projects. Now, thanks to your support, the message is cutting through: ratepayers deserve protection from runaway spending.

This victory is thanks to every one of the 30,000+ Kiwis who signed our petition, joined us for the protest outside the LGNZ conference, and have demanded action. You made sure the Government had to listen.

But let's not count our chickens before they hatch. The fight isn’t over yet. Talk is progress, but legislation is the finish line. And we know that the powerful interests at Local Government New Zealand are spending up large to try and derail the Government on this.

But this is progress...

You can read the Government's full Q4 Action Plan over on the Beehive website.

Taxpayer Hero: Chris Penk cuts $8.2 billion of red tape 🦸‍♂️💰

Here’s something else worth celebrating: Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk has just earned himself Taxpayer Hero status.

Penk's overhaul of the earthquake-prone building rules will save New Zealanders more than $8.2 billion, finally putting an end to years of wasteful red tape that forced safe buildings to close for no good reason.

To put that number in perspective, $8.2 billion amounts to more than $4,000 for every Kiwi household! And even that is likely to be a gross underestimate.

Short of replacing the Resource Management Act (New Zealand's most expensive 'regulatory tax') Penk's announcement is likely to be this Government's largest piece of 'tax relief'!

The old rules – introduced under the John Key Government following the Christchurch quakes – were a gross overreaction.

Back in 2014, we highlighted the excellent work of Economist Ian Harrison of Tailrisk Economics. His report Error Prone: A Study in Failure analysed the cost-benefit of New Zealand’s earthquake hazard building regulations, particularly highlighting the situation in Auckland.

The conclusions were eye watering.

"Compliance with the minimum standard could cost over three billion dollars in Auckland, but is expected to take 4,000 years [to] save a single life"

The Tailrisk report found that compliance with the minimum national earthquake-prone standards in Auckland could cost (in 2014 dollars) more than $3 billion. Other analyses put the national cost as high as $10 billion – that's c.$18,000 per Auckland household!

But this was the kicker. For all that work, using the Government's own data, it was expected to save only one life every 4,000 years in the city.

That's right, {{recipient.first_name}} - thousands of dollars per household to save one life, every 4,000 years...

This figure comes from the cost of strengthening thousands of buildings in a low-risk seismic area – where the probability of a fatal earthquake is extremely low – leading to a negligible direct life-saving benefit compared to the massive financial outlay and impact on heritage buildings.

The old rules treated every old brick wall like a ticking time bomb, killing the economics of small and rural townships (and ratepayers!) while delivering little real safety gain.

Penk’s reform brings risk-based, common-sense regulation back to the system: targeting only buildings that genuinely pose a threat to life, while freeing up safe ones to reopen.

You can read the details of the changes here.

When a minister rolls back wasteful bureaucracy and protects both lives and livelihoods, they deserve recognition. Chris Penk: our Taxpayer Hero this week. 👏

Bureaucrats burn $226k on junket flights to fight climate ✈️👔

Our Investigations Coordinator Rhys has revealed that 13 of New Zealand's climate diplomats have racked up a stunning $226,000 bill to attend COP29, last year’s United Nations climate change get together in Baku.

That total included a whopping $18,000 on business class flights for the ‘Climate Change Ambassador’. Incredible hypocrisy work, when a business class flight can emit up three to nine times the emissions of a regular seat.

And yes, we all want our representatives well-rested when they’re negotiating on our behalf… except the ambassador wasn’t doing that, because we also sent a ‘Chief Negotiator, UN Climate Change’ – who racked up a further $14,000 travel bill.

The irony of this supposedly ‘green’ conference requiring 400,000 air miles when it could have taken place online is hard to miss.

This news came as bureaucrats build up to next month’s COP30 in Brazil. Rhys is already preparing the Official Information Act requests…

Business CEOs back a fiscal watchdog – and so do we 🔎💰

It’s not often we call for more government, but here's an exception.

Buried in last month’s Mood of the Boardroom survey was a striking result: 61 percent of New Zealand’s top executives want an independent budget watchdog to keep Government - no matter their political stripes - honest about the long term sustainability of the books.

In theory, Treasury should already be doing that job. But with a bloated bureaucratic blob and a Finance Minister who had to invent a whole new accounting fudge to claim a “surplus” it’s clear the current system isn’t working.

An independent Officer of Parliament, modelled on the Auditor-General or Ombudsman, could give taxpayers a watchdog that bites, providing brutal honesty, not political spin.

It’s rare for the Taxpayers’ Union to cheer on the creation of a new agency, but this one’s overdue.

Parents should not be punished for working harder 💼👫

This week, the Government announced that parents earning more than $65,000 will be responsible for supporting school leavers. We’re totally backing the Government on this – but we can’t help but notice how the policy risks punishing the very families who work hardest.

Breaking the benefit trap is a good thing. Too many young people who go straight from school onto a benefit end up stuck there for years, and helping them into work or training is good for taxpayers and good for them.

But the way this policy is designed makes no sense. Setting a hard income cutoff at $65,000 creates a new welfare trap, where earning just a little more can leave families worse off.

We love to see reforms that help young people get into the workforce and contribute to society. Common sense welfare reform shouldn’t punish parents for doing the right thing.

We’ve written to Social Development Minister Louise Upston asking to meet and push for a fairer, tapered system that supports struggling families without penalising ambition. You can read our open letter here. We’ll keep you updated on our progress.

Taxpayers' Union campus group, Generation Screwed, wins big at Vic Uni Awards Night 🎓👏

It’s been a huge year for Generation Screwed – our on-campus taxpayer advocates. And they’ve just capped it off with some well-deserved recognition from Victoria University.

At last week’s Vic Uni Club Awards, Generation Screwed Wellington was nominated in three categories and took home 1st Runner Up for Supreme Small Club. To top it off, Austin, the club’s inaugural President (and one of our favourite interns), received an Outstanding Contribution Award for his work growing the club on campus.

From a sold out activist training retreat in May, to running local election debates that made national headlines, the students have done incredible work promoting accountability and fiscal responsibility across campuses.

It’s not always easy being a pro-fiscal responsibility voice on campus, but this crew has proven that good ideas and hard work pay off. After a well-earned summer break, we can’t wait to see what they achieve next.

I said it was a bumper newsletter! Enjoy the rest of your week.

Tory Relf Head of Comms New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

Ps. This week’s wins prove what people power can do, from pushing rate caps into the Government’s plan to ministers finally cutting wasteful earthquake overregulation. But the fight’s far from over. Every investigation, campaign, and poll is funded by supporters like you. Your donation keeps us effective - so thank you.