Pinot Nah: Taxpayer handouts for wine industry must stop

The Taxpayers’ Union is slamming the Government for celebrating the opening of a taxpayer-funded experimental vineyard saying they should be pruning back corporate welfare, not championing it.

Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said:

“The Government is loading the risk of this experiment onto taxpayers while allowing private businesses to reap any benefits. If winemakers and viticulturists aren’t willing to stump up their own money to fund this experiment, why should taxpayers?

“Corporate welfare like this sends a message to the private sector not to bother funding their own research and innovation, taxpayers will fund it for them.

“This will create a lot of sour grapes from other industries who are successful in their own right without government handouts. Corporate welfare to special interest groups only invites more lobbying and develops a culture of handouts for wealthy commercial interests that should have been left in the 1980s.

“The Taxpayers’ Union is hearing through the grapevine that government ministers are divided over the issue of corporate welfare. Those in favour must come forward and explain how New Zealanders are better off by taking money from productive businesses and hand it to those who can’t stand on their own two feet.”