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We’re currently working though the budget announcements and stack of material released last week. What’s caught our eye are the unbelievable amounts taxpayers are forking out for KiwiRail. On Budget day the Government announced a further $198 million of funding for KiwiRail’s Turnaround Plan. That brings the total cost to taxpayers of rail to a whopping $12.2 billion dollars since rail was renationalised in 2008.
Worse, Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee has warned that KiwiRail is likely to need more what the Government is calling a 'turn around plan'.
The $12.2 billion taxpayer money written off on KiwiRail is equivalent to over $2,700 per taxpayer - nearly enough buy every Kiwi a return flight to London.
Per household, the amount is $6,900 - enough to buy a good, reliable second hand car.
The $12.2 billion refers to the total Crown investment of $2.4 billion since 2008 and write downs totalling $9.8 billion.
We've put out a statement calling on the Government to do a U-turn on KiwiRail. At what point will the Government stop throwing good money after bad? Taxpayers should not be burdened with bringing dead rats to life.
It is incredible that for all this money, we still have locomotives with asbestos and ferries that are lemons. We think taxpayers deserve better.
We’ve spent most of this week immersed in the budget documents and making notes of potentially questionable spending or unusually large increases.
To our great surprise yesterday we noticed that one of the primary growth partnerships (PGPs) that the Government is funding appeared to have undergone a massive growth in spending. We’ve expressed much concern in the past about PGPs and consider them inappropriate corporate welfare and the Government picking favourites.
For comparison, $2.4 billion is roughly the same amount of appropriations for corrections, courts and customs combined!
We've previously made noise that the hundreds of millions committed to PGP funding is wasteful spending.. So you can imagine our shock when we saw that the Sheep Industry would be receiving close to $2.4 billion of hard earned taxpayer money.
We emailed the Minister of Finance’s office and have been told, to our relief, that the figure is mistakenly 1,000 times more than intended.
We are delighted that the Sheep Industry haven’t had a bank error in their favour of over $500 from every New Zealander. Like anyone else they might want all their Christmases to come at once, but thankfully the New Zealand Merino Company, who runs the programme, won’t get to run off into the sunset with designer sheep bedecked in glittering jewels.
The mistake reminds us of the Westpac couple who went on the run after $10 million was mistakenly deposited in their bank account. Luckily this one is more easily rectified as the money is not yet spent!
Vote Primary Industries by TaxpayersUnion
***Correction*** In much the same way Treasury made a mistake, an earlier version of this post referred to 2.4billion equalling roughly the same as the total amount spent on Education in Budget 2014. That was incorrect. The $2.4 billion only relates to output expenses in Vote Education.
Yesterday we were scathing of Mr English's lack of tax cuts in yesterday's budget.
Nevertheless, we were eager to qualify for the only tax cut that was it - the removal of cheque duty - worth about $1 a year per New Zealander.
To avoid missing out on the tax cut, earlier today we delivered a cheque to The Treasury to cover the lunch provided at yesterday’s budget lock-up.
Rather than pay for our taxpayer funded lunch with cash, we dusted off our cheque book to make the payment. As only the minority of New Zealanders who still use cheques will qualify for the tax relief, we wanted to make sure we are among them.
Yesterday’s budget forecasts that over the next four years, total surpluses will equal $4,935 per household. Of that, Kiwi taxpayers get back $1 from the only tax cut contained in yesterday's budget.
We’re calling on the Government to lay out a clear and meaningful program of reducing tax and compliance costs.
The Taxpayers’ Union fights for lower taxes and value for money from every tax dollar. New Zealanders are welcome to donate their tax cut by clicking here (or of course sending a cheque!).
Radio LIVE spoke to Jordan Williams and David Farrar of the Taxpayers' Union for their analysis of Budget 2014.
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