Responding to Labour’s announcement of millions more in taxpayer funding for AI adoption and start-ups, Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Austin Ellingham-Banks said:

“Labour has slapped ‘AI’ on an old-fashioned corporate welfare scheme for American Big Tech and called it innovation."

“Businesses already have every incentive to invest in AI if it saves them time, cuts costs, or wins customers. If an investment stacks up, businesses will make it themselves."

"If Labour really wants small businesses to invest and grow, it should abandon its plan to scrap Investment Boost, which would kneecap productive investment."

The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposal announced today by ACT’s David Seymour to cull the number of Ministers along with the number of government departments, would almost certainly increase political accountability to taxpayers.

Responding to David Seymour’s speech in Auckland, Taxpayers' Union spokesman, Jordan Williams, said:

“Fewer Ministers mean more accountability. The spaghetti junction of government departments and agencies has led to confusion, obfuscation, and waste.”

“Having one Minister each responsible for their own ministry - as ACT’s policy proposes - would make a lot of sense to most Kiwis.”

“Democracy is broken when the average voter can't work out who is in charge of what. Whether your preference is smaller government, bigger government, or in between, most would agree New Zealand needs smarter and more accountable government. Fewer Ministers in-charge of fewer ministries makes that more likely.”

The Taxpayers' Union is welcoming today's announcement - in particular - getting regulatory taxes out of the way of both solar and micro hydro.

Taxpayers' Union Spokesman, Jordan Williams, said:

"We've long argued against green energy subsidies and in favour of clearing the path of regulatory impediments to solar."

"On a per capita basis, New Zealand's domestic solar penetration is the lowest of the OECD club of countries.  It says a lot that even many sector participants have been telling the Government and local councils to get out of the way, rather than market distorting corporate welfare."

The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on the Green Party to front up on whether its tech tax proposals are a breach of New Zealand’s treaty on double-taxation with the US.

Taxpayers’ Union spokesman James Ross said:

“Earlier this month, Chlöe Swarbrick said New Zealand needs to be responsible and uphold its international treaties or our trading relationships will be at risk. That was about the Paris Agreement, but does it only apply to treaties her party likes?”

“Despite the Greens’ claims, their ‘tech tax’ isn’t just better enforcement. Inland Revenue already has all the powers it needs to crack down on tech firms avoiding tax, IRD's expert analysts haven't just blanket reclassified offshore sales and service fees as royalties for a reason.”

“The Greens’ proposals can work one of two ways. Either IRD can review each tech firm’s business arrangements individually, as they do now. Only those which are actually dodging tax will see any tax changes, and the policy will be a damp squib with marginal revenue.”

“Or the Greens could legislate to rewrite how tech companies are taxed. Unilaterally deciding to tax sales booked offshore as if they were royalties - like the Greens are planning for Netflix and credit card companies - would likely breach our double tax agreement with the US.”

“The US is our second-largest market, with 12 percent of New Zealand’s domestic goods exports heading to America last year. If Swarbrick wants to try to sneak a digital services tax through the backdoor and start a trade war, the least she could do is let Kiwis know.”

Labour has today promised to fund maternity scans through its capital gains tax, but the Taxpayers’ Union says the money has already been swallowed by other spending promises. Once again, Labour’s numbers do not add up.

Taxpayers’ Union spokesman James Ross said:

“Using recent housing market data, Labour’s CGT would raise just 38.6 percent of what Labour claims by 2029/30. The tax revenue wouldn’t even cover the cost of Labour’s three taxpayer-funded GP visits, let alone any new spending commitments.”

“Labour’s CGT revenue is already spent, and there’s no money left in that pot. Where is Labour expecting to find another $28.6 million a year?”

“There are only three ways Labour’s capital gains tax can raise enough to cover its promises: rampant inflation, spiralling house prices, or expanding the tax onto main homes, shares, or KiwiSaver. Labour needs to front up to New Zealanders about which one it is planning.”

The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on Labour to release the figures behind its claim that capping public transport fares across the country will cost the Crown just $65 million a year, after new analysis shows the true cost to the taxpayer could be three times as much.

Using publicly available 2024/25 data from New Zealand’s three largest public transport-using regions, the Taxpayers’ Union estimates the annual cost to be:

• Auckland: $118,061,733 to $141,051,370
• Wellington: $23,249,363 to $38,094,684
• Canterbury: $394,877 to $3,383,523

That puts the cost for just these three regions at $141,705,972 to $182,529,576 a year, potentially up to nearly three times higher than Labour claims for the entire country.

Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union spokesman James Ross said:

“These figures show Auckland, Wellington, and Canterbury alone could cost between 2.5 and 3 times what Labour claims the policy would cost nationwide. Something’s not adding up, and the public has a right to know why."

“Labour has had six months since its last announcement to crunch the numbers, yet it still can’t tell the public basic details like how many people would benefit. If we can pull together rough costings in 24 hours, Labour’s taxpayer-funded researchers can release their data today."

“Of Labour’s three policy announcements so far, none has been up-front with taxpayers. A Future Fund with no costings at all, a capital gains tax that would barely raise 38 percent of what Labour claims, and now fare cap numbers that look like they have been plucked out of thin air."

“Hipkins recently said voters don’t really care about the details. Even if that were true, hopefully Labour’s researchers do. If they want to regain credibility, Labour need to release the numbers."

ENDS


NOTES TO EDITORS:

Mean weekly spend per user was calculated by dividing farebox revenue by the number of boardings.

The proportion of the regional population which use public transport was taken from the HTS Transport Survey for 2024/25. The regional number of public transport users could then be calculated.

Three log-normal distributions (with low, medium, and high variance) were calculated for each region. A log-normal distribution was chosen as this reflects the pattern of public transport use, with large numbers of occassional users and a smaller number of high-frequency users above the $20 cap. This allowed us to calculate three variables:

• The share of users who spend more than the $20 weekly cap in each region.
• The number of public transport users in each region who would benefit
• The average weekly saving of someone who spends more than the cap currently in each region.

By multiplying the number of people who benefit by the average weekly savings, we could calculate the weekly and annual cost to the Crown of a central government-funded fare cap in Auckland, Wellington, and Canterbury.

These figures do not account for Waiheke ferries or Wairarapa-to-Wellington buses, both of which Labour have said will be excluded from the cap. Given the difference between Labour’s claims and our costings, however, the effect of these will be marginal.