Hi,

Look, I'll be first to admit the Taxpayers' Union can be a little critical of the current Government, but in today's Taxpayer Update, it's nothing but kudos for Nicola Willis, Winston Peters, and Christopher Bishop. 🥰

This month's Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll is out, an update on the ratbagu-turning regional councillors in the Waikato, and the biggest change to Palmerston North's Alcohol ("Councillor lounge") Rules in a generation...

Oh, and local council amalgamation – we ask the question: Is bigger necessarily better? 🤔

Fiscal Reality bites: Luxon gets serious about upping the retirement age 👵🏼

Regular readers will know that thanks to the aging population, the second fastest area of government spending is NZ Superannuation (the fastest growing spend is [checks notes] interest on government debt). This path we are on is not sustainable, the fiscal reckoning is coming – the more we delay, the harder the hangover.

So Christopher Luxon's grasping of the fiscal mettle and announcement that the National Party will go into this year's election on a policy of raising the Superannuation age is refreshing.

NZ Super: some facts 🆘

Universal Superannuation currently costs about five percent of the total economy – more than the cost of education, justice, and defence combined – and is projected to hit eight percent by 2065.

But the real story is illustrated by the dependency ratio: in the 1980s, there were seven workers to every Super recipient. It's 4:1 now – and forecast to be just 2:1 by 2060.

Even Labour acknowledge that's not a sustainable trend and is mooting the idea of means testing*. 

Make no mistake, no credible economic analysis sees the superannuation settings staying the same if the Government is to remain solvent. It's a question of when to make changes, not if.

But until now, both Labour and National have been pretty half hearted in leading the discussion while in Government (both have been far more willing to have the honest conversation with voters while in Opposition)

But, thanks to Christopher Luxon, the National Party is acknowledging the elephant in the room.

Even small changes make a big difference: A raise in the recipient age, from 65 to 68 (in line with the UK) and the pinning of increases to inflation only (rather than the average wage) would make a hugedifference, keeping Super costs to roughly the current percent of GDP.

The earlier we settle this debate, the better those who are not yet of retirement age have certainty and can plan. We say well done to Mr Luxon.

* A quick note on means testing: Reasonable minds can differ, and while an option to lower the cost, it's not one we favour. One of the economic advantages New Zealand has is a very high workforce participation rate for our over 65s. Means testing would likely see that fall away, as well as creating an incentive for people not to save for retirement, which is what we need to encourage.

Fees Free-free Budget? Costly Ardern policy on scrapheap 🗑️

And in a sign that the Luxon Government is getting serious about cutting back on unaffordable hangovers from the Ardern-era – Winston Peters has u-turned on one of the signature Policies of his Ardern-led Government when he let slip on Friday that the Fees Free programme faces the chop in this month's Budget.

Better late than never.

Your humble Taxpayers’ Union was warning about this policy from day one. Literally. We published  Robin Hood Reversed back in August 2017, just hours after Ardern launched her policy (and just a few months before NZ First put Labour into office).

In the Briefing Paper, we made the simple point: Fees Free was never going to be a serious solution to educational disadvantage and we pointed out that the same policy in Scotland had resulted in fewertertiary students and more inequality in who was accessing universities.

And, well, we told you so!

The Government's own boffins now admit that Labour's 'Fees Free' policy had “no impact on [...] learner participation and access"; "no noticeable effect on general participation in tertiary study"; and even concluded that "learner behaviour is not generally influenced by tuition fees”.

Coming from the university sector's own bureaucracy, it's damning.

Fees Free is an expensive middle-class handout, paid for by blue collar and low-income taxpayers. Taxpayers are already subsidising more than 80 percent of the costs of a tertiary education. By definition, those at varsity are likely to be the high income earners of tomorrow. 

Our on-campus group, Generation Screwed, put it well in their comments to media:

"Support should be targeted toward students who genuinely need it most, rather than expensive universal programmes that leave future taxpayers footing the bill. Young New Zealanders deserve a future they can actually afford, not empty promises that that stick them with costly debt later down the road.”

“While ‘free’ policies sound appealing, young people ultimately end up paying through debt, higher taxes, or weaker economic opportunities,”

The best thing a government can do for future generations is to have no debt. If money saved from scrapping Fees Free sees the deficit reduced, our kids and grandkids are better off.

NEW POLL: Centre-right remain ahead, Luxon returns to preferred PM top-spot 🔵🥇

There’s good news for Mr Luxon in this month’s Taxpayers’ Union-Curiapoll, which sees the current Coalition Government still ahead (although down a little) to 62 seats. The combined seats for the 'Opposition Parties' bloc is up 3 to 58 seats.

Compared to last month, National are up 0.2 points to 30.0 percent, while Labour are down 1.5 points to 31.9 percent. New Zealand First drop 1.9 points to 11.7 percent, while the Greens gain 1.9 points to 9.7 percent. 

ACT drops 2.5 points to 6.5 percent, while Te Pāti Māori gains 1.5 points to 4.1%.

In the Preferred Prime Minister ranking, Luxon gains 1.0 point to 21.5 percent. Hipkins drops 2.7 points to 19.0 percent. Peters drops 0.5 points to 11.6 percent, Swarbrick drops 2.0 points to 5.4 percent, and Seymour drops 0.7 points to 3.9%.

For more information, head over to our website.

Have taxpayers been taken for a ride already on Auckland's CBD Rail Link? 🚇

A lot of taxpayer victories come after hard-fought campaigns, long stretches of public pressure or social media shenanigans. This one was surprisingly quick.

Last week, former boss of the Auckland Rail Link, Sean Sweeney, hit the headlines for declaring the project could have been “half the cost” - and at an estimated $2,663.83 per household, that’s not small change.

Remember, this was the project that was originally a CBD Rail Loop, then just a two-way Link – and now we're told we paid twice what we should have.

Someone needs to ask: "WTF?"

This is why we can't have nice things! 😭 😭 😭

Contrary to the cries of local government about needing more of your money, according to the OECD data, New Zealand actually spends more than most developed countries on infrastructure. We're in the top ten percent of spenders, but the lowest ten percent for 'value for money'!

The issue isn't that we're spending too little, it's that we're not getting bang for buck.

So when we saw this example, James set into motion and immediately – writing to Transport Minister Chris Bishop and publicly demanding a Ministerial inquiry to understand not just whether but why our largest infrastructure project has been so poorly delivered.

If we are to fix the problem, we first have to understand it.

As James put it:

If Dr Sweeney’s claims are accurate, taxpayers deserve clear answers as to why this project cost them
twice what it needed to. With Treasury estimating an infrastructure deficit of $210 billion, there is no
chance of closing the gap without far better cost control.

He called on the Minister to commission a Ministerial Inquiry, and suggested terms of reference.

Well, it's good to know there is at least one Taxpayer Hero in the Beehive because blow me down, with a few hours, James managed to get Minister Bishop to answer the call!

Nice one Bish.

Local government amalgamation is coming... careful what you wish for?

One place Minister Bishop – and Local Government Minister Simon Watts – may have fallen short this week is their apparent faith that 'bigger is better' when it comes to local government.

All the signals point to amalgamation coming for local councils (and not just regional councils), whether communities like it or not...

In the words of Minister Bishop, councils must centralise or “[they] will do it for you.” 

Look, we're hardly cheerleaders for the muppets who run too many of New Zealand's town halls (we leave that to others), but when it comes to amalgamations, the data is far from clear-cut.

Just ask Aucklanders whether the so-called "Super City" has been that grand? The promised savings never eventuated, the post-implementation review still hasn't happened, and good luck getting hold of anyone other than a 'customer service' (ironic) rep on the telephone.

And as shown by our Ratepayers Report league tables last week, some of New Zealand's most efficient councils are actually the smaller ones.

And at least at the smaller councils, you can actually know who is responsible for what, rather than fight with a bureaucracy just to get a hold of someone on the phone. 

Over the weekend, Rhys had a thoughtful piece published by The Post, which is well worth a read (either here on The Post if you have a subscription, or on our website here).

So is amalgamation the value-for-money panacea? Well, the evidence is lacking. As Rhys summarised: 

The Infrastructure Commission (in 2022) examined whether larger councils deliver key services more cheaply [...] it found council size means nothing when it comes to cost efficiency. Performance was basically the same on average.

TDB Advisory’s reports make these same points. Wellington super-city analysis found a case for sharing some costly services, like roading and water. For the other local government functions, sitting at around two-thirds of expenditure, there was little or no evidence of economies of scale.

Their overall conclusion was blunt: “bigger is not necessarily better”.

Better than amalgamation would be tackling the root causes of out-of-control local government: removing the power of general competence would be a start. That would mean going back to the law as it stood before 2002 when councils were only permitted to undertake activities they were charged with (i.e. to focus on the basics) rather than determine for themselves what activities they involve themselves in.

Or perhaps, Watts could bring his rates cap now to bring council spending under control, rather than waiting until the end of the decade (and letting councils hike in the meantime).

And reforms to improve the quality of governance, oversight, and transparency (more to come on that in the coming days)...

Instead, bigger councils – with their bigger bureaucracies and oversized budgets – are like using a wrecking ball to hit a nail when there’s a perfectly good hammer in the toolbox.

Win for transparency: MBIE share more info on fuel shipments 🚢⛽️

After weeks of lobbying, letters, calling out MBIE and even a meeting between the Taxpayers' Union and MBIE's CEO, a win this week in MBIE finally providing the names of the ships carrying fuel to New Zealand as part of their twice-weekly 'fuel supply updates'.

Linking with real-time marine tracking tools, this change means that FuelClock.nz is even more accurate.

MBIE didn't want to release this data. For six weeks, MBIE have claimed the information is 'commercially sensitive'  – which was always nonsense. The fact is that we can now know - immediately - should a fuel ship turn around on the water (rather than having the information 'managed' – i.e. delayed and spun – by the Beehive.

Keep an eye on the ships at FuelClock.nz ⛽️

Update on Waikato Regional Council 'turncoats' 👋

Finally, this week, an update on the two Waikato Regional Councillors who broke their Rates Control Team 'Pledge' to exit the Council from the anti-ratepayer sock-puppet lobby group Local Government New Zealand. 

First, there was some confusion following Jordan's update - not all the members of the "Rates Control Group" broke their Pledge. The voting breakdown was:

The local media have been pretty brutal (and rightly so).

Update on Sir Les Paterson (Palmerston North Mayoral edition) 

In last week's Taxpayer Update Jordan highlighted the errr, generous, entertainment spending of Palmerston North Mayor Grant Smith.

To recap, the Mayor was (to put it in the words of our source) "f*&ken furious" that a fellow councillor had exposed the Mayor for sucking back a grand a month of ratepayer-funded booze, plus much more coded as "Mayoral hospitality" on the expense card.

Before your humble Taxpayers' Union took to it, the Mayor was claiming it was all badly needed for the Council's "international relations" and "diplomacy" (yes, seriously!).

How attitude can change with a little bit of publicity... 

This week, we spotted a very interesting agenda item – a motion put onto the Agenda by non-other than Mayor Smith: to call closing time on the Councillor's [drinking] Lounge.

We now have the Minutes, and the Mayor's motion passed unanimously (and Mayor Smith is now claiming virtue from teetotallers).

But things don't go unnoticed by your humble Taxpayers' Union...

We went back and had a look at the last time the Palmerston North City Council voted on its (very) "local" alcohol policy...

Back in November 2022, a vote on a motion to stop the Council from reimbursing staff and elected officials for booze was defeated by one vote!

The deciding vote against?  One Mayor Smith...

Cheers to transparency! 🥂

Decision to terminate Taxpayers' Union membership - a note from the Chair 🗳️

While this sort of missive is normally reserved for members only, given the wider interest from supporters, we have published on our website our Chair's email to Members on the Board's decision here.

If you are not a member of the Taxpayers' Union (this email goes to our full 'supporter' list), you can join up here. Membership allows you to attend our AGM, other gatherings, and provide feedback to guide the work of our union.

➡️ Join the Taxpayers' Union ✊

Thank you for your support, and enjoy the rest of your week.

Tory Relf Head of Comms New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

 

Hi,

This week, we call out a former Labour COVID-response Minister for (ironically) disinformation, reveal a LEAKED audio recording of the now infamous "MBIE workplace waiata", and fisk the Green Party's proposed wealth tax. Plus we'll brief you on new work by the New Zealand Initiative think tank, asking who's *really* in charge – the elected officials, or the unelected mandarins?

Let's jump in.

The reports of Wellington's death greatly exaggerated – by Wellington MP 🤨

Now we know for some MPs, maths isn't their strong suit, but Labour's MP Ayesha Verrall really stretched the excuse last week in her claim that the reason Wellington's economy is in the dumps is because there have been “thousands of public service job losses". 

As reported by The Post:

Here at the Taxpayers' Union, we're keen supporters of free speech. Everyone is entitled to opinions – including Ms Verrall – but she's not entitled to her own facts.

Mass layoffs across the bureaucracy is a myth - but still repeated by dishonest confused Opposition MPs 🤪

According to the Public Service Commission (Wellington's "Podium of Truth" for how many people are actually employed by the Government), there were 63,117 public servants in 2023 compared to 63,657 at the end of 2025.

To spell that out for those sitting in Parliament reading this newsletter, that’s 540 more staff on the payroll now than when they were in charge.

Not an option, a fact: More bureaucrats do not amount to "thousands of public service job losses".

Where's Ayesha Verrall's "Disinformation Project" when you need it? 🤷‍♂️

LEAKED VIDEO: How distracting are MBIE's daily workplace Waiata sessions? 🫨

Earlier in the month, your humble Taxpayers' Union exposed the brouhaha within the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment over management's attempt to reign in the staff 'entitlement' for staff to be paid daily to sing, clap, poi, and recite Māori proverbs and hymns in open spaces at their Wellington office.

To recap: staff claimed that management's request to have the sessions during unpaid breaks was "colonial" and "culturally insensitive". 

They said even "relocating to enclosed rooms" (in order to avoid disrupting other staff in the open offices) was "viewed as symbolic marginalisation" and "hiding the kaupapa".

It turns out that among the 200,000 subscribers of this newsletter, many work at MBIE!

Our inbox was flooded with reports that the huge open marble spaces inside the old Defence House (where MBIE is based) echo and reverberate the sound.

And we have some good news!  At least one person among MBIE's 5,892 bureaucrats actually wants to get some work done! An MBIE insider whipped out their phone to record – from their desk – just how distracting, sorry, engaging, the workplace waiata sessions are, even for those who don't participate.

We replaced the video so as not to identify our taxpayer-hero embedded within MBIE.

Judge for yourself whether you'd get work done with this in the background...

Make sure you turn on the sound.  🎼

The Greens’ wealth tax fantasy: who really pays? 😱🦄

In our latest briefing paper, The Wealth Tax Fantasy, Policy Analyst Austin takes on the Greens’ latest barmy tax proposal.

They say their wealth tax will only hit the “top 3 percent”. That sounds neat, a nice soundbite to attract the attention of "freedom-fighting” students and leftie bureaucrats.

The issue is that it’s simply not true.

Based on the latest available data, 6.5 percent of retired couples and 5.5 percent of single retirees are already over the Green's threshold – and that’s before factoring in rising house prices.

And because the threshold isn’t indexed to inflation, more and more Kiwis will be dragged in every year.

The Greens see it as a feature not a bug.

Many around the world have tried, but nearly all have walked away 🇫🇷 🇳🇴 🇨🇺

There’s a reason wealth taxes are rare and disappearing overseas.

Nine out of twelve European countries that tried implementing a wealth tax have scrapped them.

Norway expected to raise more revenue — instead, tens of billions left the country, and the tax take fell. 

France saw hundreds of billions flee before abandoning its tax.

Even the NZ Treasury has warned that a tax at the level proposed by the Greens would be “extremely economically costly”. That's Treasury code for nuts.

The Greens claim this tax will raise around $17 billion a year, roughly 12 percent of all government revenue. Per capita, that would make it the most revenue raising wealth tax in the world.

Even Switzerland, the global outlier, raises only a fraction of that share.

So either the Greens have rewritten the laws of economics, or the numbers simply don’t stack up.

Because once you dig into the detail, this is just another tax on anyone who saves, invests, or builds something over time.

👉 Read The Wealth Tax Fantasy paper here 👈

Justice Minister complains that 'freedom of information' too expensive & proposes more secrecy for Government information 🕵️‍♂️

Most of the information published by the Taxpayers' Union isn't leaked, rather it is obtained using freedom of information laws: the OIA (for central government) and the LGOIMA (for local councils).

So shivers ran down the spines of your investigations team when Newsroom got wind of Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith's review of the Official Information Act late last month.

Apparently, too many people are asking questions of Government agencies and that's a problem!  If only.

Newsroom reports:

As New Zealand's largest transparency organisation – and the largest user of the Official Information Act – the team were admittedly a bit miffed not to be asked to contribute to the Minister's so-called "review".

We have been assured that it was just an oversight...

Because we actually agree with the Minister that too much is being spent administering OIA requests.

But the fault isn't because people are asking 'too many questions', it's because in recent years, Government agencies have developed a habit of insisting that even most mundane questions or enquiries are treated as formal "Requests for Official Information" under the Acts.

Once upon a time, you could call up a Government agency, get the relevant official on the phone, have a discussion, or send an email and get a response.

Now almost everything is funnelled through "Communications Teams" whose job it is to help "manage" the release of information.

Ironically, the very freedom of information laws designed to make government more transparent are being used to slow down and frustrate the release of basic information in a timely way. 

Or, as Rhys put it in a guest post published on Kiwiblog: The law isn’t the problem. Instead, the culture in Wellington and council bureaucracies across the country is causing unnecessary costs.

If the Government uses that game playing as an excuse to reduce the rights of taxpayers to know where their money is being spent, it's something taxpayers (and ratepayers) will fight tooth and nail.

Mr Goldsmith, to save money, there are some very simple solutions: proactive release of information and adopting 'armchair audit legislation' requiring all financial transactions by government agencies to be disclosed online (which is common overseas).

Who actually runs the place? Restoring democratic control of New Zealand's public service 🗳️

Finally, this week, we want to highlight a really good report by our friends down the road at the New Zealand Initiative think tank, asking whether the unelected bureaucrats with their own incentives, agendas, and policy preferences are running roughshod over the democratically elected will of the people.

Their paper, by Dr Oliver Hartwich, Who runs the country? Restoring democratic control of New Zealand's public service argues that New Zealand’s ministers answer to Parliament for departments they cannot control because ministers cannot choose, direct or remove the chief executives who run those departments.

It's a fascinating (and slightly alarming) look at how decisions really get made in Wellington, but is consistent with the frustrations we regularly hear from MPs and former Ministers (from both sides of the political divide).

It argues that the arrangement is broken and recommends that New Zealand adopt a version of Germany’s model, where ministers appoint their top officials while a protected career service operates below.

Virtually every other developed democracy gives its elected ministers some say over who runs their departments. France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom all do. New Zealand does not.

Off the back of the paper, Peter Williams interviewed Dr Hartwich to dive in.

If you’ve ever wondered why so many policies get watered down, delayed, or quietly changed along the way… this one will hit close to home.

Listen (audio only) on our website 🎧 or watch the episode on our YouTube channel. 📺

That's all for now.

Tory Relf Head of Comms New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

 

Hi,

We’re straight into it this week with the latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll.

NEW POLL: NZ First support surges with best-ever Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll result ⬆︎⬆︎⬆︎

The Government has seen a significant increase in support according to the first public poll taken since the announcement of the Government’s Fuel Security Plan. NZ First surges to a record high which propels the Government bloc back to a majority in April's Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll.

Compared to last month’s results, Labour is down 1.0 points to 33.4 percent, while National is up 1.4 points to 29.8 percent. New Zealand First is up 3.9 points to 13.6 percent, while ACT is up 1.5 points to 9.0 percent.

The Greens are down 2.7 points to 7.8 percent, while Te Pāti Māori is down 0.6 points to 2.6 percent.

Converted into seats in Parliament, Labour would be the biggest party on 42 seats (down 2 from last month), with National up 1 to 37 seats.

New Zealand First gains 4 seats from last month to 17, while ACT gains 1 to 11. The Greens drop 3 to 10 seats, while Te Pāti Māori lose 1 on 3 seats.

The combined projected seats for the Government parties bloc is up 6 seats to 65.

The combined seats for the Opposition parties bloc is down 6 to 55.

On these numbers, the current three parties of Government would be able to form a Government.

NZ First remain kingmakers 👑

The left bloc (Labour plus the Greens) remain stronger on 52 seats (down 5) compared to the right bloc (National plus ACT) which are on 48 seats this month (up 2 seats).

The last time either bloc commanded a majority without needing a support partner (NZ First or Te Pāti Māori) to be able to form a government was December 2024.

A more detailed breakdown of the results is available on our website - and if you want to receive the full polling report, join our Taxpayer Caucus for exclusive access.

Oh, and if you'd like to hear about how polling actually works, Peter Williams recently sat down with our pollster David Farrar to discuss for a Taxpayer Talk podcast.

PAY GAP EXPOSED: Public sector workers paid an average of $17,600 more than private sector colleagues  💸👨‍💼

While most households are tightening their belts, Wellington’s bureaucrat class have a much larger cushion.

We’ve crunched the numbers and published the Bureaucrat Salary Leaderboard – showing that despite what the public sector unions would have you think, there's nothing modest about public service pay packets!

On average, bureaucrats are now paid $17,600 more per year than workers in the private sector. 

With six-figure salaries across the board, the Bureaucrat Salary Leaderboard has exposed that every single government department has a higher average salary than New Zealanders working in the private-sector (i.e. the taxpayers!).

...and Sir Humphrey's Pay Gap is getting even larger 🤯

Public sector workers enjoyed an average hike to their salary of 21.37 percent between 2020 and 2025, almost fifty percent more than the 14.49 percent wage growth in the private sector over the same period.

Now, no one’s saying public sector staff shouldn’t be paid fairly.

And with the Government borrowing $48 million per day just to keep the lights on, these hikes show that the politicians haven't yet got to grips with keeping a lid on the costs of Government.

Dive into the leaderboard to see which departments are paying top dollar and decide for yourself whether taxpayers are actually getting value for it.

Yes, Minister indeed!

Which departments are raking it in? 💰🥸

$116k for a logo? No wonder Whanganui District Council hid the cost 🎨

New documents uncovered by investigations team show Whanganui District Council’s January rebrand didn’t cost the $61,800 ratepayers were originally told. No – it actually came in at a whopping $116,899 – $55,000 more than what was publicly presented.

To justify the spend, officials claimed the Council was juggling around 20 different logos and that it was all too hard to manage. 🤨

But in reality, many of those belong to individual facilities (things like the opera house or pools). In other words, the “problem” being solved doesn’t look nearly as dramatic as it was made out to be.

And here’s where their excuses really start to unravel.

Public feedback wasn’t exactly crying out for change. Around half of submissions either supported keeping the existing coat of arms or said the rebrand shouldn’t go ahead if it cost money.

Yet here we are.

Councillors didn’t even sign off on the decision. Instead, it appears to have been driven by council staff in another example of unelected officials pushing through costly changes without clear democratic backing.

If councils want to change something as fundamental as a city’s identity, it should be done transparently, with elected representatives making the call, not quietly pushed through by a self-promoting CEO.

Why are we paying millions for new logos? 💰

It’s becoming a familiar story: government agency decides it needs a fresh “look”… and taxpayers are left footing the bill.

Last month, Investigations Coordinator Rhys wrote to Public Service Minister Judith Collins raising concerns about the growing cost of public sector rebranding.

The examples speak for themselves. NZQA’s rebrand blew out to $2.9 million, new Crown Research Institutes spent $270,000, and Callaghan Innovation dropped another $170,000 on its own overhaul. 

And for what? A new logo, a new website, and a new set of 'branding guidelines'.

But the problem isn’t just the spending, it’s the system behind it.

Back in 2021, the Government introduced Identity Policy and Guidelines intended to standardise branding across agencies using the New Zealand Coat of Arms, improving transparency and consistency. Yet in practice, those rules have been interpreted so loosely that agencies are still running their own branding exercises anyway, duplicating design work, refreshing websites, and racking up ongoing costs. 

Other countries have already solved this. The UK and Australia use consistent, standardised government branding.

Even here in New Zealand, Internal Affairs managed to update its branding at minimal cost (thanks to Minister Brooke van Velden).

So we put a simple proposal to the Minister: tighten the rules. Limit branding exceptions to clearly defined cases where there’s a genuine operational or cultural need. No more free-for-all rebrands on the taxpayer dime.

To her credit, Minister Collins has asked officials to review the guidelines and assess where costs can be reduced, including lessons from recent blowouts. 

That’s a good start. But let’s be honest, this shouldn’t require a review - just an instruction from the Cabinet Office.

Spending millions on logos isn’t just wasteful, it’s tone deaf given the financial climate.

But until the rules are tightened, don’t be surprised if the next rebrand bill lands in your payslip.

Gore’s 11 percent rates hike - public excluded 🚨

Whanganui City Council aren’t the only council on the naughty list this week.

Gore District Council has approved an 11 percent rates increase, without any public consultation!

That’s on top of the staggering 46.6 percent cumulative rates hike Gore ratepayers have faced over the past three years.

As our Local Government spokesman Josh put it, hiking rates without even consulting ratepayers is an outright affront to local democracy - and exactly why a rates cap is urgently needed. Now.

But don’t just listen to us. Gore native and Newstalk ZB Senior Political Correspondent Barry Soper certainly had something to say about the decision too, have a listen here.

Barry called our report 103 Ways to Save Money in Local Government “required reading” for local councillors and, without tooting our own horn, it’s not hard to see why.

It’s packed with practical, no-nonsense ideas to cut costs and take pressure off ratepayers, from trimming bloated comms teams to putting a stop to nice-to-have spending like rebrands, events, and consultancy blowouts. 

The team have posted a hard copy of the report for every council in the country. Each councillor will also receive their own PDF version too - so there’s no room for excuses on missing this required reading.

If councillors can’t wait for their copy to arrive, you can read 103 Ways online now.

New Taxpayer Talk: Is the world... actually getting better? 🌈🎙️

Now, I know what you’re thinking. This is a bit rich coming from a newsletter that spends most of its time exposing government waste and bureaucratic nonsense.

But what if all the doom and gloom we’re constantly fed… just isn’t true?

In this week’s Taxpayer Talk, our Executive Director Jordan sits down with Cato Institute economist and HumanProgress.org founder Dr Marian Tupy to unpack the data behind global progress, and why so many people think things are getting worse when, in many ways, they’re improving.

From falling poverty and rising life expectancy to the real costs of Net Zero, housing affordability, and what AI means for the future of work, it’s a wide-ranging and surprisingly optimistic conversation.

If you’ve ever suspected the catastrophists might be missing something… listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts 🎧

I hope you all had a lovely Easter break - I had a great time in the Remutakas, getting some fresh air before Budget season hits.

Have a great week!

Tory Relf Head of Comms New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

Ps. Dashboards like the Bureaucrat Salary Leaderboard help us to keep the Wellington elites accountable. But we can’t do it without your support, so chip in now to contribute to our next one - the much-anticipated annual rates increase dash. 

 

Hi,

It’s been another busy week in the Wellington bubble: the fuel crisis has dominated, but, unfortunately, we've yet again uncovered more creative ways they're wasting your tax dollar.

And just to add to the drama, a new Fiscal Reality Check for New Zealand. Buckle in.

The $30k taxpayer-funded pro-Palestinian campaign in Christchurch ✊

Our Investigations Coordinator Rhys has uncovered that $30,000 of taxpayer money was used to fund pro-Palestinian billboards in Christchurch accusing Israel of genocide.

Now, it's not the role of the Taxpayers' Union to take a view on international affairs – we know our supporters will have varied views on this complex issue! But there’s one thing that unites us all: the apolitical Ethnic Communities Development Fund should absolutely NOT be funding blatantly political billboards like these... 👇 

Documents released under the Official Information Act show the $30,000 went to the Asturlab Cultural Centre for its “4 for 40 Stop the Silence” campaign, explicitly aimed at shifting public opinion.

So let’s call this what it is: taxpayer-funded political advocacy.

And it gets worse.

As Rhys told the media:

“The fund’s own rules say it does not support political objectives, yet this application was approved within days, with a Ministry advisor even helping tweak it to get over the line.”

We also may have created a *minor* diplomatic incident with this reveal, with the Israeli Embassy wading in and the Jerusalem Post picking up on the story. 

The story was listed in the Jerusalem Post’s Antisemitism section – although crickets from the New Zealand media...

As I said, taxpayers' views will certainly differ on the Palestine issue. But do taxpayers really fund Wellington to funnel money into foreign affairs-related political campaigns? We think not.

And there's more… 🤯

The deeper we dug, the more bizarre the spending. The same "Ethnic Communities Development Fund" is as loose as a goose.

There’s everything from swimming lessons for Pakistani women to Wellington’s CubaDupa street festival.

This is the same Ministry for Ethnic Communities that made headlines this week for being unable to justify its own existence.

Given the Government already has multiple agencies funding and advising on community development, social cohesion, and diversity, why not simply wind up these demographic ministries?

While the media wouldn't go there, ACT did: their press release was so on the money that it linked straight to our documents. 💁‍♀️

Fuel Security & Fiscal Dashboard 📊

Thanks to the many supporters who responded to Jordan's email on Thursday asking for feedback on our FuelClock.nz dashboard.

If you missed it, the Government's fuel data is released at least three days behind reality so we’ve done what Wellington hasn’t: a real-time dashboard matching official fuel stock data with live shipping movements, bond markets, and prediction market data.

It means you can see what’s actually happening, not just what Government officials want you to be told.

Right now, diesel stocks are sitting a few days above the Government’s "Minimum Stock Obligation" threshold. That’s reassuring — but far from comfortable.

MBIE does mea culpa on fuel stock misinformation screw-up ⛽️

On Thursday the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Enterprise (MBIE) had a real nightmare, putting out three different versions, sorry, "clarifications" of the data released the previous day!

Fortunately, we didn’t rely on MBIE's wayward website updates – we could see they were wrong as we have been using live AIS (GPS tracking) data of shipping to inform our models.

And so we were proved right! The highly respected political insider (subscriber only) Politik Newsletter by veteran Wellington journalist Richard Harman didn't hold back:

As I said to The Post newspaper the same day: if we can build it how come MBIE with its army of analysts seems incapable of keeping track of a few ships?

Heather du Plessis-Allan didn’t let the Government’s excuses slide either. Listen to her coverage here 👇

The role of the Taxpayers' Union is to promote transparency and accountability.

Right now, the fuel supply chain information is by far the most important economic statistic for businesses and households to plan ahead.

A lesson from COVID was not to ignore "The Wisdom of Crowds". In this case, the crowds (like our Fuel Clock) have been more accurate and transparent than the government source.

The data certainly doesn't make for pleasant reading – but we make no apology for arming taxpayers with objective, accurate information about the potential crisis the country faces.

New report: Sleepwalking into a fiscal reckoning 😨

If you’ve been feeling like things are getting tighter… you’re not imagining it.

Our latest report, Fiscal Reality Check: The Reckoning in Numbers, shows New Zealand is living beyond its means, and the bill is piling up fast.

Every household now carries a staggering $140,000 share of central government debt, up from just $29,000 in 2008.

And it’s still climbing...

And worse still, there isn’t a single surplus forecast for the rest of the 2020s.

Not one.

Wellington is borrowing year after year just to keep the lights on, with no credible plan to bring the books back into balance.

More debt, less prosperity 📈📉

This isn’t just numbers on a spreadsheet; it’s hitting New Zealanders' standard of living.

New Zealand hasn’t balanced the books since 2019, and instead of recovering after COVID, the Government has kept spending more than it earns.

At the same time, the economy is going backwards, with Kiwis now worse off than they were just two years ago.

So while the country racks up more debt, households are getting poorer. The most immediate impact of these numbers is on interest.

In just five years, the average household’s share of government interest costs has jumped from about $1,000 to over $4,200 a year — and that too is still rising.

By 2030, the government will be spending more on interest than on schools, Police, and justice combined. 

Meanwhile, the size of government has ballooned and borrowing is increasingly being used to fund day-to-day spending.

👉 Read the full report here and see just how serious the situation has become.

Because sooner or later, someone has to pay the bill. 

Policy Victory: David "Nosey" Parker's IRD snooping laws finally repealed 🕵🏻‍♂️

In August last year, we celebrated after Revenue Minister Simon Watts confirmed plans to repeal Section 17GB of the Tax Administration Act 1994.

Our chief policy wonk James danced a jig this week (not literally, although I do think it would make a good fundraiser) because the amendment canning the Nosey Parker clause finally passed in Parliament.

The excitingly-named Section 17GB allowed IRD to demand information from taxpayers (regardless of how private or personal) for purposes well beyond working out someone's tax liability.

We've been fighting the provision since 2022: it allowed the tax department to go on fishing expeditions and demand information even if it had nothing to do with working out someone's tax liability.

After thousands of taxpayers signed our petition to can the clause, we’re delighted that it’s finally, officially off the statute books. IRD is there to administer tax – no more, no less.

Nice one, Revenue Minister Simon Watts.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Tory Relf Head of Comms New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

Ps. Our ability to create tools like the Fuel Clock is thanks to our supporters like you. Chip in now to further the mission of making Wellington more transparent and accountable.

 

Hi,

This week: golden trophies for government waste, a policy win wrung out of a Minister, our new report on the Green's proposed Wealth Tax – Green with Envy – plus the country's best political pollster sits down with Peter Williams for a podcast to discuss how it all works and who the pollsters talk to.

Let’s go.

The Golden Hoggies: 2026 Jonesie Awards @ Parliament ✨🐷

Thanks to those supporters who joined us at Parliament for the 2026 Jonesie Awards for Government Waste.

Watch the red carpeted, golden-glitzed (and tongue firmly in cheek) awards ceremony here.

The Who’s Who of government waste 🏅

This year’s winners did not disappoint. In the Local Government category, Tauranga Mayor Mahé Drysdale took the local government bacon for his $470,000 limitless lattes – nearly half a million bucks spent on coffee machines and beans for council staff!

Apparently, the cafés surrounding the Council's swanky new offices aren't up to par...

Congratulations to the five-time world champion and double Olympic gold medallist. This new 'Golden Swine' will be right at home in the Drysdale trophy cabinet.

The Central Government Jonesie went to the Te Pāti Māori Co-leaders. Rawiri Waititi secured the nomination for having the highest individual Parliamentary Service expenditure of any MP, racking up $350 per day on the taxpayers’ credit card.

And Waititi's Co-leader sidekick is no better. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer splurged $39,000 on flights alone in just three months in 2024 – the same time Parliament was sitting but she was posting on social media surfing pictures of herself on a Hawaiian beach...

Hard at work or hardly working?

In fact, Ngarewa-Packer claimed more on flights than all of ACT’s non-ministerial MPs claimed in expenses, combined.

The Humongous Hog: The Lifetime Achievement Award for Government Waste 🐖

After the Royal Commission’s Covid-19 report came out early last week, there was a last-minute nomination and a very clear winner for this year's Big Ham.

Former Minister for the COVID-19 Response and current Labour Party Leader, Chris Hipkins took home this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his $35 billion (that's $17,157 per household! 🤯) of pandemic spending which the Royal Commission found was wasted on projects entirely unrelated to the pandemic or recovery

Unfortunately, rather like his response to invitations from Royal Commission inquiries, Chris Hipkins declined to appear...

📺 Watch the ceremony here 🎭

Tory Relf Head of Comms New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

 

Hi, Sometimes politicians complain about the Taxpayers' Union. 90 percent of the time, it means we're right on target in holding them to account... And this week was no different. MPs squirm as Taxpayers' Union drop truth bombs to Budget Committee 💣 The Government is currently consulting on this year's "Budget Policy Statement" - in effect, the guard rails determined by Cabinet to inform officials and Ministers as they assess "budget bids" (i.e. proposals for new spending) and prepare May's Government Budget. "Goals", "objectives", "fiscal intentions" and bureaucrat-speak for whether and how we continue to spend beyond our means. So, as we do every year, your humble Taxpayers' Union gets 10 minutes to lay it out the fiscal issues the Government would rather ignore – and it's not pretty. After the whole "Nicola's Fudge" and Ruth Richardson debate brouhaha, it's fair to say the team are determined to highlight the laundry list of new taxes and unaffordable spending being proposed by Labour, the Greens, and Te Pari Māori (more on that next week!). But this week when asked by Government MPs what we make of Nicola Willis's fiscal strategy, we could hardly sugar coat it. Even adjusting for population growth and inflation, government spending is higher now than when Grant Robertson was in charge. The surplus is further away than when the Government was elected, and the structural deficit is larger! That's not progress. But National Party MPs did *not* like hearing about that – and they tried firing back with barbs... 💥 Watch the submission on the Budget Policy Statement here ▶️ I was in the office next door watching the livestream – the tension was coming through the wall. 🫨 Did the team go too far? Do I need to stop Jordan from taking questions from MPs? Or were they right to hold the Government MPs to account for their pre-election promises?  Really keen to hear what you make of it – comment on the video(or email me back). Labour's fiscal la la land over pay equity 🦄 Lest you think the other side of the aisle is a fiscal panacea, Labour is guilty too of having their heads in the sand on balancing the books. Earlier this week Chris Hipkins dismissed Treasury’s estimate that restoring Labour’s old pay equity regime could cost up to $12.8 billion over the next four years alone (that's $6,271 per household), saying the numbers “appear to be made up”. That’ll be news to Treasury, who were the same department Labour relied on for every Budget, fiscal update, and press conference when they were in office. It's a cheap 'shot the messenger'-style shot from Hipkins who is looking ever more desperate to avoid questions on how to make the numbers work without a massive tax raid on Kiwis. We know staff in the Labour Party Leader's Office read Taxpayer Update. 👋 Our message to Mr Hipkins is if he really thinks Treasury's numbers are wrong, then show us your workings. Who wouldn't support pay equity? 💪 Now before you say I'm a right wing anti-woman zealot, let me explain what Labour are actually talking about when they say they want 'pay equity'. It’s not “equal pay for equal work”. That’s been illegal since the 1970s. No one’s arguing a female teacher should earn less than a male teacher doing the exact same job. What Labour’s 2020 rules said was that any occupation that was “predominantly female” could launch a claim demanding their wages be topped up to match some “comparable” male-dominated job – even if the jobs had nothing in common except a union organiser with a spreadsheet. Put another way, Labour had transformed pay equity from a targeted fix for sex discrimination into a broad mechanism for wage hikes across sectors, often without clear evidence of gender-based undervaluation. And boy, did the comparators get creative! Social workers (predominantly female, involving emotional support, case management, and community welfare) were lined up against air traffic controllers and detectives (male-dominated, high-stress roles with technical precision, life-or-death decisions, and specialised training). Librarians were compared to transport engineers. Clerical and admin staff in Health NZ were told they deserved the same as mechanical and civil engineers. Primary teachers were bundled into mega-claims against builders and tradesmen. This wasn’t fixing discrimination and, as you'd expect, by the time the current Government came into power, the anticipated costs had totally blown out. At first glance it sounds lovely: “Women deserve fair pay!” Who could possibly disagree? In simplistic gotcha headlines (only right wing bigots don't support gender pay equity?!) that mask economic reality. That’s exactly why it was such diabolically effective slogan politics. Hipkins knows the average voter wouldn’t dig into the fine print about 14-factor “mathematical matrices” comparing emotional intelligence to radar screen management. They just hear “pay rise for women” and think it sounds nice. But nice slogans don’t pay the bills. Treasury’s $12.8 billion ($3.2 billion per year) figure isn’t “made up” — it’s the cold, hard cost of letting 33 separate claims run their course under Labour’s 2020 regime. To put the figure in perspective, the annual cost of the existing claims alone is two-and-a-half times the entire allowance for new spending! Saying yes to Hipkins would mean no money for Police, Health, or Education to keep up with inflation or population growth. Counting Labour's unicorns 🦄 Hipkins cries “made up” and pretends the whole thing was just a harmless feel-good policy. That’s not leadership. That’s the politics of fiscal unicorns and denial. Promising the world, ignoring the price tag, then shooting the messenger when Treasury dares to show the receipts reeks of the Ardern-era. That's why we're here: Because someone has to call it out. ATTN councils: here's 103 ways to save money 🙌 This week, we launched our latest briefing paper, 103 Ways to Save Money in Local Government – our latest guide for local councils, ready for their next budget meeting. On average, council rates have increased by 34 percent in just three years. Enough is enough. So rather than just complain, we're highlighting practical suggestions, and instances of local councils saving ratepayer money. For example, Porirua City Council is saving $60,000 a year by ending its funding that kept the local Chamber of Commerce on side. Ashburton District Council is saving $10,000 annually simply by switching to electronic agendas. And Christchurch City Council saved more than $163,000 per year by leaving the wasteful Local Government New Zealand lobby group.  As put by the Whanganui Mayor, Andrew Tripe, in his foreword to the report: The Taxpayers’ Union’s scrutiny is welcome. It sharpens our focus and keeps public discussion where it belongs: on results for households. I look forward to continuing to work with central and local partners to keep Whanganui moving forward — delivering the basics well, protecting household budgets, and giving permission to dare to dream about the so-called nice to haves which make our communities more liveable. Read the briefing paper here. Giving local councils the playbook on where to make savings means there are no excuses for continued rates blowouts. Over the next few weeks, we'll be sending a copy of the report to every councillor in the country. Remuneration Authority chair schilling for Western-BOP councillor salary explosion 💥 Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been in the thick of it with the Remuneration Authority — and what’s happened in Western Bay of Plenty shows exactly why this matters. The headlines were stark: our Council Pay Increase Dashboardrevealed Western Bay councillors pocketed an average 57 percent pay rise, taking the typical councillor salary to about $80,000. At a time when ratepayers are being squeezed, that’s quite the uplift. You can read the full exposé in the Bay of Plenty Times here 📰 But when we called it out, the Remuneration Authority wasn’t thrilled.  How dare the Taxpayers' Union ensure its decisions are being publicly exposed and critiqued?! As if to prove the point that the Remuneration Authority is totally out of touch, its Chair, Geoff Summers, went on to Newstalk ZB to spin and obfuscate. Basically Summers tried to suggest that because only the total pool for the Councillors and Mayor had been set (not the individual salary allocation), it wasn't fair to criticise it because "averages" while being correct, aren't (he claims) "accurate". 🙄  Confused? So were we– but Summer assured listeners that it's all too hard to explain on the radio anyway. Somehow though, it apparently makes the 57 percent bigger average councillor pay packet less bad. That sort of BS spin sure justifies some high remuneration... As you'd expect, Heather du Plessis-Allan was having nothing of it. Have a listen here. The personification of the Wellington self-entitled blob 🧌 Geoff Summers demonstrates why it's time for a taxpayer representative to sit on the Remuneration Authority. Reflecting his background is as a trade unionist activist, academic, and Pacifica NGOs, we can't find anything that suggests Summers has build or run anything that hasn't relied on taxpayers. Far from sticking up for the ratepayers footing the bill, he's trying to be clever to avoid transparency and defend his own Authority's decisions.  To see how much more your local mayor and councillors are pocketing, click here to see the Council Pay Rates Dashboard. Time for a cat among the pigeons? 🐈‍⬛ Coincidentally, applications closed this week for a vacant spot on the Remuneration Authority. Keep it to yourself , but never one to shy away, we put Jordan’s name forward and twisted his arm to agree to a last-minute application... 🤫 Now we wait and see whether the Minister responsible, Brooke van Velden, is brave enough to appoint an outsider. After all, she said herself she wants 'great candidates'... NZ Defence Force: Train to kill, or train to kōrero?  While global tensions are rising and our allies rearm, New Zealand’s Defence Force wants to introduce Māori cosmology to their core training. As reported by the NZ Herald: The NZ Army’s new “general orders” to soldiers uses a pantheon of te ao Māori gods as guiding influences for its strategy “to achieve a bicultural status by enabling the recognition of Māori cultural interests as they are guaranteed within Te Tiriti o Waitangi”. [read more] Call us uncultured, but we reckon the Defence Force's purpose is in the name: defend New Zealand. That means ships that sail, planes that fly, and personnel who are trained and deployable. Every dollar has an opportunity cost. And at a time when vessels sit idle due to staffing shortages and billions are needed for upgrades, should cultural courses be the priority? The Māori Battalion were warriors, not woke workshop attendees. They stormed beaches, charged bayonets, and held lines through Greece, Crete, El Alamein and Italy — suffering over 2,600 casualties and earning 99 honours, including a Victoria Cross. Their mana came from fierce combat skill and courage, not from embedding gods into “general orders” or chasing bicultural status points. We reckon that if those real toa could see today’s Army mandating Tūmatauenga’s “cosmological traditions” as core strategy, they’d shriek:“We fought for freedom — not to turn barracks into neo-pagan seminars!” The standing orders purport to honour Māori culture. In reality they dilute military purpose with ideology when we need fighters, not philosophers. LAST CALL: Join us at Parliament for the 8th Annual Jonesie Government Waste Awards 🐽🏆 For our Wellington based supporters, this is your friendly reminder to RSVP to the most prestigious awards show of the season! Join us at Parliament as we celebrate the most extravagant, eye-watering, and downright nutty examples of local and central government spending. It’s our annual tongue-firmly-in-cheek awards ceremony where waste gets the red carpet treatment it truly deserves. 📍 Legislative Council Chamber, Parliament 🗓 Thursday 12 March ⏰ 1.00pm–1.30pm 🎩 Black tie optional. Sharp sense of humour essential. If you’re local to Wellington — or will be in town — come along, meet the team, and experience the best awards show in town live. Parliamentary security requires a guest list, so RSVP by 12pm Tuesday 10 March to secure your spot. Good luck to all our nominees! Thanks for your support, and enjoy the rest of your weekend.  Tory Relf Head of Comms New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

 

In the Media:  The Westport News Letters to the Editor NZ Herald Western Bay of Plenty councillors get average 57% pay rise to $80,000 The Platform The Platform 4pm - Item 2 Newstalk ZB Geoff Summers: Remuneration Authority Chair on local councillors seeing bigger pay increases ThreeNews ThreeNews 6pm - Item 1 Newstalk ZB  Newstalk ZB Wellington 6pm - Item 3 Newstalk ZB Newstalk ZB Wellington 5pm - Item 4 Newstalk ZB  Newstalk ZB Wellington 4pm - Item 4 Newstalk ZB Full Show Podcast: 24 February 2026 The Post Councillors warned about the risks of leaving LGNZ Newstalk ZB Afternoon Edition: 23 February 2026 Newstalk ZB  Newstalk ZB Auckland 8pm - Item 4 Newstalk ZB Full Show Podcast: 23 February 2026 The Press The Press letters to the editor: February 25 The Post NPDC boss defers decision on council membership of LGNZ

Happy Saturday! Welcome to the first Taxpayer Update of 2026. As you'll see, the team are back into it fighting for transparency and accountability of how taxpayer and ratepayer money is being spent.

EXPOSED: Local councillors pocket HUGE pay hikes while rates explode 💸

While many Kiwis struggled to afford the summer treats, no such concerns the country's local councillors, according to the latest ratepayer dashboard published by your humble Taxpayers' Union.

Over summer, the team snuffed out the 2025 salary and meeting honorarium "entitlement" hikes for every New Zealand council. Let's just say you'll need to be sitting down for this...

While inflation was 2.7 percent during the 2025 financial year, local councillors merrily accepted a 9.8 percent (on average) annual adjustment to their pay!  For mayors, it's little better, with the average Mayoral salary jumping 8.5 percent for the year.

👉 See how much your local councillors and mayor have paid themselves here

Meanwhile, the figures listed do not include the extra allowances mayors and councillors get as top-ups: phones, laptops, printers, milage (literally they get reimbursed for driving to work!), and even childcare allowances - which allows councillors and local board members to claim up to $6,000 per year from ratepayers for childcare.

Performance pay, yeah right! 🤪

While local council decision makers sit pretty, local ratepayers are still being hammered. Remember the average rates bill is up 34 percent over the last three years!

Take Queenstown-Lakes District Council. Local ratepayers have copped an average rates increase of more than fifty percent in just three years, and the Council has the largest per-capita debt burden in the country. Yet those councillors are pocketing the second-highest pay rise in the country, and the mayor ranks ninth. 🤔

The reform Local Government Minister Simon Watts won't touch 🫣

The real issue here isn't actually the councils, it's the fault of the Government for screwing the scum against ratepayers. Successive Governments have appointed professional bureaucrats and career politicians onto the "independent" Remuneration Authority.

The system of broken. The whole regime is designed to prevent pay being tied to performance or outcomes. Ratepayers (and taxpayers) aren't just denied representation, the Remuneration Authority is one of the few public agencies that is not even subject to freedom of information law – so they never have to show their working.

{{recipient.first_name_or_friend}}, sunlight is the best disinfectant - and the more the voting public understand how local government is turning from 'public service' into 'highly paid entitlement', the more pressure there will be to fix it.

There are some easy fixes we'd start with: first, councillor and mayoral remuneration should be set once a three year term, not hiked every year.

Second, councils should be given the option to turn down these annual pay increases. That way ratepayers would know whether councils are serious about easing the pressure on households.

See how the pay packets of your local representatives compare here.

Auckland Council at its best: watering a rainstorm 🌧️

This week, in the midst of the massive rain storms that have been battering the North Island, an Auckland Council contractor was spotted watering a tree.

Yes, you read that right. Not a drizzle. Not “cloudy but dry”. Proper summer rain - the kind that has gutters overflowing and streets flooding - and Auckland Council had a bod out watering the plants.

Auckland Council’s response was a lame “We all make mistakes.” Sure. But this one is less “oops” and more perfect snapshot of how local government operates and the misaligned incentives.

While rain is hammering the city and drains are struggling to cope, someone is being paid to do a task that is not only unnecessary, but actively pointless. If there was ever a moment to apply common sense, this was it. Wouldn't the time have been better spent clearing drains, checking stormwater grates, or preventing the flooding we all end up paying for later?

ACC’s plan to avoid a $26 billion hole: do the basics… faster 🏃‍♂️💸

Tory Relf Head of Comms New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

PS. With election year underway, we’re leading the fight to put taxpayers at the heart of election promises. But we can’t do that without your support. Thank you to everyone who donated to our Election Fighting Fund earlier this week - I can’t wait to show you what we have in store for 2026.

Dear Supporter,

The silly season is well underway. It's the time for Christmas shopping, summer planning, last minute errands, and when Governments tend to 'take out the trash' – hoping bad news stories are buried in the Christmas rush. So while Christmas is right around the corner Santa's naughty list is growing.

This week, we learned of some sneaky (unannounced) tax changes from Wellington, that rates capping has been delayed until 2029, the bureaucrat golden goodbye bonanza continues, and a record high rates hike in the pipeline for Aucklanders.

Oh, and you might have noticed a bit of media attention the last few days on a new campaign we've not even launched yet! Some comments about that below...

So grab a cuppa. This end of week wrap up is stacked.

Rates Cap Now ✅ or Rates Cap Later ❌

On Monday we learned the good news is that the capping of crippling council rates is coming. The bad news is that the Government has pushed back implementation until 2029.

That means that councils now have three full years to make massive rate hikes before the cap kicks in. And does anyone have faith that they won't?

Most councils are currently working on their Long Term Plans – which are required to be done every three years to set out rates and spending parameters for the following 10 years (yes, I know how that reads).

That means the window of opportunity to force councils to live within their means (and what ratepayers can afford) is narrow. The Government’s delay is an invitation for local councils to hike everything now, bake it into the baseline, and shrug later.

Obviously, we had a lot to say on this issue, with Tory on Three News making the case for ratepayers and why we need to Cap Rates *Now*.

James was also busy. His excellent op-ed for The Post also points out that councils will rush to push rates up while they still can, because once the cap arrives, they’re locked in. I just love the last line of this:

Continue reading over on The Post's website.

Yours truly had a longer discussion with current Otago Regional Councillor (and host on The Platform) Michael Laws. 

I also spoke with Duncan Garner for his Editor in Chief podcast.

TVNZ bias: even AI is noticing 📺

Strangely, we didn't hear a whisper from TVNZ's One News, despite your humble Taxpayers' Union both proposing the rates capping policy, and driving the campaign to get the Government to adopt it!

Just like One News strived to ignore ratepayers during the whole two years of coverage of the last Government's Three Waters effort, they'd rather stick to "insiders" like Local Government NZ and others who are using ratepayer money to oppose our Cap Rates Now campaign.

And we are not alone.

New AI analysis of the framing of political stories by One News suggests that something is going seriously awry at the taxpayer-owned broadcaster...

NEW Rates Cap Dashboard: How much have you already been fleeced? 💳🐑

As you know, we track council rates across the country closely. Earlier in the year we exposed that cumulatively, over the last three years, the average rates hike by councils was an incredible 35 percent. 

So on Friday we launched the Rates Cap Dashboard – a new tool revealing what the average household in every council district would have saved if the Government's rates cap had been in place over the past three years.

James and his team found:

• Across the country, the average household would be between $670 and $864 better off right now had the proposed 2-4 percent cap been in place over the last three years.
• The average household in 21 council areas would have saved more than $1,000 each
• Queenstown-Lakes District ratepayers would have saved the most: an incredible $1,706 lost per household.
• Even in councils with the smallest numbers, a rates cap would still have left hundreds of dollars in the pockets of every local ratepayer.

👉 See what your council cost your household in lost savings here

The campaign isn't over: we've got Cabinet over the line on the Cap Rates bit, now we just need them to do it NOW.

To back the Cap Rates Now campaign and chip-in to the fighting fund, click here.

Mayor Brown’s Rates Cap Backflip 💥🛑

Wayne Brown campaigned as the guy who’d rein in Auckland Council waste. But fast forward to today, and Auckland Council’s operating spending continues to balloon right under Mr Brown's nose. 

Despite the rhetoric, Wayne Brown has hiked Council spending by more than 20.5% in just three years. Cumulative inflation over the same timeframe has been seven percent.

During the election campaign just been, Brown committed to keep rates no more than 1.5 percent above inflation – which is bang on the midpoint for where the Government has set its cap! But now, just three months later, Wayne Brown has changed his tune. 

Now the Mayor says a rates cap “won’t work” –  announcing a 7.9 percent rates hike within an hour of the Government announcing its policy.

If Wayne Brown gets his way, next year's rates hike will be the highest ever for the Super City!

Brown is blaming the City Rail Link which he claimed will add $1 million a day to ratepayers’ costs. But our friends at the Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance checked the numbers: the actual cost is $26 million a year, or roughly equivalent to 1 percent on rates.

Not nothing, but nowhere near the eight percent figure Wayne Brown is pushing.

Brown isn’t levelling with Aucklanders — and that’s exactly why we need a legally enforceable cap.

With my Ratepayers' Alliance hat on I joined Newstalk ZB to call out Mayor Brown's 'absolute nonsense' 👇

IRD's sneaky pre-Christmas surprise 🎄⚠️

While no one was paying attention, the IRD quietly dropped one of the most destructive tax changes we’ve seen in decades.

Here’s the gist:

• Many small businesses pay owners through a running loan account during the year.
• At year-end, they clear it with dividends or salary — standard practice.
• Under the new rule, if the loan isn’t cleared within 12 months, IRD will now treat the whole loan as taxable income…
• …and the owner still has to repay the loan later using more taxable income.

Yes, taxed twice. Yes, retrospective, covering the current tax year (in fact, IRD say the law will be backdated to come into effect as of Thursday). And no, there was no press conference, no speech, no debate. Just a quiet upload to the IRD website.

Our tax experts say that these changes will have a far greater impact on New Zealand's SMEs and farmers than Labour's proposed Capital Gains Tax. No wonder the Government is mum!

And nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a backdated tax bill.

Sneaking a policy of this magnitude through without fanfare over summer is bad form. You can read our full comments here.

Submissions close on 5 February (more info here) – rest assured that the Taxpayers' Union will be back to work well before then! 

Golden Handshakes: More than $837,000 in a single week (and that's just those we know about!) 🤦‍♀️💰

If you thought we’d hit peak golden handshake insanity with Adrian Orr's $416,120 "golden goodbye", think again. This week alone, we already know taxpayers are on the hook for:

• Andrew Coster (disgraced former head of the Social Investment Agency who was allowed to resign and therefore collect a garden leave/three-month's pay windfall) – $130,000
• Diana Sarfati (former head of the Ministry of Health)– $350,000
• Sarah Fitt (former Pharmac boss) – $357,000

Tory spoke to Newstalk ZB on Andrew Coster's golden handshake and the scale of his payout, which you can listen to here.

We’ve also seen another resignation as the Coster fallout continues to reverberate through Wellington.

This time a former Deputy Police Commissioner now at the Civil Aviation Authority, was rewarded with a payout – and one that the CAA chief refused to even declare when asked by MPs during Parliament's scrutiny week.

That’s a) a middle finger to transparency and b) likely to push the total north of $1 million this week alone.

This is why we’re pushing for a hard cap on exit payouts, zero payouts for anyone paid more than an MP, and full transparency in public servants receiving such payouts.

Until then, the golden handshake conveyor belt rolls on.

Labour using taxpayer funded staff to make Party propaganda 📹🚫

At Labour’s conference, their social media adviser — funded by Parliamentary Service — was producing political content on the taxpayer dollar.

The rules are clear: Parliamentary staff support MPs’ official duties, not partisan content creation for the party machine.

I don’t think it’s complicated. If parties want political videos, they should use party funds, not raid the taxpayer wallet.

And yes, this all happened during Scrutiny Week. You couldn’t write it better.

Health NZ spending $3.5 million this year on “non-jobs” 🧘‍♂️🌀

The year might be nearly over, but everyone’s favourite Investigations Coordinator Rhys is still hard at work digging into waste across local and national government.

On Friday, Rhys revealed Health NZ employs 13.7 FTE staff dedicated exclusively to DEI, sustainability, climate, and non-clinical “culture” work.

The total salary bill is a jaw-dropping $3,475,054.

Back of the envelope, that's an average salary of $253,654! 

As is usual, Rhys has linked to all the source material on the website, so you can judge for yourself whether these Health NZ salaries are justified...

As you can see, while Health NZ only give us the salary information in bands, we can work out from the total that most of the roles are paid at the very upper end!

Meanwhile:

• Emergency departments are overflowing
• Waitlists are blowing out
• Surgical backlogs are growing

This is the problem in a nutshell: We’re funding everything except actual healthcare.

One more thing... 

Finally, we’ve had a lot of good publicity for our campaign launching very soon, and now it is our turn to say what it is all about.

The campaign is about Nicola Willis becoming our best ever finance minister. No one wants her to succeed more than than Taxpayers’ Union to cut wasteful spending, balance the books, and keep out a Labour-TPM-Green high tax, high deficit, 'addicted to spending' disaster.

Our pressure campaign is about pointing out the fiscal elephants in the room and her having the incentives from voters to become our best ever finance minister and get New Zealand off the disastrous fiscal track it has been on for so long.

Watch this space...

Jordan Williams Executive Director New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.

Ps. As well as the last Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll of 2025, it's looking likely the Government's replacement to the Resource Management Act is going to be released early next week. This is likely to be the biggest (regulatory) tax relief any government has delivered under MMP. As soon as we have worked through the details, we'll get them to you. A big week ahead!

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Dear Supporter,

This week we've got a new briefing paper for you, an update on that Ngāi Tahu story, Porirua as our Ratepayer Heroes, and more.

This is How to Cap Rates Now 🧢📘

Back in June, we launched the Cap Rates Now campaign and more than 31,000 ratepayers answered the call and signed up to support the campaign. Since then, the campaign has snowballed. So if you're someone who has shared social media posts, put up a "Cap Rates Now" roadside banner, or joined us in protest outside the Local Government New Zealand conference, (where Local Government Minister Simon Watts promised a rates cap by Christmas) thank you for your support.

And, fast forward to this week: Minister Watts and Minister Chris Bishop announced a major change to local government (more on that below) but it wasn’t the rates cap we were promised. The clock’s ticking, and with 34% average rates rises over the last three years, we need action now.

Our team has been working behind the scenes, meeting with Minister Watts and many others to push for the changes we need. And this week we released How to Cap Rates Now – our policy briefing paper that outlines exactly how the Minister can keep his promise and cap rates before next year’s budget.

In short, ratepayers need:

✅ Capping rates before councils set their 2026/27 budgets

✅ Making sure the rates cap covers all local government revenue (no sneaky fees and workarounds!)

✅ Linking the cap to day-to-day inflation but accounting for population growth

✅ Ensuring ratepayers have the final say, not bureaucrats

✅ Refunding any oversized rates bills (over and above the caps) directly to ratepayers

Minister Watts’ time is running out. Our briefing paper lays out the steps to make sure rates are capped fairly and effectively. You can read the paper here.

Christchurch’s $1.36m “Consultation” Loop 🚨

As the team exposed this week, Christchurch City Council has spent $1.36 million paying a Ngāi Tahu-owned consultancy to advise the Council on how to engage with… Ngāi Tahu.

I don’t need to be an accountant to see the problem there...

Ratepayers are effectively being charged so the Council can be told how to talk to the very same groups that own the consultancy. No tendering, no transparency, and so far, no acceptance from the Council that they need to release the invoices.

It’s a cosy arrangement that needs transparency.

Yesterday I joined The Platform to push the Council for answers.

And, if this is happening in Christchurch, could it also be happening elsewhere? Our confidential tip-line is always open...

Sunlight really is the disinfectant here, and your tips are often how we get onto these rorts waste stories.

A fine line between fair road charges and unfair new taxes 🚘

Austin, my favourite (our only!) Policy Analyst, wrote this great piece in The Post about the Government's new road charging reforms.

New Zealand is about to enter a new era of road charging with congestion pricing and expanded tolling powers, but as Austin points out, these reforms will only be fair if two key principles are followed: (1) congestion charges must be revenue-neutral, and (2) tolls must remain user-pays.

👉 Read Austin’s op-ed over on The Post. 👈

Congestion pricing has proven successful overseas in managing demand (i.e. reducing traffic at peak times) and therefore boosting productivity. But it’s important that any money raised is used to offset other road user charges, not to create an additional financial burden on drivers.

On the other hand, tolling works when it's clear drivers pay for what they use. However, the Government's new Parliamentary Bill threatens to stretch this principle by charging drivers for roads they don't use or have already paid for through fuel taxes. It lets the Government clip the ticket twice and use a toll on roadway X to fund maintenance of roadway Y. 

We say that asking drivers to pay twice, and funnelling toll road money away from the roads being tolled is just a sneaky way to raise taxes, not improve infrastructure.

Labour’s promise of *free* taxpayer funded GP policy isn’t even backed by Labour voters 🤦‍♀️

Our latest Taxpayers’ Union–Curia poll landed in The Post this week, and the results are awkward for Chris  Hipkins.

A clear majority of Labour voters (57 percent) say GP subsidies should be targeted to low- and middle-income New Zealanders, not handed out universally to every adult regardless of income. Only 35 percent backed Labour’s universal free-GP plan.

Younger voters and Auckland lean more universal, but everywhere else — especially Wellington — the public want health funding aimed where it actually makes a difference.

Hardly surprising when long waits and GP shortages are the reality for so many.

The kicker? Labour’s own supporters also reject the idea of taxing capital gains that is simply inflation. Nearly seven in ten say any capital gains tax must apply only to real gains, not phantom (nominal) increases.

As an MP commented to me this week, "One more poll til Christmas!"🎄

No more hidden spending – let’s Open the Books! 💥

This week Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s expenses back under the microscope, and once again, we’re reminded that MPs are able to hide their spending from the public – unlike Ministers or most Government agencies. 

I was amazed when I got to New Zealand and realised MPs' expenses aren’t subject to the Official Information Act, so they’re free to mark their own homework.

If MPs want to prove they’re truly accountable to taxpayers, they need to close this loophole and bring their spending out of the shadows.

MPs should face the same transparency standards as Ministers. We already know how this works in other countries like the UK, where – after a series of massive scandals over what, exactly, MPs were spending money on – full disclosure of expenses is now the norm. Why should New Zealand be different?

Want MPs to stop hiding behind closed doors? Head over to OpenTheBooks.nz and add your name to our petition to make full transparency the rule, not the exception.

✍️ Sign the petition to force MPs to Open the Books.

This week's Ratepayer Hero is whoever organised Porirua City Council’s swearing-in 🎂🦸‍♀️

Checking up on how councils spend ratepayer money is always insightful, and with the swearing-in of all new councillors now complete, the comparison between Porirua and Wellington City Council’s swearing-in ceremonies is a perfect example of how to (and how not to) use ratepayer funds.

Porirua City Council held its swearing-in ceremony and spent less than one-fifth of what Wellington City Council forked out for theirs. In fact, Porirua’s entire event cost less than Wellington's catering budget alone – making them this week’s Ratepayer Heroes.

While Wellington decided to roll out the red carpet (and a hefty price tag), Porirua kept it simple, showing that you don’t need to blow the budget to hold a dignified event.

{{recipient.first_name_or_friend}}, this is a classic case of what we’re always advocating against. Why should one council spend frivolously when another is getting the same result for a fraction of the cost?

It shouldn’t be too much to ask to hold every council to the same standards.

Have a great weekend ☺️

Tory Relf Head of Comms New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

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Dear Supporter,

It's Halloween today, but rather than 'trick or treat', we explain how Chris Hipkins has doubled down two tricks and no treats. 😤

Also in this week's Taxpayer Update, we uncover an $82,000 knees up, sorry, 'awards ceremony' to celebrate a string of beads on a wall, and (checks notes) a broom. We also highlight yet more eye-wateringly expensive Resource Management Act taxes. Oh, and we need to talk about Air New Zealand – the company that taxpayers bailed out in 2001 and then again 20 years later – and their new lobbying effort for permanent subsidies.

Let's get into it.

This Halloween, inflation isn’t the monster – Labour’s plan to tax it is 🎃

The main political news has been Labour's so-called "targeted" capital gains tax.

After promising in 2023 not to bring in any new taxes, Mr Hipkins has dug up from the grave many of the bad features of Sir Michael Cullen's Tax Working Group that even Dame Jacinda Ardern ensured was dead and buried.

Hipkins says this version is "fair" and "targeted". But peel off the mask and it’s a monster of a policy that punishes ordinary New Zealanders for inflation, not profit.

Thanks to the support of hundreds of online donations, newspapers across the country today are setting out the impact of Labour's new tax:

Click here to see a high res version.

Recidivist spooker... 👻 Can Hipkins be trusted not to expand his new tax? 💀

Last time Labour were in Opposition, they promised “no new taxes”. Then came the Auckland fuel tax, the ute tax, the visitor levy, the Amazon tax, three petrol excise hikes, and a bright-line extension that dragged in thousands of ordinary homeowners.

If a Party that swore off new taxes created six of them anyway once in Government, can we trust Labour not to expand this one? 🤔

A "fair" capital gains tax? Yeah right! 🤣

As we exposed this week, more than half of all house price growth over the past decade has been pure inflation. That’s imaginary gains, not real wealth. Yet Labour plans to tax those phantom "gains" at 28 percent! That means Kiwis could sell a property for the same real value they bought it for and still get hit with a massive tax bill.

And small business owners won’t escape either. Mechanics, cafés, and butchers who sell one premises to buy another will be caught too, thanks to Labour’s refusal to allow full rollover relief. It’s a tax on investment and growth, not fairness.

Earlier today we released our latest briefing paper which tackles Labour's false claims: Why Labour's capital gains tax fails the fairness test

What about the “treat”? Three free taxpayer-funded GP visits – if you can get an appointment while you're still sick... 🤡

Labour say they'll use the money to pay for three GP visits for every New Zealander.

So on Wednesday I had one of our Researchers, Ella, call a random list of GP clinics across the country to see whether the issue is one of affordability, or accessibility and workforce.

Our spot audit found that one in seven GP clinics can’t offer an appointment for four weeks!

Ella found the average wait time for the next appointment is more than a week (6.4 working days).

Free, sorry, taxpayer-funded visits don’t mean much if you can’t get through the door while you're sick!

Labour's policy feels more like a cheap political gimmick to justify a new tax than a serious health solution.

Free GP visits are meaningless if the doctor can’t see you until Christmas. People aren’t asking for a new tax-funded bureaucracy, just to see a doctor before their condition gets worse. You can read my comments to the media here or have a listen to Heather du Plessis-Allan on our findings here.

Travel news – Air New Zealand announces new destination: your pocket! ✈️💰

While most Kiwis are tightening their belts, Air New Zealand’s new boss has been doing the media rounds arguing for taxpayer subsidies for domestic flights.

Speaking to Radio NZ, Air NZ’s new CEO Nikhil Ravishankar said some regional routes need what he calls a “situational subsidy” to stay afloat during quieter times. In plain English, that means he wants taxpayers to foot the bill with a new 'subsidy class'.

It’s not the first time Air New Zealand has come calling. It's been bailed out by taxpayers twice in recent memory. After its disastrous purchase of Ansett collapsed in 2001, the Government pumped in nearly $900 million and effectively re-nationalised the airline to stop it going under. Then during COVID, when other airlines turned to debt and equity markets, Air NZ instead went cap-in-hand to the Government for a $1.5 billion sweetheart loan facility and further equity injections. Right now, despite all the taxpayer support, Air NZ isn't even covering its own cost of capital. There is plenty of financial commentary about Air NZ's struggles compared to Qantas' strength, and the recovery of airlines offshore.

If the Government really wanted to help Air NZ, it should force it to live up to the reality of market disciplines by selling it and promoting competition. History has taught us that government-owned airlines usually struggle and offer a poor deal to consumers.

We say cheques from taxpayers are a false economy, not a long term solution to regional air travel. Propping up loss-making routes would only further discourage innovation and stops smaller competitors from entering the market. 

Consents chaos is costing farmers a fortune 🚜💸

Our friends at Federated Farmers have released a new report that lays bare just how broken New Zealand’s consenting system has become, and the numbers are staggering.

Their nationwide survey found that the average farmer now spends nearly $45,000 (!!!) to gain a new resource consent - for things as simple as operating a well. Even consent renewals still clock in at around $28,000. In Canterbury, the average bill blows past $60,000. No wonder food is getting expensive...

The process has become a bureaucratic maze where success depends more on how many consultants you can afford than on the quality of your environmental practices. Councils are drowning farmers in paperwork, delays, and red tape while charging eye-watering fees for the privilege. The system has become so complex that even experts can’t guarantee consistent outcomes from one planner to the next.

Farmers are being punished for trying to follow the rules, with costs and uncertainty now acting as a handbrake on investment and productivity across the sector. It’s not about better environmental outcomes anymore, it’s about ticking boxes and keeping consultants employed.

Federated Farmers are calling for a common-sense fix by letting all existing consents roll over until the new RMA replacement system is ready. It’s simple, fair, and would save farmers time, money, and stress while the Government gets its reforms in order. Something we'll get in behind!

A big party for a broom, some beads – and $82,800 of your money 🎉🎨💸

Our Investigations Coordinator, Rhys, has revealed that the Ministry for Culture and Heritage handed over $82,800 to fund the Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Awards, a biennial competition exclusively for Māori artists aged 35 and under.

The Awards are designed to encourage young artists to create portraits around the theme of their tūpuna (ancestors). Fair enough, but the sheer size of the party is a hangover. 

Art (and the value of a party) will always be subjective – and that’s part of its beauty – but spending tens of thousands of dollars from the Ministry’s budget went to prizes for entries that, errr, might not reflect the priorities of hardworking New Zealanders...

The winning works the party was to celebrate were of a string of beads on a wall, while a runner-up features… a broom.

We’re not calling for an end to arts funding (as much as some interns would like us to!) – I’m a proud and loyal arts supporter myself. But we are calling for some common sense!

If the Government wants to spend public money on art prizes, it should be ready to explain why that’s a better use of funds than supporting local museums, heritage groups, or community arts projects that reach the full breadth of the public – and actually are art, perhaps.

Maybe next year’s theme could be “value for money.”

Thanks to everyone who wished me well last week. Northland was a delight! Have a great weekend.

Tory Relf Head of Comms New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

ps. Did you see our ads in the papers today? We’re fronting the campaign against Labour’s proposed new capital gains tax – but we can’t do it without your support. Thank you to everyone who has already donated. If you haven’t, every dollar will be used to fight Labour's unfair tax grab.