Taxpayer Update: 🚨 NEW POLL 🚨 Nats now trailing Labour 📉 | More mandarins than China? 🇨🇳 | Tax system about to get more expensive 🤦
Hi,
Next week the Labour and National Parties have their respective caucus 'retreats' before Parliament resumes the week of the 27th. And it's all bad news for Christopher Luxon, according to the latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll.
NEW POLL: Nats fall behind Labour for the first time since
The clear message from voters on what's concerning them 📣
Despite the media's attention on Māori / Treaty issues, just eight percent of respondents cited it as their major voting issue (compared to a combined 40 percent who said the economy or cost of living). Note too that the December poll (which these results are compared to) was just a few weeks after the high profile hīkoi.
For many families, Christmas has been a painful economic mirror, and this poll appears to reflect it – or as Bill Clinton's campaign strategist, James Carville, famously said: "It's the economy, stupid".
More information about the poll and how to get your hands on the full results can be found here.
Willis out-Mao-ing Mao? 😳 More mandarins than Communist China 🇨🇳🍊
Thanks to the supporter who flagged this Spectator UK "Steerpike" piece (requires sub) which outlines how, incredibly, on a per capita basis the UK has more civil servants than communist China.
Here at the Taxpayers' Union, we wanted to see how New Zealand compared to both Britain and our buddies in Beijing. 👀
To clarify: we're only counting actual mandarins (i.e. bureaucrats) not front-line personnel like doctors, nurses, and teachers – or those working for government-owned businesses.
China’s 8 million bureaucrats work out to about 0.56 percent of the population. Far too many if you ask me. 😉
Incredibly, the UK has more. Some 0.8 percent of the UK population are bureaucrats.
So how do we compare? Well, with nearly 63,000 taxpayer funded bureaucrats (even after Nicola Willis’ so-called ‘cuts’) that's some 1.18 percent of the population.
That's right, on a per-person basis, New Zealand employs twice as many bureaucrats as Communist China.
It's not often the Taxpayers' Union holds [checks notes] Communist China as the better model of government efficiency, but here we are! Time for some reining in, Comrade Nicola?
More seriously though, no one could accuse the UK Government of being lean. The short point is, Wellington needs a proper clear out if the Government is to get on top of its fiscal mess.
New Public Service Commissioner talking truth about the bloat 📈
Nicola Willis might not be taking matters seriously, but good news from the Public Service Commission, with its new head Sir Brian Roche now publicly questioning the state of Wellington's bloated bureaucracy.
Roche says he wants fewer excuses and more action. Cutting to the heart of the issue, Roche reminded chief executives “[w]e are funded by one source of money — and that is the taxpayer — and…we need to try to simplify and streamline, not fragment and complicate.”
Could Roche be the taxpayer champion we’ve been waiting for? 🦸🏻♂️
Not since the valour of Sir Roderick Deane (in the mid-1980s) has New Zealand seen a State Services/Public Services Commissioner show real leadership and slim the size of the public service while improving performance.
So if Sir Brian means what he says, and can survive its toughest challenge yet (the bureaucracy itself!) he's worth every penny.
Your humble Taxpayers' Union has approached Sir Brian's office to ask him onto our Taxpayer Talk podcast. If he agrees, it'll be a good sign that the new public-service-Sheriff is indeed the champion for taxpayers we've been hoping for. On the other hand, if he's just another insider whose actions won't reflect the talking points, we doubt he'll accept.
We'll keep you posted...
US (the Trump administration is expected to pull out of the scheme) the key sponsor of the initiative won't even be applying the rules!
Say, Waaaaaatt? 👀
We'd love to give you some answers on why the Minister isn't putting the kibosh on this backward step (and answers to other questions – such as what Ministers are doing to rein in IRD leaking taxpayers' data) but this Minister's phone is off the hook.
Last year, your humble taxpayer advocates asked to meet with Minister Watts (as we have with loads of other Ministers). But, this Minister said no. The only one to date who has refused to meet with our friendly team.
Not a good sign, is it? Even Nicola Willis will take a meeting (and credit to her).
$35k of taxpayer money propping up race-based ticket pricing event 🤯 🎶
A music event down in Christchurch has been charging racially-tiered ticket pricing. And here's the kicker - your money is footing the bill.
The event charged three tiers of tickets: $15 for early birds, $20 for Māori and Pasifika attendees, and $30 for everyone else.
"Browntown" received a $35,000 grant from Creative NZ last year, supposedly to promote wider community involvement in the arts. But should your hard-earned taxpayer money be supporting events that charge more or less depending on the attendee's race?
The real issue here is that taxpayers are still being lumbered with the costs of Creative New Zealand bureaucrats supporting their pet projects (even if they breach anti-discrimination laws).
As long time readers of Taxpayer Update know full well, it's long past time some Creative New Zealand's ridiculous funding handouts were scrapped.
That's all for this week, have a great weekend.
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