Media Statement -Thursday, 25 March, 2004

Copeland: Family tax breaks should come first

The tax breaks and other assistance promised by the Government to families with children and amounting to $1 billion per annum when fully implemented should rank ahead of tax cuts for the rich, according to United Future Revenue spokesman Gordon Copeland.

He was responding to comments by ACT's Rodney Hide urging National leader Don Brash to drop the personal tax rate from 39 cents to 25 cents in the dollar within three years of taking office, even for the very wealthy.

"However Mr Hide is silent concerning ACT's support or otherwise for the $1 billion package. Do they care at all for the welfare of hard working NZ families with children?

"United Future's approach is more holistic. We want to see the threshold for the 39 cent rate lifted from $60,000 to about $66,000, the company tax rate reduced to 30 cents, income splitting for couples raising kids, and fully support the Government's assistance to low and middle income working families, superannuitants and beneficiaries raising children.

"Mr Hide recommends that voters on the extreme right support ACT as a coalition partner for Dr Brash but there is a better choice. The obvious course is for those who believe that New Zealand can choose both faster economic growth and build families is to vote United Future, thus providing a Dr Brash-led government with a coalition partner dedicated to those goals."

Ends.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>