Free Press -ACT’s regular bulletin
Free Press
ACT’s regular
bulletin
Some Numbers
The Baby Moko
case is so evil and grotesque it will lead to much soul
searching about child abuse and neglect in general. Every
year approximately 60,000 babies are born in New Zealand,
12,000 to a parent on a benefit. There is something very
wrong when a substantial proportion of New Zealanders think
you needn’t have a job to provide for children.
ACT’s Solution? Children
First
Lindsay Mitchell gave an excellent speech
at ACT’s conference this year. She argued that income
management, where benefits are paid as rent, electricity and
food cards, had been a success for teenaged beneficiaries.
She argued that the same should be done for anyone who has a
child while on a benefit. We’re not taking anything away
from the children, on the contrary we’re trying to make
sure the kid gets the benefit of the benefit.
Tax Numbers
Sometimes the press get
it completely wrong. This article on how much tax New
Zealanders pay at different income levels was placed at the
bottom of the Stuff website by editors but topped the
‘most-read’ section all day. It tells us that three per
cent of income earners pay 24 per cent of all income tax
while 40 per cent receive more in cash benefits than they
pay in tax.
What About Indirect
Taxes?
But wait, those 40 per cent also pay GST
and petrol and tobacco and alcohol excise taxes. Yes they
do, but so do all taxpayers. Indirect taxes make up about a
third of all taxes, with income taxes on business and
personal income making up the other two thirds. Could it be
that many low income earners are net taxpayers once indirect
taxes are considered?
But What About
Non-cash Benefits?
Of course education, health,
police, roads, conservation and so on are all non cash
benefits. They cost far more than the revenues that come
from indirect taxes. Indirect taxes do not make low income
earners net taxpayers.
What About Lifecycle
Effects?
A better objection is that more people
are net taxpayers over their lifetime. For instance a
University Student puts a very high demand on the taxpayer
but pays little tax, as does a typical super annuitant
except with healthcare instead of education. Free
Press is not aware of a high quality study of net tax
paid over a lifetime under the current scheme.
The Wash
Next time you hear Labour,
the Greens, the unions, or some taxpayer funded talking head
complain that we live in some sort of hardened careless
hyper-capitalist wasteland, just remember we live in a
country where three per cent of taxpayers pay a quarter of
all income tax, and where 40 per cent receive more tax
credits than they pay in tax, and where services received
easily outweigh GST and other indirect taxes.
Brexit
Of course we had to mention
it but Free Press does not claim any special insight
into the Brexit. If we knew things that the other hordes of
commentators have not already said, we promise we’d tell
you. We are generally in favour of the Brexit because we
hate any large unelected bureaucracy, but we worry that this
is the start of a general grumpiness about foreigners –not
just in Britain- that could be dangerous.
If
Goods Don’t Cross Borders
Frederic Bastiat
said that if goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will.
The Victorian era of free trade was largely peaceful but WWI
was preceded by an anti-trade era. Nations put up trade
barriers again during the Great Depression and we all know
what happened after that. It is no coincidence that the
past forty years of comparative peace have been a period of
free trade.
27 vs 60 per
cent
The hope comes from younger people. 60 per
cent of over 65s voted for Brexit, vs only 27 per cent of
18-24s. It may be that the kids are naïve, or perhaps just
more open minded about foreigners. What is clear is that the
generations are divided.
Harbinger?
The millennial
generations are larger (more numerous per cohort) than the
boomers, they’re just not all voting yet. As they mature
they will start winning contests on questions as fundamental
as the Brexit. Issues such as superannuation will be key
battlegrounds in New Zealand.
Incidentally
People who recently
turned 18 or gained permanent residency can vote in this
year’s council elections. Friday 12 August is the latest
date for enrolment and even Australians without
Permanent Residency (so long as they've been here for 12+
months) can vote. If you or someone you know doesn't receive
an enrolment pack by July 4, then they're not enrolled but
they can shortcut the process by enrolling online here: http://www.elections.org.nz/voters/enrol-check-or-update-now/how-enrol
We’ve Been Thinking
Free
Press may have solved one of Auckland’s most urgent
problems, the need to unite behind a single centre-right
mayoral candidate. The current three way is dividing not
only votes but all important political oxygen. Small wonder
the Mt Roskill Labour Electorate Committee are in raptures
about replacing Phil Goff with their first new MP in 35
years.
Gladiators
Free
Press is offering to host an all-or-nothing gladiatorial
primary for the centre-right. If they don’t choose one
from among themselves they’re all doomed anyway. We
thought about giving them maces to knock each other off a
beam but that’s not democracy. Instead, enrolled
supporters would vote using a special phone app,
whaddayareckon?
Sexit?
We
understand to be a Catholic method of birth
control.
ends