The Taxpayers’ Union has welcomed the Government’s decision to take the proposed social insurance scheme off the table for the rest of this parliament but has warned against bringing back similar proposals in future.

Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Callum Purves, said:

“The Government’s unemployment insurance scheme would have hit Kiwi families and businesses hard. This proposed jobs tax would have cost the median worker over $800 a year at a time when people are already struggling with the cost of living.

“The Taxpayers’ Union welcomes the decision to take this scheme off the table, which will come as a great relief to taxpayers.

"But it isn’t just the wrong time to bring in the policy. It’s the wrong policy too. Paying 80% of someone’s salary not to work for six months would have unsurprisingly created perverse incentives for people to stay unemployed for longer, been open to abuse by making redundancy more attractive, and failed to address skill shortages for sectors who are struggling to find employees."
 

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