Category: ACT Party

Source: ACT Party

The following is a statement from Southland-based MP and ACT Health spokesperson Todd Stephenson:

I love food trucks. They bring life, commerce, and tasty treats to our towns.

But in Invercargill, joyless food fascists are trying to crack down.

The city council asked for feedback from locals on food truck locations. Instead, they got a scolding from the National Public Health Service.

These taxpayer-funded busybodies complained that Invercargill’s food trucks serve meals that ‘tend to be processed, high in fat, and in some cases sugar’.

Heaven forbid someone burning calories on a worksite might want to buy a bacon buttie or a donut.

The bureaucrats told the council it should use licencing fees to push food trucks into offering healthy food options. That’s just ridiculous. The council needs to maintain pipes and roads, not hire compliance officers sticking their beaks into food truck menus.

The health service goes on to whinge that food trucks ‘operate in locations where there are few or no other food options’.

In other words, if it weren’t for food trucks, some parts of town would have no food options at all. So why would we impose new rules that make it harder to open a food truck?

The NPHS needs to butt out. No-one is forced to buy nachos or a curry.

The good news is Invercargill City Council told the NPHS where to stick it, saying that so long as the food is safe, health concerns won’t be considered.

Meanwhile, with the Government looking to find savings, a new target may have presented itself.

Source: ACT Party

Responding to today’s confirmation that inflation has reduced to 2.2%, well within the official target range, ACT Leader David Seymour says:

“Annual inflation at last year’s election was 5.6% – and now it’s cut in half, and then some.

“This news is the beginning of real hope for Kiwis who’ve persevered through a cost-of-living crisis. We’ve turned the corner on interest rates, and now we’re returning to normalcy on inflation.

“While today’s inflation milestone is tremendous, price growth is still near the top of the target range and New Zealanders are still holding out for real relief. To turn hope into real prosperity the Government must keep saving, creating room for further interest rate cuts.

“We need to be ever vigilant of the inflation monster that Labour so recklessly let off the leash, so ACT will continue to push for the cancellation of spending programmes that do not generate real value for New Zealand.

“Of course, in the long run, reining in wasteful government spending means we do right by the Kiwis who pay the bills, letting them keep more of what they earn while paying down debt for future generations.”

Source: ACT Party

ACT’s Arts, Culture and Heritage spokesperson Todd Stephenson is questioning the value of funding the Film Commission after it was revealed that the organisation spent more than $145,000 on a trip for four to the Cannes Film Festival in France.

“In May, at the height of a cost-of-living crisis and when New Zealanders were reading apocalyptic headlines about austerity in Wellington, four Film Commission staff were enjoying a six-figure junket in Cannes,” says Mr Stephenson.

“The new Government had repeatedly emphasised the need for spending restraint, but the Film Commission – hardly a core government agency – doubled down on discretionary spending. In a single two-week blowout, four staff spent more than $24,000 on food and drink including fine French dining and dozens of bottles of wine and craft beer. In addition, $21,704 was spent on travel, $24,329 on accommodation, and $74,795 on ‘operational’ costs – including office rental and utilities.

“Browsing the receipts, obtained by the Taxpayers’ Union, is enough to make you sick.

“The irony is that the Film Commission spends on boozy dinners to schmooze executives into coming to New Zealand and taking millions of dollars in film subsidies. You’d think the subsidies would be attractive enough on their own.

“The film industry is lucky to receive subsidies, but when the distributor spends like this it discredits our film subsidy programme and tempts cuts.

“This is an organisation seemingly incapable of making spending sacrifices that households have been forced to make. Just last year they spent more than $16,000 on parties for their CEOs. And in 2022, another CEO was given a $438,700 severance package – despite only having been in the role for nine months, four of which were on paid leave.

“The Commission has doubled in size since 2014, but we’re left scratching our heads about what benefits have come from this bloat.

“ACT is always on the lookout for further savings, and the Film Commission has just presented itself on a silver platter. Would anyone even notice if the Commission’s operational budget was cut in half?”

Source: ACT Party

A year after the 2023 election, ACT is celebrating the long list of actions already taken to empower New Zealanders.

“In Opposition, we spent six years listening to New Zealanders,” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “This resulted in a comprehensive election platform with a commitment not just to change the Government, but to deliver real change.

“Thanks to New Zealanders’ support, on October 14 we were put in a position to deliver, and less than 11 months after signing the coalition agreement, we’ve made serious progress.

“The breadth and intensity of our action in Government speaks for itself. Even our critics complain at how we’re punching above our weight for a small team. We call it value for your vote.

“Below is a list of actions ACT has taken that reflect ideas we campaigned on, and on which Kiwis elected us to deliver. Together, these actions break down barriers for Kiwis working to succeed on their own terms. We’re addressing challenges in the economy, law and order, democracy, education, health and more.”

THE ECONOMY:

• Cut wasteful Government spending to get inflation under control.
• Delivered tax cuts to ease the cost of living.
• Restored the Reserve Bank’s focused on tackling inflation.
• Restored the option of 90-day trials for all businesses.
• Established the Ministry for Regulation to cut red tape to make doing business simpler.
• Commenced two regulatory reviews for early childhood education and agricultural products.
• Repealed the Auckland Fuel Tax.
• Repealed the Ute Tax.
• Repealed “Fair Pay” Agreements
• Repealed Labour’s resource management regime.
• Agreed on core design features for a replacement of the Resource Management Act centred on property rights.
• Sped up timeframes for overseas investment applications.
• Increased the use of sanctions for beneficiaries who can work but refuse to take steps to find a job.
• Eased restrictions to accessing credit under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act.
• Scrapped EECA’s “decarbonising industry” (GIDI) fund.
• Scrapped Auckland Light Rail, the Lake Onslow hydro scheme, and funding for Let’s Get Wellington Moving.
• Started phasing back in interest deductibility.
• Suspended the requirement for new Significant Natural Areas.
• Unveiled a new contracting gateway test to provide certainty to workers and businesses.
• Began delivering regulatory relief for businesses dealing with anti-money laundering rules.
• Launched consultation to improve the Holidays Act.
• Launched a nationwide roadshow to inform improvements to health and safety law.
• Launched a framework for Regional Deals between central and local government to deliver infrastructure.
• Stopped blanket speed limit reductions and enabled faster speed limits on our safest roads.
• Introduced legislation to reverse the oil and gas ban and promote the use of Crown minerals.
• Introduced tenancy legislation to enable Pet Bonds, restore 90-day ‘no cause’ terminations, and restore tenants’ and landlords’ notice periods to 21 and 42 days.
• Introduced legislation to improve access to building products available overseas.
• Introduced a member’s bill to liberalise Easter Trading.

LAW AND ORDER:

• Increased funding for Corrections to lift prison capacity.
• Abolished Labour’s prisoner reduction target.
• Defunded Section 27 “cultural reports”.
• Commenced a review of the Firearms Registry.
• Strengthened consequences for Kāinga Ora tenants who engage in repeated antisocial behaviour.
• Strengthened Firearms Prohibition Orders.
• Made gang membership an aggravating factor at sentencing.
• Introduced legislation to reinstate Three Strikes.
• Introduced a member’s bill to make rehabilitation or education a condition of parole.
• Introduced legislation to toughen sentences for attacks on workers and give weight to the victim’s circumstances at sentencing.
• Introduced legislation to amend Part 6 of the Arms Act affecting clubs and ranges.

STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY:

• Directed the public service to deliver services based on need, not race, and end “progressive procurement” quotas.
• Abolished the Māori Health Authority.
• Advanced the Treaty Principles Bill.
• Restored local referendums on Māori Wards.
• Scrapped Labour’s law to give 16-year-olds votes in local elections.
• Broadened the terms of reference of the Covid-19 Royal Commission with a second phase.
• Defunded the Christchurch Call.
• Halted work on hate speech laws.
• Introduced legislation to remove Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act.
• Seen Otago University adopt a free speech policy in response to ACT’s coalition agreement.

EDUCATION:

• Restored charter schools, now with the option of state school conversion, with the first schools to open next year.
• Streamlined early childhood education regulations.
• Delivered an action plan to improve school attendance and started publishing attendance data weekly.
• Improved the school lunch programme to feed more kids for less money.
• Switched fees-free university from first year to third.

HEALTH:

• Delivered Pharmac its largest-ever budget, which has now funded life-saving medicines.
• Repealed the Therapeutic Products Act.
• Restored the sale of medicine containing pseudoephedrine.

Source: ACT Party

ACT’s Local Government spokesperson Cameron Luxton is urging Wellington City Council to dig deep on cuts to wasteful spending as it revisits its long-term plan following the cancellation of the sale of the Council’s airport shares this week.

“With or without the sale, it’s clear that that the council is spending far too much, hiking rates too far, and strangling the life out of the city,” says Mr Luxton.

“It is a failure of governance that the Mayor and those councillors in favour of the sale were not able to convince their colleagues that the proceeds from the sale would not be wasted.

“No council should own an airport, but equally, no council should be spending as recklessly as Wellington is.

“Looking at the previously approved long-term plan, and related documents, obvious areas for savings include:

• $112.9m to remove car access along the Golden mile
• At least $104.4m on rescuing the city library
• $115.2m on cycle lanes
• $114m on a food waste recycling scheme and wheelie bins for general rubbish to be collected less frequently than the status quo

“These obvious areas for savings just scratch the service but collectively would far outstrip the roughly $321 million value of the airport shares.

“With the dire state of the council’s finances, even sacred cows like the wrecked Town Hall and the zoo should be on the table for sale.

“This week’s decision was a scathing indictment on the Council’s ability to serve the people on Wellington. But if the failure to sell airport shares forces the Council to take a hard look at its spending, that’s a silver lining.

“The introduction of unelected commissioners, as we saw in Tauranga, would be a disastrous outcome. Wellington’s council must urgently demonstrate its competence, dig deep to cut low-value spending and liquidate assets, and finally show some respect to ratepayers.”

Source: ACT Party

ACT Leader David Seymour is welcoming a new scientific poll that shows almost twice as many New Zealanders support the Treaty Principles Bill as oppose it.

The Curia poll, published by pollster David Farrar this morning, shows 46% in support of the Bill’s proposed principles as agreed by Cabinet, versus just 25% opposed and 29% unsure.

“A prior poll from the same company last October showed higher support. At that time Green and Labour supporters agreed with the principles, however they have swung against the Bill as their parties have entered Opposition,” says Seymour.

“Even as opposition groups rally their supporters against the Bill, the promise of equal rights for all New Zealanders proves to be popular.

“A ratio of two-to-one support for the proposed principles suggests the Bill could easily pass if put to New Zealanders at a referendum, as ACT would like to see. That is why other parties are so keen to shut down the debate – they know they’re on the wrong side of public opinion.

“The modern ‘partnership’ interpretation of the Treaty, which divides us into two groups with different rights based on ancestry, is an invention of the unelected judiciary and would not have passed any democratic process. That’s where the Treaty Principles Bill comes in. We’re giving everyone the chance to participate in a meaningful debate on the purpose of the Treaty in a modern, multi-ethnic democracy.

“ACT’s challenge to the Bill’s opponents is to explain why they want to deny New Zealanders a say on something so fundamental to our future.

“Tuesday’s widely watched debate between myself and Ngāti Toa’s Helmut Modlik proved it is possible to have civil, substantive debate on the Treaty. With the Bill set for introduction to Parliament next month, followed by a six-month select committee process, I look forward to many more such constructive discussions about our future.”

The Curia poll of 958 New Zealanders was taken from Thursday 3 October to Monday 7 October.

Source: ACT Party

ACT’s Finance spokesperson Todd Stephenson is slamming Wellington City Council after this afternoon’s vote to stop the sale of its 34% stake in Wellington Airport.

“Today’s decision is a complete departure from reality. Wellington’s infrastructure is failing, rates are through the roof, and the Council’s debt ceiling is about to burst, yet the council is stuck playing sharemarket games,” says Mr Stephenson.

“There is no good reason for a council to partially own an airport.

“Councils must focus on delivering the basic public services they are responsible for: making sure roads are maintained, water systems work, and buses run on time. Instead, Wellington’s council is forcing higher rates onto its residents and exposing them to an unacceptable level of risk by having so much money locked up in one asset.

“As the Council was making its decision today, brown wastewater was literally spewing into the harbour. If that isn’t sending a clear enough message to councillors about how misplaced their priorities are, then next year’s local body elections can’t come soon enough.”

Source: ACT Party

“New Zealand universities should be alarmed by new rankings that suggest they are becoming less internationally relevant,” says ACT Tertiary Education spokesperson Dr Parmjeet Parmar.

“No New Zealand universities have improved their position in the THE World University Rankings. These rankings are of real importance to international students who pay full fees and effectively subsidise our university system.

“According to the rankings, there is one area in which every single New Zealand university has lost credibility, and that is their international outlook. That measure covers their proportion of international students and staff and their level of international collaboration.

“ACT is deeply concerned that a growing obsession with the Treaty of Waitangi and local indigenous knowledge will only see universities become more inward-looking, less internationally-relevant, and less attractive to international students.

“Take the example of the University of Auckland, which has fallen out of the top 150 for the first time since 2020, and within three years has fallen 6.1 percentage points in its international outlook score.

“From next year, the University plans to force all first-year students to complete a ‘Waipapa Taumata Rau’ course covering the Treaty of Waitangi and traditional Māori knowledge systems.

“This compulsory course will not effectively serve international students, who make up 31 percent of the student body. Nor will it effectively serve Kiwi students who want to prepare themselves for an international career.

“The University of Auckland’s compulsory course is just one example. Academics and students from multiple universities have told ACT that indigenous knowledge and Treaty propaganda has diffused into almost every area of study. How will universities attract international lecturers by asking them to put a local indigenous lens over their years of hard-studied subject-matter expertise?

“If our universities want to collaborate on the world stage, they need to rediscover the value of universal knowledge systems such as the scientific method, and the free and open contest of ideas. Forcing students to learn and staff to teach within the framework of unscientific, politicised, indigenous knowledge systems is not the answer.

“Putting indigenous knowledge on a pedestal may impact universities’ rankings on other metrics too. As ACT has previously argued, effective academic inquiry requires that all knowledge is contestable.”

Source: ACT Party

This afternoon, the Reserve Bank made another cut to the Official Cash Rate, from 5.25% down to 4.75%. ACT Leader David Seymour responds:

“Today’s rate cut is great news. Lower interest rates mean real relief for Kiwis with mortgages, also relieving pressure on rents, and freeing up spending cash to quench thirsty local businesses.

“However, on the Reserve Bank’s part, a 50 basis-point cut is a multi-billion dollar mea culpa, and the latest twist of a nauseating three-year fiscal and monetary roller coaster.

“Today’s cut bookends a series of excesses. The too-easy money of COVID times spiked house prices and inflation. Then, interest rates shot up, house prices crashed back down. Today, Kiwis are finally getting off a three-year fiscal and monetary rollercoaster, feeling nauseous for their troubles.

“Kiwis have done the responsible thing. Interest rates were also driven up by Labour’s COVID spending blowout. Households responded by making spending sacrifices – and changing the Government.

“Our efforts are paying off. Together, our prudent spending has seen inflation ease back and given the Reserve Bank room to cut interest rates. If we stay the course, we should expect further relief in the coming months.

“However, interest rates are still painfully high compared with pre-COVID times. ACT is determined to speed the path back to lower rates, lower living costs, and real economic growth.

“We must build on our progress in cutting the waste and red tape from Wellington. That is how we honour the efforts of households working to secure a prosperous future for themselves.”

Source: ACT Party

The Haps

Devastation in Dunedin and the loss of HMNZS Manawanui are hurting New Zealanders in different ways. They also underline what Free Press argued last week, that the Government needs to think hard about its capital assets. It holds over half a trillion in assets, but does it own the right things, do core infrastructure and defence need more commitment? Meanwhile we’ve received voluminous praise for David Seymour’s performance Q+A with Jack Tame last week.

Capital Gains Tax… Again

ANZ CEO Antonia Watson revived the unending debate about a capital gains tax for New Zealand. Free Press welcomes business leaders talking about public policy. We’d all benefit if they did it more. Too often we hear business leaders say things privately that we wish they’d say publicly but they’re usually too afraid of criticism.

We just don’t agree with Watson about the capital gains tax. It always seems to be a band-aid for concerns about housing, but it won’t fix that, and what New Zealanders really need is more capital. This week, once more with feeling, Free Press goes through the usual arguments for a capital gains tax and sets out why they’re wrong.

Perhaps the worst argument for a capital gains tax is ‘everyone else has one.’ Practically every other Government imposes a capital gains tax on its citizens, except the Swiss Federal Government. Being like Switzerland can’t be the worst thing for the New Zealand economy.

Even if ours was the only Government not levying a capital gains tax on its citizens, the argument still doesn’t work. Governments do silly things all over the world, and we don’t need to copy every one of them.

Others say the Government needs the money. We’d argue that it needs to spend better, and it is improving, but there is better evidence the Government doesn’t need more money, at least not from a capital gains tax.

The New Zealand Government is the second biggest taxer in the Asia Pacific region (behind Japan) with total revenues of 33.8 per cent of GDP. Every Asia-Pacific Government has a Capital Gains Tax. It’s difficult to argue a Government raising more revenue than dozens of Governments with capital gains taxes needs a capital gains tax for lack of money.

Then there’s the fairness argument. People who make money from capital should pay tax like people who work for their money. Sounds fair, but the reality is capital gains are already caught by income tax.

Anyone who buys a farm, a business, or a property is really buying a stream of income in the future. That income is taxed. A company with future income worth $10 million before tax is not worth $10 million though. It is only worth the after-tax income. You’ll be lucky to get $7 million. You’ll already lose $3 million-odd, that’s the tax that whoever buys it will pay.

Putting a tax on the price of the asset each time it’s sold is just nasty. The argument with housing is that house prices go up regardless of how much rental income they produce.

People even claim a capital gains tax would make housing more affordable. Any realistic capital gains tax would apply to all businesses, but only to houses you don’t live in. Nobody who wants a capital gains tax wants one ‘on the family home.’ On balance it would be more of a tax on businesses than on houses, so much for shifting investment away from housing.

Maybe it would at least stop ‘speculators’ from pushing up house prices by buying ‘more houses than they need to live in’? Unlikely when the new tax has gone on every other kind of investment, too.

Just like L.A., London, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Vancouver have all had outrageous house prices with a capital gains tax, a capital gains tax won’t make housing affordable in Auckland. Prices are set by supply and demand, and so long as supply doesn’t keep up with demand, prices will rise.

A capital gains tax really just makes the Government a silent partner in property investment, it doesn’t change the underlying fundamentals of the housing market. It certainly doesn’t comfort a first home buyer to know that the Government took a share of their eye-watering purchase price.

We hope these arguments are helpful for repelling demands for a capital gains tax. They’re technical though. The real question is whether the goal is to grow the pie, or divide the pie?

If you think New Zealand can’t get any richer, and it’s just a matter of pulling the ‘rich’ down a peg or two and dividing up the wealth, maybe it’s time to talk about a new tax. On the other hand, maybe it’s time to shelve the distraction, acknowledge our lack of a CGT is a strength, and get back to making New Zealand wealthier overall.

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