|
📌 View
Online | 🚀 Share
on Facebook | 📬 Forward
this Email
Happy
Friday, Friend.
Lots to cover this week so let's get straight
into it...
1News isn't even pretending to be impartial anymore
1News
political editor, Maiki Sherman, could barely hold back her excitement
on Monday night when she announced the results of the latest 1News
Verian poll, which showed the centre-right dropping a few
points in support and handing Te Pāti Māori the balance of
power.
According to Sherman, ACT's
score of 7% (down just 1.6 points since the election) somehow meant
the party's support was in "free fall"
and, with New Zealand First polling less than 5% (the
threshold to get into Parliament), the poll result "could be
mayday for the coalition".
Can someone please tell Maiki the next election is two-and-a-half
years away? 🤣
She also described
the Government's savings as "austerity in absolute
overdrive". She needs to get a grip. The measures
the Government has taken to stem out of control spending don't even
wind back the increases to the levels they were in June last year! Is
Maiki really so out of touch with the reality of the Government's
books, or did Grant Robertson hack her tele prompter?
When a lobby group presents polling with less spin than
the state-owned media company, maybe there's a
problem...
We know a little bit about the presentation of polling. After all,
our monthly Taxpayers' Union – Curia poll is both more
regular and was more accurate in predicting the last election result
than TVNZ's effort. As we say in our office, "a poll is a poll" – it
speaks for itself. Our poll results regularly upset National, and
Labour (as you'd expect). You don't need to gleefully add commentary
which undermines the very objectivity that a professional/scientific
third-party poll is supposed to be all about.
It should (but probably doesn't) concern TVNZ's board, that
the Taxpayers' Union reports its poll with less
sensationalism than our impartial state broadcaster.
A bad habit of dodgy poll reporting
But
as "the best pollster in New Zealand" (as described by Sir John Key),
David Farrar, pointed out, Maiki Sherman's gleefulness wasn't an
isolated incident. TVNZ's news outfit also put out two other polls
this week with the same slanted framing.
On Tuesday, TVNZ reported under the
headline: A
"slim majority agree with public sector
cuts". Here's the tweet of the same story:
Bzzzzzt. Wrong.
According to the poll, 52% of
people said the public sector cuts were "about right" or "didn't go
far enough", as opposed to just 35% who thought it went "too
far". Slim, apparently...
Even former Labour MP Stuart Nash has labelled the recent
reporting "absolutely shocking".
Doubling down on the trend, on Wednesday, TVNZ did even better,
releasing a third poll, this time on support for the Fast–Track
Approvals Bill. The poll found a statistically
even split of 40% of voters in favour, and 41%
against.
But you wouldn't have known that from the headline which,
(colour me surprised) made out that most people didn't support the
bill: claiming Just 40% support, and combining the 'don't
knows' with the actual 'noes'! 🤦♂️
Maiki's gleeful reporting on Monday night was bad enough, but the
persistency of anti-government framing suggests that TVNZ's newsroom
has lost its way, and is either ignorant, or ignoring, the tradition
of state-owned media avoiding 'taking a side'.
What's the point in owning TVNZ anyway?
TVNZ is up front
that it doesn’t do a public broadcaster-style “strictly news”
approach, nor does it even ensure its John Campbell-type highly paid
“opinion” contributors are balanced with even just a single
conservative. Its only hard news shows (Sunday and Fair Go) are being
axed, and Breakfast and Seven Sharp are so journalistically shallow
that companies and causes can pay to be in them!
Now, even 1News
political polls aren't being presented without an agenda.
So the obvious question is, why should TVNZ remain
owned by taxpayers?
TVNZ doesn't want to be public broadcaster any more: Sign the
petition to sell it
Proponents of state media say that it is important in a democracy
to have impartial sources of news, but TVNZ and 1News have
given up all pretence of being impartial.
We say that they can't have it both ways. Either they are a
commercial player (and should be covering their cost of capital and
paying a dividend back to taxpayers) or they are an impartial public
service news service. Right now, they are a subsidised
propaganda outlet.
The
Government has a debt problem. If we're lucky, TVNZ might still be
worth something. Selling off TVNZ now could be a 'two birds, one
stone' solution..
A private TVNZ would likely be more balanced and diverse than what
it offers currently. It would be more incentivised to cater to an
audience underserved by the current selection of media.
It's
time the Government took action and sold off TVNZ while it's still
worth something.
If TVNZ is sold off and left to sink or swim on entirely the merits
of its programming, then it would be forced to try harder harder to
build trust with Kiwis. If
you agree, sign the petition to sell TVNZ.
Slew of secret judges' perks finally exposed 👨⚖️
For years we've been trying to get the secret list of judges' perks
from the Ministry of Justice, which have – until now –
effectively been a state secret. Props to Andrea Vance and
the Sunday Star Times for their dogged determination in
pursuing this that has finally resulted in a breakthrough.
And
no wonder the judiciary wanted to keep their entitlements behind bars.
It's
nothing short of a courtroom rort.
Here's a breakdown of just some of the many perks
judges receive (they're not all public, yet...):
🤑 5,360 km per
year for each judge (and a plus one!) on any non-work-related plane
rides.
🤑 Free limo rides to and from court
outside normal working hours “when transport by taxi or
other means is difficult or inconvenient”.
🤑 A
$20,000 housing allowance for judges who regularly
sit in Wellington but live outside the
capital.
🤑 $500 towards a new pen and
briefcase.
🤑 One year's sabbatical
for each 10 years of service.
🤑 On retirement,
a month's paid leave for every year of service (discounting
the sabbatical).
In what other job does your employer pay for you to swan
around the country with virtually unlimited plane rides for you and
your partner!?
We say Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann needs to front up
and explain why these allowances are necessary, particularly when many
Kiwis can barely afford their weekly groceries, let alone the luxuries
that are being provided to those already on half-a-million a year
salaries.
New Zealanders slammed with third-highest tax hike in the OECD
🔝
According
to new figures from the OECD, the average single income earner in New Zealand saw
their effective tax rate increase by 4.5% from 2022 to
2023 – more than almost every other country in the
developed world.
While politicians didn't announce income tax hikes, thanks to
inflation, it's happened anyway. It's called 'fiscal drag' or 'bracket
creep'.
Thanks to high inflation, earners have been bumped up into higher
tax brackets and are paying a bigger share of their wages in taxes
despite being no better off.
To put this in perspective: a minimum wage worker doing 40 hours is now paying
the third (30 cents on the dollar) marginal tax
rate!
But one-off tax relief is only a temporary fix. Unless tax brackets
are automatically adjusted for inflation each year, tax-relief is only
a partial return of stolen income, attached to a promise to keep on
stealing.
A Kiwi on the
average income of $66,196 is paying $2,556 more in tax each year
because of successive Governments' failure to adjust income tax
brackets for inflation since they were last reset in
2010.
We look forward to Nicola Willis sorting this out on 30 May when
she delivers her first budget. 😉🙏💰
Seeing straight through the Window & Glass Association's
patch-protection 🪟
Here at the Taxpayers' Union, as a group on the side of
taxpayers and consumers, we take pride in calling out the hundreds of
special interest lobbies, even if they're on the side of
"business".
This week, the Window and Glass Association tried it
on: whinging
about the Government opening up the building sector to [check notes]
overseas competition. 🤔
Goodness, we can't allow that. Windows?! Built overseas? Perish the
thought. 😱
The Window and Glass Association claims overseas
products "won't be fit for purpose" and consumers won't
be able to access replacement parts and warranties.
But those crocodile tears simply don't stand up to
scrutiny. Every day people make tradeoffs in the products they buy and
ultimately make what they believe is the best choice for themselves.
We see it with those who buy a Japanese car over a European one so
it's easier to get replacement parts. Trusting consumers to make their
own decisions is nothing new.
The group also argued that
restricting foreign competition and forcing people to pay more for
building products would "support local
manufacturers". But artificially forcing people to pay more for
one product simply means they have less money to spend elsewhere, in
effect harming other local businesses. Ironically, economists call
arguments like those made by the Association a "broken window
fallacy".
 👆 The Association's broken window
fallacy in a nutshell 👆
As a part time DIY'er (or so he says), my colleague Connor
told Radio NZ, "Only a special interest industry group
could complain about reducing building costs during a housing
crisis."
Chris Hipkins caught red-handed fibbing about public sector
statistics 🤥
Chris Hipkins isn't letting the facts get in the way of his defence
of his public sector union mates. His latest ploy to skew the
narrative on the back-office bureaucracy problem is to pretend there
isn't one and fib about the numbers.
In
an interview on Newshub earlier this week, Chris Hipkins
said that the the number of public sector employees as a proportion of
the total NZ workforce was smaller now than when he first took
over:
"The size of the public sector
workforce relative to the overall size of the workforce is actually
slightly less than it was when we first became the
government."
Bzzzzt. Wrong.
Data from the
Public Service Commission shows that the total number of
employees in the public sector as a proportion of the total NZ
workforce actually increased under Labour's watch from 17.9%
in 2017 to 18.7% in 2023.
(Here's
the link for the benefit of any journalists wanting to factcheck Mr.
Hipkins)
To make things worse, Hipkins is trying to pull the wool over New
Zealanders' eyes by using public sector figures (which include nurses,
teachers, etc) rather than public service figures (ie the
bureaucrats), which is where the real bloat is at.
In fact, the
number of pen-pushers in Wellington grew at more than three times the
rate of education workers during the Labour
Government!
If only Hipkins had been Minister of Education. Oh wait.
And it's not like Mr. Hipkins would know the difference between the
public sector and public service and is in full
knowledge that he's comparing apples with oranges. It's not like he's
been Minister
for the Public Service or anything...
Government departments cheating with their staffing cuts 🥸
When is a 'cut' a cut? It appears departments across the Public
Service have been playing games with their job cut figures too.
Government
departments have been overcooking the scale of the job reductions by
including roles that don't currently have anyone in
them!
For instance, the Department
of Internal Affairs just last week told staff that they would be
cutting 59 roles. Cue the outrage by the likes of Maiki the public sector
unions. But of the 59, 42 are already
vacant!
And the Ministry of
Education, which
claimed to be getting rid of more roles than any other department,
at 565, is only really sacking 340 bureaucrats, because the rest are
already empty!
This is what happens when Ministers delegate control of savings
decisions to public sector bosses, rather than taking the hard
decisions themselves.
Taxpayer Talk – MPs in Depth with James
Meager
This week on Taxpayer Talk, Connor
sat down with newly elected National MP, James Meager.
James was elected as the MP for Rangitata at the 2023 General
Election, reclaiming the seat from Labour with a significant majority.
James is a lawyer and also has a Bachelor of Arts. James made national
headlines following his maiden speech where he spoke of his early life
growing up as a Māori boy in a state house house with a single mother
before going on to be head boy and dux of Timaru Boys' High School. At
university, he says he was a libertarian. Now he is more of a
classical liberal – advocating for limited, rather than minimal,
government.
Listen to the episode on our website | Apple
Podcasts, | Spotify | Google
Podcasts | iHeart
Radio
That's it for this week,
Yours aye,
 |
Callum
Purves
Head of
Campaigns
New Zealand
Taxpayers’ Union
|
Media
Mentions:
Kiwiblog
Call
for Support: Has the Time Come for a Wellington Ratepayer Activist
Group?
Newhsub
'Got
another thing coming': Govt's RMA changes a 'direct attack', 'add fuel
to climate crisis fire' -
opponents
Stuff
Councillors
‘can’t sugar-coat’ Gore’s rates
increase
The Spinoff
The
voices that vanish in a decimated
newsroom
RNZ Building
product concerns dismissed: 'The industry is lacking
competition'
NZ Herald Taxpayers’
Union attacks KiwiSaaS group that includes big tech names; they stand
their ground
NZ Herald
Mary
Holm: How to kill debt without selling that classic car or treasured
artwork
Sunday Star Times
Aotearoa's
most popular mayor: Dan Gordon of
Waimakariri
NZ Herald
Wayne
Brown’s massive Auckland budget problems - Simon
Wilson
interest.co.nz
Independent
Renumeration Authority recommends a 2.8% pay rise for Members of
Parliament
NewstalkZB
The
Huddle: Do we need to keep funding the Christchurch
Call?
The Platform
Councillor
Tony Randle on Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau's
Decline
Otago Daily Times
Letters
to the Editor: Labour, trains and April
fools
NewstalkZB
Morning
Edition: 01 May 2024 – Christchurch Call
(01:50)
NewstalkZB
Jason
Walls: Newstalk ZB Political Editor on MPs being granted a pay
rise
RNZ MPs
pay rise 'out of touch' says Taxpayer
Union
RNZ Labour
leader Hipkins on EU trade deal
The
Times Online Luxon
pledges to donate pay rise to
charity
Indian Newslink
Taxpayers
Union and others oppose pay hike to
MPs
Pacific Media News
PMN
News 02 May 2024 – MPs’ Pay
(01:00)
The Westport
News How do Buller’s rates compare? [print
only]
|
