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Hi Friend,
Happy
Wednesday! A bumper update today: this month's
Taxpayers'-Union Curia Poll is bad news for
the two big parties, we celebrate a major rates capping
milestone, and expose the bureaucrats who spent
400,000 air miles fighting climate change in
Azerbaijan. Let’s get into it.
NEW POLL: Major parties take hit in
latest poll 📊🫨
The two
Christophers won't be liking latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia
Poll with both National and Labour taking a hit.
Labour are
down 2.6 points to 31.2 percent, while National are down 3.5 points to
29.6 percent. The Greens are up 1.3 points to 12.0 percent, while NZ
First are up 2.5 points to 10.6 percent. ACT are down 0.1 points to
6.6 percent, while Te Pāti Māori are up 0.1 points to 4.4
percent.
On these
results, Labour would have 40 seats in Parliament (down two from last
month), National 38 (down four), the Greens 15 (up two), NZ First 13
(up three), ACT eight (no change), and Te Pāti Māori six seats (no
change).
👉 On
these numbers, the Centre-Left bloc could form a
Government.
The
combined projected seats for the Centre-Left remains on 61 seats,
while the combined seats for the Centre-Right drops one to
59.
CAP RATES NOW? Luxon inserts council rates cap in Q4
Government Action Plan 🎉💪
Yesterday
Christopher Luxon released the Government's Q4 "Action Plan" and
there's some great news contained.
Friend – just four months after we launched our
"Cap Rates Now!" campaign at Fieldays, rates capping is now on the
Government's official Ministerial action plan for this quarter. That’s
a huge win for taxpayers and ratepayers (and supporter of your humble
Taxpayers' Union)!
For too
long, councils have been hiking rates faster than families can keep up
– on average, rates are up 34% in just three years – while blowing
budgets and wasting money on vanity projects. Now, thanks to your
support, the message is cutting through: ratepayers deserve protection
from runaway spending.
This victory is thanks to every one of the 30,000+ Kiwis
who signed our petition, joined us for the protest outside the LGNZ
conference, and have demanded action. You made sure the Government had
to listen.
But let's
not count our chickens before they hatch. The fight isn’t over yet.
Talk is progress, but legislation is the finish line. And we
know that the powerful interests at Local Government New Zealand are
spending up large to try and derail the Government on
this.
But this is
progress...
You can read the
Government's full Q4 Action Plan over on the Beehive
website.
Taxpayer Hero: Chris Penk cuts $8.2
billion of red tape 🦸♂️💰
Here’s
something else worth celebrating: Building and Construction Minister
Chris Penk has just earned himself Taxpayer
Hero status.
Penk's overhaul of the earthquake-prone building rules
will save New Zealanders more than $8.2 billion, finally putting an
end to years of wasteful red tape that forced safe buildings to close
for no good reason.
To
put that number in perspective, $8.2 billion amounts to more than
$4,000 for every Kiwi household! And even that is likely to be a gross
underestimate.
Short of
replacing the Resource Management Act (New Zealand's most expensive
'regulatory tax') Penk's announcement is likely to be this
Government's largest piece of 'tax relief'!
The old
rules – introduced under the John Key Government following the
Christchurch quakes – were a gross overreaction.
Back in
2014, we highlighted the excellent work of Economist Ian Harrison of
Tailrisk Economics. His report Error
Prone: A Study in Failure analysed the cost-benefit of New
Zealand’s earthquake hazard building regulations, particularly
highlighting the situation in Auckland.
The
conclusions were eye watering.
"Compliance with the minimum standard could
cost over three billion dollars in Auckland, but is expected to take
4,000 years [to] save a single life"
The
Tailrisk report found that compliance with the minimum national
earthquake-prone standards in Auckland could cost (in 2014 dollars)
more than $3 billion. Other analyses put the national cost as high as
$10 billion – that's c.$18,000 per Auckland household!
But this
was the kicker. For all that work, using the Government's own data, it
was expected to save only one life every 4,000 years in the
city.
That's right, - thousands of dollars per
household to save one life, every 4,000
years...
This figure
comes from the cost of strengthening thousands of buildings in a
low-risk seismic area – where the probability of a fatal earthquake is
extremely low – leading to a negligible direct life-saving benefit
compared to the massive financial outlay and impact on heritage
buildings.
The old
rules treated every old brick wall like a ticking time bomb, killing
the economics of small and rural townships (and ratepayers!) while
delivering little real safety gain.
Penk’s
reform brings risk-based, common-sense regulation back to the system:
targeting only buildings that genuinely pose a threat to life, while
freeing up safe ones to reopen.
You can read the
details of the changes here.
When a minister rolls back wasteful bureaucracy and
protects both lives and livelihoods, they deserve recognition. Chris
Penk: our Taxpayer Hero this week. 👏
Bureaucrats burn $226k on junket flights to fight
climate ✈️👔
Our
Investigations Coordinator Rhys has revealed
that 13 of New Zealand's climate diplomats have racked up a stunning
$226,000 bill to attend COP29, last year’s United Nations climate
change get together in Baku.
That total
included a whopping $18,000 on business class flights for the ‘Climate
Change Ambassador’. Incredible hypocrisy work, when a business class flight can
emit up three to nine times the emissions of a regular
seat.
And yes, we
all want our representatives well-rested when they’re negotiating on
our behalf… except the ambassador wasn’t doing that, because we also
sent a ‘Chief Negotiator, UN Climate Change’ – who racked up a further
$14,000 travel bill.
The irony
of this supposedly ‘green’ conference requiring 400,000 air miles when
it could have taken place online is hard to miss.
This news
came as bureaucrats build up to next month’s COP30 in Brazil. Rhys
is already preparing the Official Information Act
requests…
Business CEOs back a fiscal watchdog –
and so do we 🔎💰
It’s not
often we call for more government, but here's an
exception.
Buried in last month’s Mood of the Boardroom survey was a
striking result: 61
percent of New Zealand’s top executives want an independent budget
watchdog to keep Government - no matter their political stripes -
honest about the long term sustainability of the
books.
In theory,
Treasury should already be doing that job. But with a bloated
bureaucratic blob and a
Finance Minister who had to invent a whole new accounting fudge to
claim a “surplus” it’s clear the current system isn’t
working.
An
independent Officer of Parliament, modelled on the Auditor-General or
Ombudsman, could give taxpayers a watchdog that bites, providing
brutal honesty, not political spin.
It’s rare
for the Taxpayers’ Union to cheer on the creation of a new agency,
Friend, but this one’s overdue.
Parents should not be punished for
working harder 💼👫
This week,
the Government announced that parents earning more than $65,000 will
be responsible for supporting school leavers. We’re totally
backing the Government on this – but we can’t help but notice how the
policy risks punishing the very families who work
hardest.
Breaking
the benefit trap is a good thing. Too many young people who go
straight from school onto a benefit end up stuck there for years, and
helping them into work or training is good for taxpayers and good for
them.
But the way
this policy is designed makes no sense. Setting a hard income
cutoff at $65,000 creates a new welfare trap, where earning just a
little more can leave families worse off.
Friend, we
love to see reforms that help young people get into the workforce and
contribute to society. Common sense welfare reform shouldn’t punish
parents for doing the right thing.
We’ve
written to Social Development Minister Louise Upston asking to meet
and push for a fairer, tapered system that supports struggling
families without penalising ambition. You
can read our open letter here. We’ll keep you updated on our
progress.
Taxpayers' Union campus group,
Generation Screwed, wins big at Vic Uni Awards Night
🎓👏
It’s been a
huge year for Generation Screwed – our on-campus taxpayer advocates.
And they’ve just capped it off with some well-deserved recognition
from Victoria University.
At
last week’s Vic Uni Club Awards, Generation Screwed Wellington was
nominated in three categories and took home 1st Runner Up for Supreme
Small Club. To top it off, Austin, the club’s inaugural President (and
one of our favourite interns), received an Outstanding Contribution
Award for his work growing the club on campus.
From a sold
out activist training retreat in May, to running local election
debates that made national headlines, the students have done
incredible work promoting accountability and fiscal responsibility
across campuses.
It’s not
always easy being a pro-fiscal responsibility voice on campus, but
this crew has proven that good ideas and hard work pay off. After a
well-earned summer break, we can’t wait to see what they achieve
next.
I said it
was a bumper newsletter! Enjoy the rest of your week.
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Tory
Relf
Head of Comms
New Zealand Taxpayers’
Union
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Ps.
This week’s wins prove what people power can do, from pushing
rate caps into the Government’s plan to ministers finally cutting
wasteful earthquake overregulation. But
the fight’s far from over. Every
investigation, campaign, and poll is funded by supporters like
you. Your donation keeps us effective - so thank
you.
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