Dear Supporter,

With the election tomorrow, and so many votes already cast, I thought I'd sit down to recap the Taxpayers' Union's campaign efforts, made possible by supporters like you.

Slaying the Debt Monster

This week we launched our revamped Debt Clock website at debtclock.nz.

Click here to watch the Government's debt – and your household's share of it – tick up in real time. Our kids won’t be thanking us!

We've also featured the Debt Clock in newspaper ads, such as this on the front page of the Herald:

And for the last couple of months the Debt Monster has been a constant presence on the campaign trail, ensuring politicians can't escape from the cost of their political promises.

The issue of government debt has become central to the election, with the major parties closely scrutinising each others' plans to pay down debt. That's good.

The campaign for Tax Relief Now

The most effective way to cull the Debt Monster is economic growth. You spend your money far more efficiently than politicians do, which is why tax relief leads to greater economic growth. A larger economy makes the Debt Monster more manageable in the long-term.

Our Taxpayer Scorecard, promoted to hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders online, clearly tracks which parties have committed to tax relief, and how.

We've also made the case for tax relief more generally with online and newspaper ads like this:

And this:

We even hit the streets asking taxpayers how they'd spend their money, if they were allowed to keep more of it:

Watch the video here.

Fighting the Greens' asset tax

The Green Party's unfair and destructive asset tax (or "wealth tax") was barely on the media's radar a few weeks ago.

That all changed after we sent out personally-addressed letters to households that would be hit by the tax.

This Campaign for Affordable Home Ownership caused a huge stir on social media, which spilled into the news.

We had a great response from homeowners who received the letter, many of whom chipped in to our campaign, meaning we were able to push out this ad to 200,000 New Zealanders on Facebook:

Click here to share the ad on Facebook.

We also released independent polling revealing that almost three quarters of New Zealanders oppose the tax:

Ultimately, the asset tax has become a major election issue, forcing Jacinda Ardern to rule it out in increasingly definitive terms.

At first, Ardern made Grant Robertson front the issue and explain that it wasn't a Labour policy. But of course, the Greens could still demand it if they held the balance of power.

The heat on Labour didn't stop, until finally on Wednesday we got a capital gains-style "captain's call": Jacinda Ardern promised not to introduce an asset tax as long as she's Prime Minister.

This is a major win. Ardern's promise significantly increases the political cost of capitulating to the Greens' demand.

Thanks to campaigns by the Taxpayers’ Union and others, we have now managed to force the current Government to rule out both a capital gains tax and wealth tax.

This is really important. The Tax Foundation this week ranked New Zealand third in its International Tax Competitiveness Index. Protecting our competitive tax system is vital for our economic recovery.

Shutting down taxpayer-funded propaganda

Outside of our main campaigns, we also successfully challenged two cases of taxpayer-funded agencies crossing the line into political propaganda.

First it was a Labour Party video ad filmed at the Close Contact Contact Tracing Centre, which prominently featured Dr Ashley Bloomfield and other public servants:

Labour quickly removed the video after we pointed out how inappropriate it was, and the State Services Commissioner responded to our complaint confirming that the ad "could create confusion about the motivations and political neutrality of the public servants concerned".

Then, this month Oranga Tamariki (aka the Ministry for Children) created a video explicitly praising Minister Tracey Martin, who then shared it on her social media:

Again, we took the matter to the State Services Commissioner who agreed it "could be interpreted as political endorsement of the minister and government policies and that is not appropriate".

We were glad to set a precedent here. Taxpayers pay public servants to do their jobs, not to aid their political masters in re-election campaigns.

Our work continues after the election

Thank you to everyone who has chipped in to support our work. Regardless of who wins tomorrow, we'll keep holding the politicians to account for the way they spend your hard-earned money.

If you couldn't contribute to our election campaigns, that's OK. Not everyone is in a position to donate. But if you can, now is a great time to sign up as a regular supporter.

--> Click here to set up a monthly donation. <--

Monthly donations mean we can keep the lights on and fight for taxpayers after the election.

Thanks for your support,

Louis Houlbrooke Campaigns Manager New Zealand Taxpayers' Union

PS. If you'd rather make a one-off donation, you can do so by clicking here.