Category: Economic Issues
The cost of living is on the rise due largely to the record prices that New Zealanders are now paying at the petrol pump. Petrol hit $2.40 and more for the first-time last week, but over the weekend, the “no new taxes” Labour Government imposed a new petrol excise tax adding another 3.5 cents per litre – plus GST - onto the cost of fuel.
Ever since Meremere power station was commissioned in the 1950s, New Zealand has relied on coal-fired power stations supplemented by gas and oil to provide the 10% of annual energy needed in a 1:20 dry year to replace the shortfall in hydropower generation. To make up for the shortfall we need to have an energy store that can be converted into electricity over a four month dry period.
Last week, the Government’s Tax Working Group released its interim report signalling that a Capital Gains Tax of up to 33 percent - more than double the 15 percent rate originally proposed by Labour – will be introduced before the next election.
Last week the Tax Working Group published its interim report on its recommended changes to the tax system. The 196 page report makes no firm recommendations but it discards a number of matters raised in the discussion paper and gives strong indications of what is likely to be included in the final report which is due in February.
Labour clearly sees the landlord tenant relationship as a definitive political ‘battleground’. Anyone living in rental accommodation is regarded as a potential voter. Put simply, there is political capital to be made by demonising landlords and victimising renters.
Growing numbers of people now believe that National’s Marine and Coastal Area Act has been a colossal mistake. They want it repealed, the claims cancelled, and Crown ownership of the foreshore and seabed restored.
I am an ‘interested party’ in the Marine and Coastal Area Act 2011 and am opposed, mainly on the general principal of equality of rights – but also because I am a keen fishermen and don’t want to see any restrictions on my right to fish.
For nine years in opposition, Labour vilified wealth creators for political gain, only to find their tax revenue now depends on them! It's not easy for a Party that’s beholden to the anti-business trade union movement for funding and electoral support, and totally reliant on the extremist Greens to stay in Government, to revive business confidence.
When the economic engine of a democracy fails, social and environmental imperatives become unaffordable. But rather than fix the economy, politicians have obfuscated and spent more of the nation’s precious capital on political band aids – reinforcing the downward spiral.
Several questions are raised by the development of a “charter” to set out the principles to guide “sound research” practice in New Zealand - including whether the Treaty of Waitangi should have a place in research, and why can’t research funders be relied on to set their own standards for the appropriate use of their money?
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