Coalition members are responding to the Green Party’s alternative budget with derision, while Labour distanced itself from the proposal, saying it would set out its own tax policy this year.
The Prime Minister said it was “clown show economics” and an “absolute circus” while the Deputy Prime Minister held up a printed copy of the hammer and sickle symbol to reporters, calling the co-leaders “Chloe Marx and Marama Engels”.
The Greens have pledged free GP visits and free childcare funded through new taxes and increased borrowing.
The policies included a wealth tax; a private jet tax; ending interest deductibility for landlords; restoring the 10-year “bright-line” test; doubling minerals royalties; and changes to ACC levies.
The plan would increase net debt from 45% of GDP to above 53% by the 2028/29 financial year.
According to the Greens’ calculations, the new revenue streams would fund a free public health service providing GP and nursing services, free annual dental check-ups and basic dental care, as well as restoring free prescriptions.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon slammed the policy and said the Labour-Greens prescription would be to “tax more, borrow more and spend more”.
Luxon laughed at the idea of a private jet tax, dismissed the budget, and said the “whole thing’s madness”.
“It’s just hard to even think about it as economic policy, isn’t it? It’s just absolute madness and kookiness.”
He said the New Zealand people did not want more tax, more spending and more borrowing.
Echoing the Prime Minister, Finance Minister Nicola Willis called it a “ticket to the clown-show,” and “an absolute circus of an idea.”
She said it would be a way to “kill all profit, all businesses in New Zealand — absolutely absurd” and Labour needed to rule out the “clown show manifesto”.
“If they don’t, what they’re saying to New Zealanders is, we’re prepared to trash your economy so that we can grab power.”
When Willis was told Labour had not ruled anything in or out yet, she said the party was “on the train to the clown show”.
“If they will not rule it out, they are saying they are prepared to govern like a circus, because that is almost a soviet manifesto in terms of the confiscation of wealth, income and business it promotes.”
She said it showed how far Labour had departed from “economic common sense”.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters brought a printed copy of the Greens’ alternative budget through Parliament on his way into the House.
“I’ve got the manifesto by Chloe Marx and Marama Engels,” he said, referring to Green co-leaders Chlöe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson.
He said the budget was “Marxist” and added a sheet to his printout with the communist hammer and sickle symbol, saying that was “what it’s all about — unbelievable”.
He ruled out forming a coalition with the Green Party.
“I’m not wasting my time with the Green Party’s pink, Marxist plan.”
He said the country would be “Venezuela” and “Myanmar tomorrow”.
ACT leader David Seymour said the document was a “Green-with-envy budget” and also mentioned Venezuela, saying Swarbrick should move there “where they already have the same policies, and 90% live in poverty”.
“This Green budget said your problems are caused by other people’s success, and your solution is to take other people’s money with more taxes.
“That’s the opposite of the philosophy that makes any country thrive and offer better lives to its people.”
In regards to the tax on private jets, Seymour said it was “left-wing Trumpism” and “south Pacific populism”.
“The idea that this is a serious public policy instead of a marketing slogan with a policy growing out of it, I believe, is fatuous; this is a Green Party that has become populist.”
Seymour questioned how many private jets there were, and said a tax on them could deter wealthy visitors.
Swarbrick said the number had doubled in the past decade, to about 700 a year and defended the $5000 cost per passenger, saying it would not be “that much of a drop in the bucket”.
“This is about putting a stake in the ground. The average New Zealander, the average person out there across the world right now … is doing their absolute best to make the right transport choices, to stop using plastic straws, but we need those who can afford to fly private jets around the world to pay their fair share.”
She was not surprised by Seymour’s “Green-with-envy” characterisation.
“This is the same guy who wants to cut taxes for the wealthiest in this country and steal our schoolkids’ lunch money.”
Davidson said they had not yet discussed with Labour which aspects of the Budget could be retained under any potential coalition deal.
“We know that it is the people that have the power to choose this plan,” she said.
“What we are presenting today is showing how we can actually take care of people and our planet, we have got enough to look after our people.”
Asked about whether it lined up with Labour’s ideology, she said it was based on an understanding from “decades of underinvestment into the things that people need, into the things that our environment needs”.
Labour’s leader Chris Hipkins said he had only seen the headlines and his party would set out its own tax policy this year.
He has previously spoken about wanting to increase overall debt levels, but said this would depend on what was being spent on.
“If you’re borrowing money to pay for long-term infrastructure assets that are going to benefit the country in the long term, that’s different from borrowing money for day-to-day consumption like more people on an unemployment benefit.
“We do need to invest in the fact that our water infrastructure’s run down, our roads are run down, our schools and hospitals are run down, we’re going to need to invest in those things.
“Doing those in a way that actually means more people have jobs, fewer people are claiming unemployment benefits, that’s going to be better for the economy than the course the current Government are taking.”`
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