Election 2023: National leader Christopher Luxon walks off amid questions about National’s tax plan
National is still refusing to say which parts of what it calls the back office bureaucracy of government it would cut to fund its tax cuts.
But the Council of Trade Unions has done an analysis and found the pool of money they are proposing to cut from includes the courts system, passport processing, national emergency management and search and rescue funding.
National leader Christopher Luxon refused to answer our questions on what was off the table.
Dressed up as a pirate on Sunday, Luxon drew his sword, leaned in, and prepared to take a swipe. It will be government waste he’s swiping at if he’s elected.
To pay for its tax cuts National needs to find $594 million a year to slice out of the public service.
It’s ruled out any cuts from health and education, but everything else is up to be chopped.
So that $594 million equates to a 6.5 percent cut in spending across the other organisations.
“We think there are significant savings to be made, particularly in the back office functions,” Luxon said.
But Craig Renney from the Council of Trade Unions has been buried in budget documents trying to find National’s cuts and says the pool they have to cut from is actually much smaller.
That’s because National says it will only cut what it calls back room bureaucracy.
“I would much sooner have nurses and midwives and doctors than communication consultants and spin doctors,” Luxon said.
The total pool of cash among the ministries up for cuts is $9.1 billion, but when Renney calculated how much of that is back office, or things labelled policy research and communications, the pool shrinks to $1.9 billion.
To find its $594m, National would need to cut 31 percent of that.
It’s now blatantly obvious that none of what National have promised is even remotely costed. Every time they are challenged they are defensive and refuse to answer!
National won’t front on their foreign buyers ban revenue.
National won’t front their online gambling policy.
National won’t front their Housing policy.
National won’t front their roading policy.
Now National won’t front their slash and burn policy.
National have claimed to only attack the back room bureaucrats but it’s clear they will slash 31% of passport processing, national emergency management communications and search and rescue coordination!!!
Why slash 31% of that???
Here is Matthew Hooton on Luxon’s train-wreck interview on Q+A over the weekend…
…Luxon is no solution.
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Martyn – He told the media several times that he would be releasing this within 3 days…
Labour told us 6 years ago they would be kind they instead have been cruel.By intention no but by incompetence.
I agree with Hooten.
But what does it say about how badly Labour has governed that a Luxon NAT will become PM.
Yes Ada, Luxon is a plodder. He’s unlikely to be able to lift NZ out of its downward spiral. Yet I will vote for whatever candidate his party stands in my electorate, to get rid of a government that has actively accelerated our downward spiral.
Define “downward spiral”. What are you referring to: GDP, productivity, government debt, private debt, housing affordability, economic inequality, poverty, foodbank usage, cost of renting, emissions reduction, infrastructure investment? Please say. Give numbers and compare historically to past National and Labour governments.
Otherwise I will assume what I already suspect is actually true: that “downward spiral” is just a coded phrase for “bloody Maoris getting too much say and I can’t get away with denying climate change or making an easy passive income from rental properties and doing whatever I feel like without any concern for others, oh and what is a woman and Covid was a hoax”.
The comments section of this blog (with a few valiant exceptions) has degraded into a rancid stew of lunacy.
Ada – My thinking as well
What does it say about why they had to govern at all ? It just says how badly National ran the country into the ground and meant people were forced to live in cars and under bridges.
Why is it always someone else’s fault?
@ Yada yada Ada. Because it is dim wit.
It’s not, you yourself are responsible for voting them in for 9 years.
Labour did not run the country bad, but your continual rhetoric shows how badly you understand politics even when all the achievements are listed, your continual moaning simply shows how lopsided and tribal you are.
“…..but….but….Labour….” is no reason to vote in something worse.
It’s now coming out that National have done NO homework in their 6 years of Opposition and cannot provide ANY numbers to back up their promises.
FFS.
Yes Ada, Luxon is a plodder. He’s unlikely to be able to lift NZ out of its downward spiral. Yet I will vote for whatever candidate his party stands in my electorate, to get rid of a government that has actively accelerated our downward spiral.
Shit and shitter you might say.
+1
Wonderful analysis from…Hooten,on the money.
When Treasury open the books today will determine the narrative of the campaign for the next five weeks.
An expected bad result will give Rimmer and Willis / Luxon the excuse to implement the next austerity program to ensure the wealthy and upper classes wealth is protected and enhanced while the middle and the already destitute working poor will take the impact.
As in 1984 and 1990 neo liberalism needs an economic maelstrom to justify its harsh treatment of so many who don’t have the protection of financial independence and protect its enablers and supporters.
A sense of even more impending crisis on top of where we are now will mean a clear path to government for Luxon no matter how bad he actually is and mean even more secrecy of the possible action they will take once they have a majority and the need to no longer renounce ACT’s planned cuts that we already know about.
This will shut out LINO from being able to form a future government in the near future.
And there will be no effective opposition against what will be some very unpleasant budgets over the next three years.
Perfect scenario for more unregulated capitalism.
Seriously? Given the growth in the public sector in the past 6 years, finding those savings won’t be difficult.
National will be worst they were the pricks behind the housing crisis which we are reaping today.
The housing crisis has its start way before the Key reign.
Ada…Why is it always someone else’s fault?
Grammar old boy.
Yes, because yours is perfect Bob( sarc)
” Luxon said National planned to rebuild the economy which would result in higher wages, grow jobs and help Kiwis get ahead ”
Talking about bullshit Bomber the Nasties just can’t help themselves eh.
If they were serious about higher wages then why promise to cancel the FPA and create a more difficult environment for workers to have union protection and representation to increase their chances of higher pay.
Restrict lifting the minimum wage that so many workers rely on to just exist.
The donated money going to the National party is about curbing workers rights and ensuring that business can as is their right with no union strength to stand up to them is to keep wages down not move them up. Every National government in my lifetime has always promised the same to enlist voter support then revert to type and represent their big corporate backers and now the new property millionaire class.
Even Rimmer will do the following.
” ACT’s new policy to set more specific rules for hiring contractors would only lead to more exploitation of workers, an employment lawyer says. ”
” It’s pretty typical of ACT, another opportunity to undermine the rights of workers. It would put vulnerable workers in a more vulnerable position. Of course we don’t support that, but it is so typical of the ACT Party ”
” That is a completely predictable outcome, what it means is that employers will suddenly say ‘well if I agree to this person signing this bit of paper will call themselves a contractor, and then there’s no holiday pay … don’t have to consider maternity leave, there’s no redundancy and if I’m not happy with them I just terminate the contract.
“It will result in a considerable injustice to a large number of workers in New Zealand and I don’t think the ACT policy has been thought out, and certainly there’s been no real discussion about the consideration of what a policy like this would do.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/492461/employment-lawyer-decries-act-policy-on-contractors
”
“Flexible labour markets have been an essential element in New Zealand’s progress in the past 30 years. They have enabled consistent economic growth and job creation, which is the only sustainable way to increase living standards in the long-term -Paul Goldsmith.
https://www.national.org.nz/fair-pay-agreements-must-be-scrapped
But not high paying jobs otherwise we would be like Australia where so many Kiwis are escaping to so they can with high wages get ahead and make progress unlike our consistent ” low wage economy ” with our ” flexible labour markets ”
Hooten is correct about Luxon not having the mental agility to only deliver regurgitated slogans.
Hooten? Who gives a fuck what that nasty little flea thinks.
14 billionaires, 3118 multi-millionaires and four foreign owned banks stealing $180.00 a second in nett profits tells me more than hooten can or will.
Add common facts to common sense and see what you get? I get a population of 5.2 million of which 3 million are of voting, thus employing age then about 50 thousand farmers who earn our sole foreign money by exporting to countries who need to eat much less to wear beautiful wool, the very most sustainable clothing and carpet fibre ever while ignoring the dangerous fact that our farmers are on the bones of their arses while we read about how hooten can hoot about how dumb and ugly politicians are. I mean c’mon?
The very most chilling thing, for me certainly, is that The Daily Blog as no idea of the real reality going down out there. “To pay for its tax cuts National needs to find $594 million a year to slice out of the public service. ”
Are you fucking kidding me! national must take from the poor while turning a blind eye to 14 multi-billionaires, 3118 multi-millionaires and four foreign owned banks stealing $180.00 a second from a false economy real estate market they themselves ratcheted up and we’re going to allow the natzo’s to further impoverish those already impoverished to do so. See? That just shouts crooked to me. It’s clear to me. We’ve got common crooks pretending they’re politicians in order to help themselves to our money while we seem powerless to do anything about it.
That’s got to stop. Now. Today. But how? Easy. Don’t give the fuckers your money. Farmers? Strike! Fuck the slow tractor driving on busy roads. That’s for pro-natzo dipshits. Just. Stop. Work. It’s that easy and for fucks sake remember. Maori are NOT your enemy. City people are NOT your enemy. The true and literal enemy is the 14 billionaires, 3118 multi-millionaires and four foreign owned banks stealing $180.00 a second in nett profits.
It’s all just printed money anyway. labor has thrown billions at pet poojects, so of Course the squeezed middle tax payer deserve s some money back … boom goes the poll to 40 for Luxon.