The 2005 budget is notable for two things - Dr. Cullen bodged his opportunity to return to us the benefits of the taxes
he has been extracting for the past year. He also did nothing to address the driver behind the inflationary process and
ever increasing taxes and charges - Debt.
The measures announced, in terms of additional spending in police, health, education, justice etc., will amount to
virtually nothing by the time we taxpayers get our extra 6 bucks per week. The ongoing increases in the cost of living,
working and doing business will have long since eaten up the 'largesse' displayed by this Government by the time we get
our miserable 'increase' in disposable income.
Offsetting the 'extra six bucks, as but two examples, will be the 'carbon tax' and the introduction of a compulsory
savings scheme, either of which will effectively kill the tax adjustment.
Both Labour and National have paid pay lip service to the needs of people for the past 30 years by redistributing the
tax we pay. Neither are prepared to address the issue of debt that lies behind respective governments taking more and
more of our earnings in tax while the problems in police, health, education, justice etc continue to make headlines in
our media. The ambulance that was placed at the bottom of the cliff in 1984 is still there in 2005 and our politicians
have yet to come up with a viable design for a fence at the cliff top.
The need is not for large amounts of foreign investment to prop up the economy for short term gain and long term
taxpayer funded deficits. The need is for our essential infrastructure to be funded by substituting the interest bearing
debt (sourced from off shore owned entities) being used to build and maintain New Zealand's essential infrastructure.
That need can be achieved with an interest free credit facility through our Central Bank designed to provide capital
funding streams based on the aspirations of the people of New Zealand that the system is supposed to be designed to work
for. Instead it is floundering along on some redundant, outdated dipstick theory of money that had its genesis in the
subsistence economy of 17th Century England and which is now largely irrelevant to the productive capacity, needs and
demands of the 21st Century.
The provision of an interest free source of funding for our infrastructure would result in our domestic economy having
less dependence on the vagaries of international money markets - would lead directly to a reduction in debt circulating
in the economy - provide long term permanent tax reductions - eliminate scarcity and shortages in service provision and
provide an opportunity for more business in government with less government in business.
Trevor Crosbie
ADVANCE New Zealand