Press Release
Stephen Berry
Helping Low Income Earners Help Themselves
“Political parties left to right are competing to outdo each other with the amount of handouts they can offer to those
on low incomes,” says Independent Tamaki candidate Stephen Berry. “My approach doesn’t follow the same failed path of
the others. My approach gets Government out of the way and enables those on low incomes to take responsibility for their
own outcomes!”
Stephen Berry’s plan involves removing the spider web of support that successive Governments have introduced to help
those on low incomes. “All these regulations, supports and handouts have done nothing to help low income earners.
Instead they act as a noose, trapping people in dependency and choking the free market.”
“The minimum wage is a horrific example of the failure of politician’s good intentions. Several parties are proposing to
further worsen unemployment by lifting the minimum wage up to $15. The Maori party proposes a minimum wage of $16 an
hour! It doesn’t take an over-optimistic Treasury forecaster to realise that this artificial wage level will price even
more low skilled labour out of the market and trap more people on the benefit. I say that we should eliminate the
minimum wage altogether, letting the market decide what unskilled labour is really worth. This will result in thousands
of new jobs and allow those who are currently welfare dependent the opportunity to take ownership of their own lives.”
To further assist low income earners in exercising personal responsibility, Berry also proposes introducing a $15,000
income tax-free threshold. Costing $4.6 billion, this policy will put an extra $30 a week into the pockets of all
individual taxpayers. Mr. Berry does have plans to fund this tax-free threshold through widespread spending cuts,
privatisations and elimination of several Government departments.
“Instead of offering a slurry of initiative destroying subsidies, benefits and supplements to low income earners, my
proposal gives people their own money back to spend as they see appropriate. It is then up to the individual to make
their own lives better rather that an inefficient myriad of regulators and box tickers.”
“Eliminating the minimum wage and introducing a $15,000 income tax-free threshold will create more jobs, more
opportunities and allow those on low incomes to become independent of the state and work to realise their own potential.
Repeating the failed welfarist polices of the last eighty years will only doom them to more of the same misery.”
ENDS