PRESS RELEASE: The Opportunities Party (TOP) announces formation of a Public Policy Unit
Opportunities Party leader Dr Gareth Morgan today announced the formation of a public policy research unit that the
party will use to further develop its evidence-based, best practice policy for the 2020 election.
Now that TOP has experienced and survived its first election campaign and as the party continues to evolve, it’s time to
beef up TOP’s public policy research unit, so we can ensure that all our TOP people are as close as possible to our
ongoing development of evidence-based policy.
TOP is determined to get New Zealand to address properly the primary issue that is holding our economy and our society
back. Tax and welfare reform (as outlined in the 2011 book, “The Big Kahuna”) is New Zealand’s most serious challenge.
We just have to succeed in getting New Zealanders to recognise that low wages, rising inequality and faltering
productivity can all be sheeted back to the Establishment parties failing to move our tax and welfare regime into the
21st century.
Two Tax Working Groups have told us this, and the government is contemplating a third. They are just fiddling while Rome
burns, too gutless to disturb the comfortable lives of those of us doing well. I need to look no further than my own
situation – making more money over the last year than I used to over 20 years and to have a tax rate that is under 4%.
This is demonstrative of all that is wrong with society and how bleak the future is for those folks who are struggling
and being left further and further behind – and I include the younger generations in that. I see no sign whatsoever of
Labour’s coalition government anywhere near addressing this fundamental defect. So long as that persists, TOP will
continue to be a rowdy disruptor.
TOP’s public policy research unit will start recruiting talent forthwith.