“The Greens’ solution to poverty is to make everybody equally poor. That may remove the feeling of envy, but it won’t actually raise New Zealanders’ living standards,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“Their envy-fuelled series of tax hikes will make New Zealand a poorer nation. There is no law saying New Zealand must remain first world and the Greens appear to be hellbent on speeding up the decline.

“By making it harder to accumulate and protect your assets The Greens seem to want a more primitive society. The great irony is poorer countries struggle to invest in environmental protection, but you’ll notice the Greens are barely about the environment anymore anyway.

“The Greens ought to think hard about who they’re targeting with their divide and rule envy taxes, when they look for the superrich bogeyman, they might see themselves smiling back in the mirror.

“It is middle New Zealand who use trusts for a variety of reasons. For example, parents concerned that their children might lose their inheritance in a future divorce might protect their assets in a trust. Small business owners trying to make a living for themselves might protect their house from creditors by putting it in a trust, so that if their business goes wrong their children have somewhere to sleep.

“Have the Greens really thought through who they’re targeting?

"201,000 trusts filed returns for the 2021-22 income year with an average of $2 million per trust, so the average trust will face an extra tax of $30,000 per year under their policy.

“The Greens policy is also illogical and incoherent. Someone on $195k will pay $900 in extra tax on their last $15k, but get $1050 back on their first $10k. So they pay a higher marginal tax rate if they work, save and invest more, but also pay less tax. Far smarter is ACT’s lower/middle income tax credit that gives extra money only to those on low incomes.

“There are major problems in New Zealand society; health, education, roading infrastructure – the Government is spending a billion dollars a week more than when Labour entered office and all of these areas have gotten worse and worse.

“The challenges New Zealand faces can be addressed. But in order to do that there needs to be a strong economy built around creating conditions for prosperity, giving people the opportunity to get ahead.

“The growth needed to lift incomes is strangled by too much regulation and red tape. ACT will get rid of it, whether it’s RMA regulations making it too hard to use land and discouraging investment, productivity-sapping workplace relations laws making it impossible to employ staff, or banking laws like the CCCFA that make it too hard to get finance.

“Unlike the Greens, ACT has a fully costed tax cut package that is built on aspiration for New Zealand. We would cut wasteful spending by $38 billion and taxes by $34 billion over four years. These savings will put the Government’s books back in the black straight away, taking pressure off inflation.

“Under ACT’s simple two-tier tax structure, with a carbon tax refund and lower income offset, everyone will be better off.

“For example:

• A couple with two kids earning the average household income ($110,451) will be $1,540 a year better off.
• If the two parents are teachers both earning $60,000, they’ll be $990 better off – and if they each got the average teaching excellence bonus, it would add about another $7,000 to the family income.
• If the parents work in the health sector, one a GP, one a nurse, they could be $3,490 better off.

“The Greens’ underlying message is that your problems are caused by someone else’s’ success. The ACT Party says New Zealand needs more success, not political parties that cynically stoke envy and resentment for votes.”

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