The Crushing True Cost of Tax Breaks For the Rich
Who is paying and how?
Today, the NZ Herald reported that the independent body tasked with setting MPs’ pay is weeks away from deciding if politicians will get a pay raise. Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins wouldn’t comment on whether MPs should have a payrise, but the Greens said the prospect of MPs receiving a pay rise at a time so many households are enduring financial strain will be a “bitter pill to swallow for many”.
Christopher Luxon earns $471,049 a year plus perks. His net worth is estimated at somewhere in the realm of $21 million to $30 million. As Leader of the Opposition his houses earned him 15 times more than the $296,007 salary.
I’ve been thinking a lot about poverty. And the rich getting richer. I‘ve been thinking about those New Zealanders who will be paying for the $2.9 billion dollar tax break gift for landlords. This gift to landlords is $800 million more than what the party that claimed it was good at budgeting had originally budgeted for. Approximately, 346 landlords who own at least 200 properties each make around $464 million between them.
I wanted to really lay out who will pay for this extravagance. The Government’s attacks on our country’s most vulnerable are happening at such a frightening pace that it can be hard to even fathom how much has been taken from us to line the pockets of the already very wealthy.
It’s like the world’s worst game of whack-a-mole trying to stay on top of every cut, every job loss, every assault. You don’t even know where to start.
Sacking people who serve the public is probably the most obvious place. You will know someone who has lost their job or is currently facing losing their job if you live in Pōneke. So far, 845 jobs have gone. David Seymour hopes that ultimately 7500 people no longer have their jobs.
At the Ministry of Health 134 hard working people will go (they’re not trimming executive wages btw). Originally this was going to mean the end of the Suicide Prevention Office. That’s now up in the air. MPI will lose 231 staff. The Ministry for Pacific Peoples will lose half its staff. That’s just what we know so far.
New Zealand’s largest research organisations is also facing cuts of course. Who needs evidence if the Government is just going to ignore it. Every single time.
The funding for the 15-year long Growing Up in New Zealand project - research that tracked 6000 children to give us insight and understanding into poverty in Aotearoa - has been cut.
The Government killed Te Aka Whai Ora. The Māori Health Authority was destroyed under urgency in less than 24 hours. There was no consultation with Māori raising questions about whether the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi had been complied with. But this Coalition of Cruelty famously doesn’t care about Te Tiriti.
They’ve just announced there will be no Māori wards for councils without referendum. They want to cut Te reo Māori bonuses and of course they’ve forced a ‘English’ first policy for public sector organisation names.
They reduced references to the experiences of Māori in an anti-racism national action plan. They want to take away input from the Ministries for Women, Māori, and Pacific Peoples on policy changes. I mean, people in the public sector are getting hit up for saying ‘kia ora’ in emails. (The Waitangi Tribunal has approved an application for urgent inquiry into the government's te reo Māori policies).
Not our PM though, he claimed taxpayer money for Te Reo lessons - he doesn’t know how much he spent (he’s not good at keeping track of taxpayer money). He also claimed $52,000 to live in his mortgage free house. It’s one of seven properties he owns so he is going to make bank from his landlord tax break. Premier House has had over $95,505.77 worth of work done on it since Luxon became Prime Minister.
Further reading - Leaked: Luxon’s Landlord Plan
So let’s get back to how it’s going to be paid for.
Public servants have been told to become teachers or move overseas. If they become teachers, they should know David Seymour says it’s a waste of time for teachers learn te reo Māori. I know it doesn’t make sense, well it does if you recognise that David Seymour is the man who wants to try to change the Treaty.
Further reading: Who’s afraid of Te Reo Māori?
The landlord fund will likely be topped up with the scapping of school lunches for hungry kids.
Food bank funding has been cut. Funding for disabled tamariki has been cut (quibble with me on this but when you remove most of the ways you can use the funding - then you’re cutting it). Oh and wheelchair services were reduced too.
Prescription charges have been reinstated.
The Disability sector is basically being killed by a million (some might say $2.9 billion) cuts. Households with disabled children were 1.5 times more likely to earn under $40,000 a year, compared to households that only had non-disabled children. 63% of carers of disabled children say they do not have enough money or only just enough money.
The minimum wage increase was below-inflation Brooke Van Velden wanted it to be just 1.3%. The recommendation was 4%. Eventually Cabinet landed on 2%. It will impact the earnings of about 164,400 New Zealanders.
20 hours free ECE funding was cut. The extension was estimated to save parents up to $133.20 a week
Getting kids smoking again will help pay for the landlord tax break. That has nothing to do with Luxon’s close ties with the tobacco lobby, they’re not that close to the tobacco lobby. Excuse me, I said they’re not that close to the tobacco lobby.
They’ll be taking money from schools for the landlords. Schools for children with complex care needs and disabilities too.
Planned increases to Working For Families have been scrapped. You’ll get $6 to $8 more under National so they’re saying they’re increasing it and hoping you don’t look into the numbers.
One in eight children in New Zealand have parents or caregivers who cannot afford the basics like food, power and rent. The government’s response to that is to pass under urgency legislation that would align benefit increases with inflation, rather than wage growth. They’re hoping you can’t work out what that means and will ignore it.
Further reading: It’s an entitlement and I’m entitled to it.
The Ministry’s own analysis noted that women, Māori, Pasifika, and disabled people were expected to be disproportionately impacted by the policy. The policy is expected to leave more children in poverty than the alternative, in the absence of other changes.
It’s hard to keep on top of these changes without even considering what else the Government is doing.
The Government’s Kainga Ora “crackdown” will result in countless kids being made homeless. Half the households affected have children living there. Possibly two-thirds of those households will have more than two or three children. That’s a lot of children. But, does that matter if the Parnell Residents Association is happy? I mean, who cares what the Salvation Army thinks. Or Child Poverty Action Group.
Bishop has a plan to mine on DOC land.
References to climate change were removed from the draft transport policy.
The government is looking at ‘corporate welfare’ for oil and gas companies.
The plan for a an ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands has been scrapped.
Unprecedented power has been given to these awful men under the Fast Track Approval Bill. An open letter from ten different scientific groups representing thousands of scientists say the bill will be a nightmare for the environment.
Legislation to amend the Resource Management Act will deprioritise the health of freshwater under the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management.
New Zealand’s biggest climate polluter – agriculture – is being kept out of the Emissions Trading Scheme.
These are all connected. If you care only about hoarding as much wealth as you can right now, of course you don’t care about the future of our planet, or our tamariki.
But right now there’s so much suffering.
The latest Child Poverty statistics show more families are going without household essentials. The Employers and Manufacturers Association says their advice line for restructuring and redundancy support has surged by nearly 90 percent compared with this time last year.
This is the cost we need to start talking about.
The cost of landlords and property investors and tobacconists and climate criminals lobbying.
This is the cost of your tax cuts that will likely never be delivered anyway.
This is the cost of tax breaks for the already rich.
This is the cost.
It hurts to see it all laid out. All the ways that this government has, and is planning to, hurt its own people in the pursuit of profit. But we need to see it and understand it so that we can face it.
There is always a cost. And it’s time to start standing up for the people paying this cost.
It so fucked eh! I am in a state of perpetual anger and despair. I cannot find a job. It has been five months. The few jobs there are are getting hundreds of applications in a matter of days. I have gone from a 100% success rate at the interview stage to not getting any. I was lucky enough to get a substantial loan from family to give us more runway but now that is almost all gone as well. We are about to lose our house. My stomach hurts all of the time from the stress. I want to scream but when I try I end up weeping instead. I'm just so fucking angry and I feel helpless.
And I am one of the less vulnerable ones. Every day there are new cruelties enacted by this horrific government. I am trying so hard not to think this way but they just seem evil. I don't know how else to explain it. Sorry for the rant. Hope everyone is doing ok. If not I'm keen to riot if you are lol just kidding lol no I'm not haha
The really, really sad part is that for those who voted them in, the only metric is whether they're better off, or think they will be. Democracy, as they say, is the worst of all political systems until you look at the alternatives, but what use is democracy if the majority of voters can't see past what good for their back pocket.