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Hi Friend,
The second
Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll for the year is out, and it's not good
news for the Government.
SHOCK
POLL: Labour, Te Pāti Māori and the Greens would have enough seats to
form Government 📊
Under these
numbers, Labour, with te Pāti Māori and the Greens would be able to
form a Government – that's the first time since March 2022, when the
Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll last shows the left
ahead.
Although
National is up 2.3 points to 31.9 percent from last month, it's not
enough to fend off the left block.
Labour is
up 0.4 points to 31.3 percent, the Greens are up 3.7 points to 13.2
percent, and Te Pāti Māori are down 0.9 points to 4.4
percent.
Meanwhile,
ACT are down 0.8 points to 10.0 percent, New Zealand First are down
1.7 points to 6.4 percent.
That means the centre-right bloc are projected to
hold 59 seats, not enough to command a majority in the 120-seat
Parliament. Compared to last month, the centre-left bloc has gained
three seats, bringing their total to 61 seats.
Head over to our
website for the 'top voting issue', preferred Prime Minister, and
other data.
Watt went
wrong with Paris emissions target? 🫷
As you
know Friend, the Taxpayers' Union has always supported
sensible climate mitigation policy, and New Zealand's world-beating
emissions trading scheme. But Climate Change Minister Simon Watts'
decision to sign New Zealand up for even more aggressive climate
targets than Jacinda Ardern and James Shaw is economic
madness.
How can you
credibly say you want to "grow the economy" when you sign up to
extreme targets to cut emissions that Treasury estimate could cost
taxpayers up to $24 billion – or $12,000 per New Zealand
household?
Perhaps the
reason this was so misjudged was because Simon Watts was talking to
the wrong people (or just the side with a particular viewpoint).
Last week,
we exposed the Minister for having refused to meet with the Federated
Farmers for more than a year – despite agricultural emissions making
up one half of New Zealand's emissions profile. According to publicly
available Ministerial diaries, the Minister has instead been meeting
with anti-agricultural groups such as Greenpeace!
This is consistent with what we've faced with Minister
Watts's office. In fact, Minister Watts is the only Minister in the
current Government to have refused to meet with your humble
Taxpayers' Union!
Despite
being Minister of Revenue (i.e. responsible for the tax system) the Minister
wouldn't even talk to New Zealand's largest taxpayer group.
We tried to
reach out again last year when the IRD was found to have
leaked taxpayer information of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders
in a data breach to social media companies. No response.
Then a few
weeks back, when Simon Watts was given the Local Government Portfolio
our Local Government Campaigns Manager wrote to him. After all, Simeon
Brown would bounce ideas off the Taxpayers' Union and, well,
ensure he was engaged with ratepayers. But with Watts'
office, again, radio silence. In fact, we understand Watts is instead
meeting with the
lefties Nanaia Mahuta's friends at Local Government New
Zealand – the very organisation trying to undermine the
Government's efforts to put a cap on rate hikes!
Last week,
given the climate target announcement, we asked him onto our podcast.
I'm not holding my breath.
Simon Watts was quite happy to hitch his cart to our
'Stop Three Waters' roadshow events, but as soon as he got the
Ministerial limo, the phone went off the hook. With the Feds also
being locked out, it really makes you wonder...
Watt was
that?! The Climate Change Minister's train crash interview
💥
In what can only be
described as a train wreck interview, judge for yourself whether the
Minister is over the details of his portfolio.
As a
farmer said to me over the weekend - at least James Shaw was over the
detail.
There is
still time for Mr Luxon to overrule this wayward Minister: use
our email tool to email the Coalition's Party-leaders and ask them to
stop this economic self-sabotage and set emissions targets that are
actually achievable.
Adrian Orr
spends $1k a night on a hotel room and laundry. Time to bring back Don
Brash? 🌟
Before
entering politics, former Governor of the Reserve Bank, Don Brash
established himself as a taxpayer-hero when, in 1999, the Reserve Bank
released details of his travel spending. The original press release
(recently purged from the RBNZ's
eyewateringly expensive website) concluded with:
"Unlike many central bank chiefs, Dr Brash
travels without an entourage. On all of his overseas trips and most of
his New Zealand ones, he travels entirely without the aid of staff.
Furthermore, as a matter of policy he flies economy class within New
Zealand and Australia and business class
internationally.
"In line with a Bank policy he instigated, he
routinely washes his own clothes when travelling to avoid incurring
the expense of using laundry services. Dr Brash is always very mindful
of his accountability to the New Zealand taxpayer."
How times
have changed...
The
Taxpayers' Union can reveal that current Reserve Bank Governor
Adrian Orr and a lucky colleague spent $32k on a flash foreign getaway
to Washington DC, courtesy of you, the taxpayer.
Or maybe
not so lucky. While Mr Orr lived it up at the front of the plane in
Business Class, Premium Economy was just fine for the bag
carrier.
Now here's
the kicker. Both of their rooms cost a few dollars shy of
$1,000 a night each!
Reading the
receipts, it seems Orr's room stay ended up about $700 more expensive
than his workmate's thanks to extra meals, as well as
exorbitant laundry services.
Seems like
the Governor was about as successful at keeping food off his clothes
as he was at keeping the lid on inflation (or his expenses under
control).
Adrian
Orr's not the only one who's bloated... 🐖🏦
Speaking of
appetites, seems like the Reserve Bank's got one to match its head
honcho.
What was
once a lean, mean inflation-wrecking machine even a few years ago is
now the poster child for Wellington bloat. Since 2018, RBNZ
has ballooned in size by more than two and a half
times.
The
Strategy, Governance, and Sustainability team has grown from 29 to 63,
and the Transformation, Innovation, People and Culture more than
tripled from 11 to 38. And even the Governor's personal retinue has
gone from three to five.
The worst
bit is RBNZ's got worse at its job. When it sat at around 200 staff it
was the envy of the world. At two and a half times that size, the
Reserve Bank's failures to properly manage inflation have seen it take
all the heat out of the economy. We've suffered a longer per-capita
recession than after the Global Financial Crisis and we're currently
knee-deep in the middle of the worst economic downturn in more than
thirty years.
Too
many cooks spoil the broth?
TAXPAYER
VICTORY: The stopping the workshop gravy train 🙌
Department of Internal Affairs have been caught
wasting almost a million dollars sending bureaucrats to yet more
workshops - this time, using "indigenous knowledge" to become "change
agents."
92
staff spent 80 hours each prepping for the course, five straight days
getting grilled at the marae, and then eight hours of debriefing over
the next month.
Running the
maths quickly, that's just shy of 12,000 staff hours at an average
Public Sector salary of $48.89 an hour. Yeesh
Slap
another $375k of course costs on top of those $575,000 staff costs and
what do you have? A big waste of time and money.
Every rock
we look under, we find more of these workshops raking in hundreds of
thousands from the taxpayer. Te Kurahuna, Pakeha Project, Courageous
Conversations, sitting lessons, bravery training...
Minutes
after we went to the media with this one, we had a call from Minister
Brooke van Velden's office. The Minister's office told us that they've
now stopped all future training with Te Kurahuna Ltd.
And
- get this - the Minister's already managed to save $1,316,000 through
her programme scrapping just some of DIA's workshops. Other Ministers,
take note. Cheers to a Taxpayer Victory!
Have a good
week, Friend
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James
Ross
Policy & Public Affairs Manager
New Zealand
Taxpayers’ Union
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