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I am proud that this Labour Government has continually stood up for what it believes and delivered on its promises to the electorate. The results in our communities are obvious, more opportunity, brighter prospects for many and our regional economy is doing well too.
So you know it must be election year when the "snake oil merchants" as they have been called start to circulate, promising that with them, you can have your cake and eat it too. Thankfully most New Zealanders can see through this, especially when they see the hefty price they are likely to pay for the measly slice of cake!
Yes, I'm talking about the promise of tax cuts and promises to "trim the public service" being bandied around by opposition parties at the moment as some sort of carrot for voters. At the same time, I might add, as they promise to keep the economy running as well as it has under this Labour-led Government.
The reality is, that tax cuts give most benefit to the few at the top, where as this Government's Working for Families Package provides the assistance where it is needed the most.
So, it doesn't take much to see the cracks in these promises. It's just a matter of debunking some of the myths that they rely on - in particular, the myth that we have an unreasonably big government or "bloated public service" and the myth that New Zealanders are being forced to pay too much tax.
We need only look at the facts to see the real story. The facts show that while we've rebuilt strong public services, there is no "bloated bureaucracy", it is a myth. Almost 80 percent of government spending goes on social security (including NZ Superannuation), health, education, defence and law and order.
Core government spending, what one might call spending on the bureaucracy, is only 4.3 percent of total spending. By any standards that is not an excessive amount to spend on "head office".
More importantly, what would these other parties like to cut out of our bureaucracy? The 3100 extra teachers we've employed? Or maybe the 3300 extra nurses now in our hospitals? Or the 950 extra medical staff and the 1080 extra police?
Myth number two - New Zealanders are taxed too much. While it may seems a simple statement, what is the cost? Tax cuts simply cannot occur unless we cut those services to the public that we have been rebuilding. Like me, locals I have spoken to recently do not want to give up the extra teachers, nurses, doctors and police we have gained in our region.
Firstly, the contention that New Zealanders pay high rates of tax relative to other countries, with Australia the comparison most often cited, is just "baloney". Fact - even after the tax cuts announced in the recent Australian federal budget, Australians still pay more tax than New Zealanders.
Secondly, the cost of delivering substantial tax cuts is exorbitant. For instance, it would cost $1.935 billion alone, just to drop the top and middle income tax rates plus the corporate rate to 30 cents.
Over the past five years, Labour has worked hard to build a stable and prosperous economy. But the reality is that opposition promises would result in higher interest rates for those with mortgages or business loans. It would also mean that the Government would be forced to borrow money, which, in turn, would lead to higher public debt. In the long term this would mean that money that otherwise would have been used to provide effective services to our communities, would be redirected to paying our debt.
Not only would it destroy the careful balance we've worked so hard to maintain, it would become a burden that our children will have to repay. To do that, would be just irresponsible.
Much misinformation has been flying over the past few months about proposed access to waterways. The truth is farmers can do whatever they like about public access to their farms.
The Government policy is about access to the publicly owned assets of water and the animals in it. We want walking access along waterways - we do not want people walking across paddocks to access those waterways.
The Government's proposals do not affect the title of farms and other rural land and they do not affect the farming methods used by those landholders. By all means, be a deer farmer with big fences - the Government policy does not affect that.
Proposals do not impose extra costs on landholders - fencing, signage, etc is to be paid for by the proposed access commission.
There is no liability for landholders caused by people they do not know are on their land. This has been the law for many years now.
We want to embrace the Queen's Chain ethos and see walking access extended along water ways with significant access value throughout the country, but the Queen's Chain is not for people in vehicles, people with dogs, or people with guns, unless they have the express permission of the landholder.
We hope to introduce a bill into the House by the middle of this year and the public will be able to have their say when the bill is referred to select committee. Anyone wanting to comment can write to Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton at Parliament.
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