Speech: Katene - GST Off Food
te-pati-maori
Wed Aug 19 2009 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Speech: Katene - GST Off Food
Wednesday, 19 August 2009, 3:46 pm
Speech: The Maori Party
General Debate
Rahui Katene, MP for Te Tai Tonga
Wednesday 19 August 2009; 3.30pm
Continuing on about what has been happening on the blog sites, the name, Bob Buckle, rarely featured in the bloggers forums until a mere three months ago, when Finance Minister Bill English and Revenue Minister Peter Dunne named him as the chair of the Tax Working Group, charged with the simple task of guiding the fiscal outlook over the medium term.
This week Bob Buckle is the name on every website, as the debate intensifies about the relationship between GST and the drive to increase the efficiency of the economy.
The figures all look pretty seductive. Lifting GST to 15 per cent would raise an extra $2.1 billion a year. And if the tax was set at 20 percent, the figure would jump to $6.2 billion.
That sure looks fine, until we see the fine-print.
Bob Buckle’s panel of fourteen private sector and academic experts noted there may be fairness issues, and I quote,
"Increasing the rate could impact on lower-income or vulnerable households, especially in the short run”.
This is probably the same lower-income or vulnerable households that featured in the Ministry of Social Development Households Report that reported that in 2008, one in six New Zealand children still lived in a household below the very lowest poverty levels.
This is probably the same lower-income or vulnerable households who have caused the cost of emergency food grants to jump a massive 75% since the maximum limits were doubled a year ago.
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It will be the same households who the Salvation Army have seen reporting in greater numbers that before, for food parcels. In the three months to June, there was a colossal jump in food parcels; a 40% leap to an average of over four thousand parcels a month.
Within this group will be the beneficiary families with children who missed out on the In-Work Tax Credit.
Mr Speaker, it was fascinating to read the reflections of former Minister Annette King, about the policy crisis that emerged in the last Government regarding Working for Families. In a Listener article she said, and I quote
We’ve got another group of kids who haven’t benefited from that at all. And that’s people who are on benefits. We’ve got to rethink our policy in terms of how do we have an element of universality for our children in the way we give it to our old people. It’s unfinished business.
This is a very important concession by the former Minister which I think we must pay attention to.
And I want to commend Mrs King for taking note of the policy priorities we have been promoting within the Maori Party – including the proposal of universal tax cuts for very low income families and a universal benefit for parents raising children.
The question is, how do we look after our lower-income or vulnerable households, not when – the urgency is surely obvious to all in this House that we must do it now.
It’s about meeting the basic needs of New Zealand families – food on the table, a roof over their heads, warm clothes, security, stability and hopefully even happiness.
One solution that I have been considering is to put before the House, a bill to remove the GST off food.
We know that such a move would mean cost savings on food, at a time when food costs have increased exponentially –and continue to do so.
While all consumers would benefit from lower food costs, people on lower incomes tend to spend a greater share of their incomes on food and so would reap a greater benefit as a portion of their income.
In putting this Bill forward, the Maori Party is conscious that neither Australia nor the United Kingdom charge GST on food. Their approach has been to exempt most foods except in the case of Australia, restaurant and take out food, and in the case of the UK, to exempt lollies, chips, ice-cream and chocolate biscuits.
So there’s another agenda of course - that while we’re saving the pennies, we’re also saving lives by promoting healthy eating with food choices such as fresh fruit and vegetables.
Finally I want to acknowledge the efforts of the People’s Procession to Parliament, which resulted in a 23,000 strong petition presented to my colleague, Hone Harawira and mysefl, last October.
The Maori Party has taken up their call and we will do our utmost to remind everyone in this House that a responsible Parliament is also a caring Parliament – taking GST off food provides us with that golden opportunity to make the difference.
ENDS
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