New Zealand First
With New Zealand First now front and centre of any 2017 election outcome, it’s worthwhile understanding their policies.
Here are their 15 fundamental principles.
Here’s a few of their commitments:
- Buy back state owned enterprises, including all the electricity companies, and put them back into one entity.
- Stop any state asset sales. Also, if a previous state asset comes up for sale, government gets first shot at buying it back.
- Limit foreign ownership in any NZ strategic asset to 24.9%
- Drastically reduce the sale of land to foreigners, building on their 1997 initiative.
- Form a New Zealand Fund for New Zealanders to invest in New Zealand infrastructure.
- Require the NZSuper Fund to invest in New Zealand infrastructure.
- Form a Kiwisaver fund called Kiwifund, with minimal fees, open to citizens and permanent residents, investing largely in New Zealand enterprises, land, and infrastructure.
- No GST on fresh ingredient food. They estimate that will cost about $3 billion a year.
- Remove GST on rates bills.
- Crack down on corporates like Google and Facebook to pay more tax.
- Exporter companies have their tax rate lowered to 20% (that’s from their Economic Plan).
- Have a thorough review of Working For Families, because it’s been used as cover by employers to pay poor wages, and because it unfairly discriminates.
It concentrates on local control and ownership, strong state-directed investment and savings management, and shifting the tax burden away from indirect taxes to corporates.
I’m sure more policies will be revealed at their conference coming up on July 15-16, but it’s definitely worth getting to know their full suite as the election looms closer. I have a sneaking suspicion that they will be very important.