With all of the terrible things this Labour Government is guilty of – corruption in its ranks, dividing the country along racial lines, confiscating public assets, to name but a few – one thing no one seems to mention much is their disgraceful attitude to money. Not just any money, but taxpayers’ money. This government treats taxpayers’ money like some kind of bottomless well, to be splashed around as they see fit. And why not, when socialist governments are famous for their tax-and-spend policies? This Government certainly taxes and spends, but it doesn’t object to printing a lot of money as well. Good stewards of the economy they are not.
Cast your mind back to the early days of COVID… as if we could ever forget. The first thing they did, once Jacinda realised her little commemoration of the mosque massacres was not going to go ahead, was to put the country into lockdown and pay out wage subsidies. Many businesses applied for the subsidies, even though, as it turned out, they didn’t need the money. But, somehow, the Government forgot to put in robust clauses requiring repayment if the money turned out not to be needed. Many companies, such as accountancy and law practices, which merely sent their staff home with a pile of client records, saw very little drop in revenue. They still applied for the subsidies. Fair enough; things were very uncertain. But how many paid them back? There was no specific provision for repayment. Nothing in the government specifications actually gave the details of under what circumstances repayment should be made. The Government fell woefully short in requiring employers to repay the subsidies if, in the end, they didn’t need them.
Well, what the hell? It was only taxpayers’ money after all.
That was bad enough, but the lockdown in August 2021 was nothing short of ridiculous. With a single case of the Delta variant in South Auckland, this Government locked down the entire country, forcing employers to depend on wage subsidies once again. I was in the South Island at the time. Virtually every employer in the South Island was forced to apply for wage subsidies… when there was not one single case of Delta in the entire island.
Similarly, other parts of the country had no Delta cases for weeks or even months but were forced into lockdown, and into having to apply for government handouts.
Well, what the hell? It was only the taxpayers’ money after all.
There were some half-hearted attempts to recover some of the funds paid out in the first lockdowns, but there is no doubt that many employers never returned money they did not need. This Government is simply too easy with other people’s money. It really does not care.
The final straw, for me anyway, was the Cost of Living payment. Commonly known as helicopter money; this was an election bribe. The Government was so excited about splashing the cash in the direction of people who might not have otherwise voted Labour, that they failed to give their IT people at IRD enough time to set up the scheme properly.
It appears that the only criterion for qualifying for the payment (other than earning under $70,000 and not being on any form of benefit), was to hold a New Zealand bank account. Whether you actually lived here did not seem to be a pressing issue. Thus, many people who now live overseas, some dead people and even some people who had never lived here all received the payment. To compound matters, IRD pushed through their auto-assessment system, meaning they deliberately assessed some taxpayers solely from the information that they held at IRD. The fact that any of those people might have other income not yet declared didn’t seem to worry them. It was only taxpayers’ money after all.
Many people living overseas tried to repay the money, but David Parker, Revenue Minister, was having none of it. He admitted on camera that no one would be chasing the payments incorrectly remitted and claimed that the number of errors would be small. He had no idea how many people had been wrongly paid but just tried to brush it under the carpet.
Well, what the hell? It was only taxpayers’ money after all. Wasn’t it?