{"id":2725,"date":"2023-02-02T15:48:36","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T02:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=2725"},"modified":"2023-02-02T15:48:36","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T02:48:36","slug":"auckland-rents-to-go-up-after-flooding-property-investors-body-says-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=2725","title":{"rendered":"Auckland rents to go up after flooding, property investors body says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing fuel subsidies despite official and expert advice urging otherwise is focused on helping New Zealanders in the here and now, the Finance Minister Grant Robertson says.<\/p>\n

He argues the measure is something that can be done immediately while the government continues longer-term work on how to sustainably fund transport infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Robertson stood alongside Prime Minister Chris Hipkins yesterday as they announced the plans to continue their transport subsidies introduced in March last year: half-price public transport, reductions on Road User Charges, and a 25-cent cut to fuel excise.<\/p>\n

That ‘excise’ is a tax charged on fuel imported into New Zealand.\u00a0AA estimates<\/a>\u00a0taxes make up about half the price of fuelling up with petrol at the pump, with most of that going into the National Land Transport Fund for spending on roads, public transport and other transport infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Infometrics director and principal economist Brad Olsen has\u00a0argued the excise component of the move is “extremely dumb economic policy”<\/a>, and the government is essentially trying to buy votes.<\/p>\n

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Speaking to\u00a0Morning Report,\u00a0<\/i>he explained majority of the subsidy would go towards high-income earners rather than those who are struggling the most.<\/p>\n

“This is a policy that is completely untargeted, and what it does is it provides three times as much support to those on the highest incomes who don’t need that support as much as those on the lowest incomes,” Olsen said.<\/p>\n

\"Infometrics<\/p>\n

Infometrics director Brad Olsen.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Supplied \/ James Gilberd Photospace<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“When we look at how much fuel different types of households buy, we know those on the highest incomes spend three times as much.<\/p>\n

“The lowest income households, the amount of fuel they will be using each week is likely to be for essential purposes. They need to go to work, they need to drive their kids to school … that says that the other two thirds of fuel that the highest incomes use is unlikely to be quite as necessary yet – the taxpayer now is subsidising.”<\/p>\n

He said it boiled down to a tax cut for the rich.<\/p>\n

“From an economics point of view, why are we subsidising the highest level of earners when it comes to any sort of consumption? It’s the sort of thing we wouldn’t do this in any other time.<\/p>\n

“It is a tax cut for the rich, it’s literally a tax that is not being paid by the rich, there’s no other way about it.”<\/p>\n

Speaking to the programme later, Robertson said he didn’t accept that and pointed out the flipside of the argument – that although it would be supporting those on higher incomes it would be supporting lower-income families too.<\/p>\n

“What Brad’s done there as far as I can tell is look at the usage of a car and a vehicle and made some assumptions about the amount of money that people on high incomes spend on petrol. We can analyse that, different people have different circumstances.<\/p>\n

“The point that I’m making is that for those on low incomes this is a very significant part of their budget, it’s a fixed part of their budget, and it’s something that will benefit them and their families significantly.”<\/p>\n

The extension yesterday was the fourth of its kind. Announcing the third extension in December,\u00a0Robertson had warned<\/a>\u00a0the discount was not indefinitely sustainable, pointing out the high cost.<\/p>\n

His justification for such a quick change of tune yesterday was the change in prime minister after Jacinda Ardern’s resignation just a couple of weeks ago, and he told\u00a0Morning Report\u00a0<\/i>he did not think it would damage his credibility as finance minister.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SORCE RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing fuel subsidies despite official and expert advice urging otherwise is focused on helping New Zealanders in the here and now, the Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. He argues the measure is something that can be done immediately while the government continues longer-term work on how to sustainably fund transport infrastructure. Robertson stood alongside Prime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2725"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2728,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions\/2728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}