{"id":6808,"date":"2023-07-27T17:28:57","date_gmt":"2023-07-27T05:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=6808"},"modified":"2023-07-27T17:28:57","modified_gmt":"2023-07-27T05:28:57","slug":"national-claims-labours-tax-policy-will-remove-gst-on-fruit-and-vegetables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=6808","title":{"rendered":"National claims Labour&#8217;s tax policy will remove GST on fruit and vegetables"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>National is claiming to know details of Labour&#8217;s soon-to-be-announced tax policy, suggesting the party will campaign on removing GST from fruit and vegetables.<\/p>\n<p>Labour leader Chris Hipkins is not denying National&#8217;s claims, saying &#8220;we haven&#8217;t announced our tax policy yet&#8230; people can speculate all they like&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>National&#8217;s deputy leader Nicola Willis said she understood Labour&#8217;s policy included the removal of the 15 percent tax on fruit and vegetables.<\/p>\n<p>When asked how she knew details of Labour&#8217;s policy, Willis replied: &#8220;there&#8217;s been quite a lot of leaks out of the government lately&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is information that has come to me that I believe to be true.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Willis said the decision to campaign on the removal of GST from fruit and vegetables showed clear cracks in Labour&#8217;s caucus.<\/p>\n<p>She pointed to comments Labour&#8217;s finance spokesperson Grant Robertson made as recently this year, raising serious concerns about the policy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newshub.co.nz\/home\/politics\/2022\/03\/finance-minister-grant-robertson-admits-tax-free-zone-on-low-income-would-help-with-cost-of-living.html\">Robertson told Newshub<\/a>\u00a0in late March about the challenges of administering such changes to GST.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;GST is a comprehensive tax which makes it very easy to administer and people in the room who&#8217;ve been in other countries with more exemptions will know it becomes an absolute boondoggle to get through.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you do it off fresh fruit and vegetables, or even staple products, then you get into an argument of what&#8217;s the difference between beetroot and canned beetroot, and if you want to make a real impact on the lowest income people you wouldn&#8217;t cut the tax off fresh beetroot &#8211; that&#8217;s not what people on low incomes buy,&#8221; Robertson told Newshub.<\/p>\n<p>Willis said Labour was completely divided over tax.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Despite these serious concerns having been raised, Chris Hipkins is no longer taking his finance minister seriously and intends to announce this policy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is a lurching, chaotic government that is going from one bandaid to another. What New Zealand needs is a coherent plan to address the underlying drivers of inflation, to reduce the cost of living and to lift incomes for all. Instead, they have a chaotic government that is lurching from one idea to the next at sixes and sevens with each other with no principle or coherence left,&#8221; Willis said.<\/p>\n<p>Labour leader Chris Hipkins did not deny his party would campaign on the policy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to announce a tax policy today and Nicola Willis shouldn&#8217;t be. She should be more focused on making her own promises add up, rather than trying to purport to announce policies on behalf of the Labour Party,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to comment on it on a hypothetical policy that I haven&#8217;t announced.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>VIA RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National is claiming to know details of Labour&#8217;s soon-to-be-announced tax policy, suggesting the party will campaign on removing GST from fruit and vegetables. Labour leader Chris Hipkins is not denying National&#8217;s claims, saying &#8220;we haven&#8217;t announced our tax policy yet&#8230; people can speculate all they like&#8221;. National&#8217;s deputy leader Nicola Willis said she understood Labour&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808","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=6808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6810,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808\/revisions\/6810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}