Removing GST from fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables is an expensive and “sad” way of saving families a few dollars a week, an economist and spokesperson for the Child Poverty Action Group says.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Labour announced it would be\u00a0taking GST off fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables<\/a>\u00a0if re-elected into power. But there were a number of\u00a0terms and conditions<\/a>\u00a0that came along with it.<\/p>\n The announcement also had changes to Working For Families which would put at least $47 a week into the pockets of eligible families by 2026.<\/p>\n Susan St John said the tax policy had nothing for the 160,000 children living in benefit-dependent homes which get no Working for Families support at all.<\/p>\n She said the GST policy was “a sad way to give $4 a week, if they’re lucky, to low income families”.<\/p>\n It was an “expensive” way to do it and was unlikely to have any impact on improving nutritional value of what families are eating.<\/p>\n There was no great logic for it, she said.<\/p>\n National’s finance spokesperson Nicola Willis told\u00a0Morning Report\u00a0<\/i>Labour’s policy was “pretty mean after three years of the cost-of-living crisis smashing people”.<\/p>\n The cost of “everything” had gone up and all Labour had managed to summon up, WIllis said, was a sum worth the average cost of a k\u016bmara.<\/p>\n “So we want to do much better than that and we’re gong to cut out the middleman.<\/p>\n “We think passing a tax cut through a supermarket or a shop and hoping they will pass on the full benefit is na\u00efve, and we want to have a much more direct approach.”<\/p>\n Willis said National’s tax plan, which is yet to be fully announced, would see the average family benefit by at least $30 a week.<\/p>\n “That’s before you count our additional Family Boost policy which provides a childcare rebate of up to $75 a week.”<\/p>\n But voters had indicated they liked the policy announcement – with the Talbot Mills Poll showing 66 percent in support and even 59 percent of National Party voters were in favour of it.<\/p>\n Willis said Kiwis were “desperate” for cost-of-living relief.<\/p>\n “They have been smashed for year after year, so of course they are going to say yes to something that might make a difference, but we want to do something better, that will give them more relief that won’t rely on supermarkets and shops having to pass on the full cost.”<\/p>\n Willis said National would be announcing its full tax policy “very soon” and the average income household would do better under them than Labour.<\/p>\n Finance Minister Grant Robertson told\u00a0Morning Report<\/i> a number of circumstances had changed his mind about the GST policy he had not been fond of just months ago.<\/p>\n “The first is that I was worried the benefits of this wouldn’t be passed on to consumers. We now have the Grocery Commissioner in place whose job it is to be a watchdog over our supermarkets. That person’s now going to have the job to ensure those benefits do get passed on, we haven’t had that possibility before.<\/p>\n “The second is that having looked further at what is done overseas, I can see that this is implementable. We do have to be clear around the definitions, we’ve done that, and thirdly, I was concerned that if we just kept it to fresh fruit and vegetables, not enough New Zealanders would benefit from it.<\/p>\n “By including frozen vegetables in particular, which a lot of low-income families do use as their staple, I’m confident we are now going to reach a wide range of New Zealanders with this policy.”<\/p>\n Robertson said he understood tax purists did not like the GST system being mucked around with – but it was something many other countries did and in a way, New Zealand was catching up.<\/p>\n It was a policy for people who go to the supermarket and worry about what they are going to put together for their family, he said.<\/p>\n It was also important to view it in context with other policies that Labour had announced – including removing the $5 prescription charge, making childcare more affordable, and free public transport for children.<\/p>\n “We’ve done a number of things, as well as dealing with Covid, that I think have transformed and changed New Zealand for the better. This is one policy in a 10-point cost of living plan and I think it’s a good one.”<\/p>\n Willis also criticised Labour’s Working for Families announcement.<\/p>\n Labour said it would increase the In-Work tax credit to $25 a week for those eligible for Working for Families.<\/p>\n The Working for Families abatement level would also rise to $50,000 a year, leaving working families better off by at least $47 a week, but not until 2026.<\/p>\n Willis said Labour was “trying to take credit” for delivering relief – but that relief would not come until June 2026.<\/p>\n It was an “awful long time” for people in a cost-of-living crisis to wait, she said.<\/p>\n Susan St John, of the Child Poverty Action Group, was also critical of the policy announcement.<\/p>\n “They’ve taken the discriminatory part of Working for Families tax credits and put that on steroids.”<\/p>\n St John said the In-Work tax credit should have been folded into other family tax credits so all children in low-income families get the same assistance on the same basis.<\/p>\n She also said having the abatement not come in until 2026 – just prior to the next election – was not going to make the “slightest difference” on the actual budgets of people.<\/p>\n Source: RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Removing GST from fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables is an expensive and “sad” way of saving families a few dollars a week, an economist and spokesperson for the Child Poverty Action Group says. On Sunday, Labour announced it would be\u00a0taking GST off fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables\u00a0if re-elected into power. But there were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176","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=7176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7178,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176\/revisions\/7178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Working for Families announcement<\/h3>\n