Speech - Jamie Whyte ACT Campaign Opening
Jamie Whyte ACT Campaign Opening Speech
It is nearly 20 years since the ACT party was
born.
Many people no longer remember why it was named
ACT.
They may imagine that it was on account of our
determination to actually do things in parliament rather
than simply occupy the seats and collect the
salaries.
That’s true but it isn’t the right
answer.
I don’t need to tell you here that ACT was an
acronym, short for the Association of Consumers and
Taxpayers.
ACT was created because its founders, Roger
Douglas of the Labour Party and Derek Quigley of the
National Party, objected to what their parties had in
common.
In 1996, both the National and Labour parties
believed in taxing people heavily to fund government
services that people had no choice but to
consume.
Douglas and Quigley wanted New Zealand to be a
society in which taxes were light and people had a say in
what they consumed – even when that consumption was funded
by taxpayers.
School vouchers are the perfect example of
this goal. They allow all parents, no matter what their
incomes, to exercise a choice that only the wealthy now
enjoy – a choice between schools competing to provide
their kids with an education that suits them.
In the 18
years since its beginning, ACT has had many successes. For
example, John Banks got our Partnership Schools policy
passed into law, with the help of his upcoming replacement
in Epsom, David Seymour.
Partnership schools are
state-funded but they only get that money if they can
convince parents with a choice in the matter to enroll their
children.
Despite such policy successes, ACT’s original
raison d’etre remains. 18 years on, New Zealanders are
still over-taxed and they are still over-regulated. National
and Labour are no less disappointing today than they were 20
years ago.
Anyone who really believes in personal
responsibility and individual liberty, anyone who believes
that the answer to every problem is not “the government
should do something”, still has only one party to vote
for. ACT is still the only party that wants big individuals
and small government.
* * * * *
Nor has
ACT’s significance changed over the short term.
Three
years ago, the people in this hall and the voters of Epsom,
decided who would be Prime Minister. Because the ACT
candidate for Epsom won a majority of 2,300, John Key became
Prime Minister. And we were spared a Labour-led
government.
History is repeating itself.
National is
well ahead of any other party in the polls. But the parties
of the left, including New Zealand First, could still get
enough votes to form a government.
A Frankenstein
Labour-Green-Internet-Mana-New Zealand First government may
be unthinkable, but it is not impossible.
It is over to
us again.
The people of Epsom are doing their bit. David
Seymour is door-knocking his way to victory.
Now we need
get a number of ACT Party list MPs elected. We need just
1.3% of the party vote – 28,000 votes – for me to join
David in parliament. Another 16,000 votes will add Kenneth
Wong.
If ACT succeeds, New Zealand will have three more
years of stable center-right government. If we fail, New
Zealand faces the prospect of a chaotic left-wing
Frankenstein government.
* * * * *
It’s not
pretty, but we should look at that monster.
Part of the
monster – the crazy tangled mess of hair stitched onto the
scalp – is the Internet-Mana party.
This is a party of
hard-left socialists – Hone Harawera, Laila Harre, Annette
Sykes and John Minto – funded by a convicted fraudster
wanted for copyright violation in America.
Their lunatic
policies include shutting down all the prisons (perhaps on
the suggestion of their fugitive sponsor).
In a televised
debate, Hone explained that prisons are unnecessary because
if boys are sent on Kapa Haka courses, they commit no
crimes.
If only they had Kapa Haka in Germany, Kim Dotcom
would not be a wanted man!
As I said to Hone at the time,
it’s a very nice idea. But let’s not get ahead of
ourselves. Why don’t you send all the boys for Haka
training and then, after the crime rate falls to zero, we
will close the prisons. In the meantime, let’s keep them
open – just in case you are wrong about the transformative
power of Kapa Haka.
* * * * *
The Greens are
the monster’s face, grinning inanely below its
swivel-eyes.
In the nicest possible way, they intend to
force everyone to live as the Greens prefer. They will tax
the things they don’t like, such dairy farming, and
subsidize the things they do like, such as solar panel
manufacturers.
The Greens are not so much a political
party as a religious movement, worshipping snails and ferns
and all that makes up Gaia, except us humans of
course.
For the Greens, humans fall into two categories:
the helpless, who smart green politicians must save, and the
wicked, who smart green politicians must stop.
In virtue
and intellect Russel Norman and Meteria Turei are so vastly
superior to everyone else that it is their moral duty to
subjugate us.
* * * * *
The big flabby torso
of the monster is the Labour Party.
It was briefly a
thing of beauty and strength. We have the Labour government
of Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble to thank for the fact
that New Zealand is not now a basket-case like
Argentina.
But the Labour Party has gone horribly to
seed.
Nothing reveals this more clearly than its finance
spokesman, David Parker – the man who now occupies the
position once held by the great Roger Douglas.
Mr Parker
fancies himself the smartest boy in the fourth-form. But he
has not even the weakest grip on basic economics.
At the
recent Queenstown Chamber of Commerce political debate Mr
Parker explained his party’s desire to reduce immigration
to New Zealand. He claimed that economic output requires
increasingly little labour to produce. So immigrants cause
unemployment.
This nonsense has been peddled by economic
fools since the invention of the weaving loom. In fact, I
imagine it got started when someone first thought of killing
animals with a sharp stick instead of bare hands.
For the
sake of Mr Parker’s education, here is what really happens
when workers become more productive. People produce and
consume more.
And not just more of the same, but entirely
new things. Even Mr Parker has surely noticed that, over the
past 30 years, as worker productivity and the population
have both risen, unemployment has not increased.
Instead,
we are consuming more than we ever have. And we are
consuming better goods and services than ever
before.
Everyone, please, get your cell phones out and
wave them in the air so that Mr Parker might
understand.
* * * * *
Finally, we come to
Winton Peters and his New Zealand First, the stumpy little
legs of the monster. Little legs that remain idle for 2
years and 10 months out of every three years and then spend
two months running around furiously kicking everyone in
sight – foreigners, journalists, bankers, you name it:
everyone except pensioners.
After all, it’s common
sense.
That’s Winston’s slogan: it’s common
sense.
I am not sure what “it” refers to but that
doesn’t really matter. Because, as my old PhD supervisor
used to say, “sense isn’t common”.
And there is no
better example of this fact than Winston
himself.
Winston’s big economic policy for this
election is removing GST from food. That would reduce
government revenue by 3 billion dollars.
But Winston has
no plan to cut government spending by 3 billion dollars. On
the contrary, he plans to increase government spending
massively.
Where will he get all the
money?
Winston’s answer: by cracking down on tax
evasion.
Honestly. He claims that he can raise 7 billion
by cracking down on tax evasion.
That’s not sense,
common or otherwise. That’s bollocks.
When a politician
tells you that he is going to fund his spending promises by
cracking down on tax evasion, you know he is either a fool
or a charlatan. And Winston ain’t no fool.
* * * *
*
I am not so sure about Winston’s main rival,
however.
Colin Craig has a tax policy that no
self-respecting charlatan could propose.
He says that the
first $20,000 of income will be tax free. Above that, he
will apply some unspecified flat rate.
Imagine you wanted
a $500,000 mortgage and you went to your bank. The lending
officer says: “you’re in luck, we have a special deal on
mortgages this week. You can get the first $250,000 at a
zero rate of interest. On the second $250,000, we will
charge you some other rate of interest.”
“What rate
is that?” you ask.
“Oh never mind that, for now”,
the lending officer replies. “Just sign the contract and
you will find out when the first payment comes
due”.
Only a complete idiot would sign the contract.
And even the greedy and devious bankers of Winston Peters’
fevered imagination would not dream of making such an
offer.
Yet this is the tax policy that Colin Craig is
offering the people of New Zealand.
It is all too easy
to think that other people are just like you. I fear Colin
Craig is putting too much faith in the gullibility of
voters.
* * * * *
So much for the monstrous
alternative to a National-ACT, centre-right government. I
don’t want to spoil your lunch.
What about our friend
the National Party?
Without doubt, they are far better
than the alternative. John Key beats David Cunliffe, hands
down.
And yet … and yet, National disappoints.
When
in opposition to Helen Clark’s government, National said
Working for Families was a terrible policy that made
ordinary middle-income kiwis welfare beneficiaries.
They
said interest free student loans were a crass election
bribe. They lamented the massive expansion of the Wellington
bureaucracy.
ACT cheered them on.
Now, after 6 years
of a National government, we still have Working for
Families. We still have interest free student loans. The
number of bureaucrats is unchanged.
National is a party
of competent managers. They don’t make a terrible mess of
things – except for Muldoon.
But they show too little
commitment to the principles they espouse. They show too
little commitment to what has made New Zealand the great
country it is.
Like all successful countries, New Zealand
was built on the rule of law, private property rights and
trade. And our continued success also depends on
them.
Chip away at these institutions and we will lose
the prosperity and freedom that we now enjoy.
Labour, New
Zealand First, the Greens, Mana-Internet and the
Conservatives are all openly hostile to the institution of
private property.
All want to ban the sale of land to
foreigners. I have heard the leaders of all these parties
justify this policy by claiming that “we should not be
selling our land to foreigners”.
“Our
land”?
When Lochinvar station was sold to Chinese
buyers, we were not selling our land. The Stevenson family
was selling their land.
Land in New Zealand is not
collectively owned; it is privately owned. New Zealand is
not yet a communist country.
Winston Peters lives in a
street near mine. He cannot come knocking at my door
demanding entry to “our house”. Nor should he presume to
tell me who I can sell my house to. I own my house and
Winston owns his.
That’s what John Key should have told
David Cunliffe when the topic came up during their televised
debate. Instead, Key quibbled that the National government
already applies Labour’s proposed test for an acceptable
land sale.
In other words, Key accepted Cunliffe’s
assumption that the government should decide who a private
property owner may sell to.
There is no virtue in meeting
your opponents halfway when they have strayed miles off
course.
The Overseas Investment Office should be
abolished. It has no proper job to do. When foreigners
invest in New Zealand, we benefit. There is no injury for
the OIO to protect us from.
ACT would also abolish the
Resource Management Act rather than streamlining its
consenting processes, as National plans to do.
The
problem is not with the administration of the RMA. The
problem is with the very conception of it. The RMA is an
assault on property rights that stifles investment and
economic growth. The restrictions it puts on using land for
residential development are the reason housing is so
expensive.
We did not have an environmental crisis in
1990 when the RMA was made law. But we did have affordable
housing. ACT would return to sensible pl
anning laws
based on private property rights.
* * * * *
Nor is
National fighting hard enough to defend the rule of law. It
is a fundamental democratic principle that everyone should
be equal before the law.
To know someone’s legal
rights, you should not need to know their race.
Under
National’s watch, this principle is systematically
violated in New Zealand.
We have race-based electorates.
Race-based representation on city councils. Race-based
rights to influence resource-consent decisions. And
race-based admissions to university courses.
A student
from a South Auckland state school can fail to get into law
school or medical school because her place has been taken by
a private school student with lower grades – simply
because she is the wrong race.
How can anyone think
that’s fair?
National is apparently unconcerned by such
injustices.
ACT is not. We will work to eliminate all
race-based law from New Zealand.
* * * * *
Nor has National faced up to the cost of providing state
superannuation for everyone over 65. As the portion of the
population over 65 continues to grow, this will place an
unsustainable tax burden on those of working age.
Other
countries are facing up to the challenge. Australia is
lifting the age of entitlement to 70. New Zealand should
face up to it too. ACT would push a National-led government
to lift the age of eligibility to 67.
Sometimes it is
better to admit you were wrong and break a silly
promise.
* * * * *
H. L. Mencken, the
mid-20th century American journalist, said that all
elections soon become an “advance auction sale of stolen
goods”.
This election is a shining confirmation of
Mencken’s assessment.
The Taxpayers’ Union has
employed a reputable economist to calculate the spending
promises of each party. Their “bribe-o-meter” shows that
every party but one will increase tax-funded spending
massively over the next 3 years.
Winston’s promises are
so wild that they are beyond the economist’s ability to
calculate them.
Next are the Green’s, with a promise to
increase spending – and therefore taxes – by $5
billion.
Then Labour at $4.7 billion.
Then the
National Party, with $600 million of extra promises spending
and taxes.
Even Colin Craig, who claims to favour smaller
government, plans to increase government spending $400
million, on top of confiscating privately owned land and
preventing you from selling to the highest bidder if they
are foreign.
* * * * *
Only ACT resists the
temptation to buy votes with taxpayers’ money.
In our
Alternative Budget, published in May, we announced a plan to
reduce “middle-class welfare” – tax-funded goodies for
people who are not hard up. Things like Working for Families
payments to people on middle incomes and interest free
student loans.
The people who receive these benefits are
the very people who pay for them. By cutting middle-class
welfare we can reduce the personal taxes paid by the middle
class from 33% and 30% to 24%.
We can eliminate an absurd
“money-go-round” that creates perverse incentives and
slows economic growth.
By contrast, the other parties
want to tax the middle-class harder. The Greens and Labour
state this clearly. But the Conservatives would also whack
the middle class.
Colin Craig plans to apply no tax to
the first $20,000 of income while slightly increasing
government spending. That will require his unannounced flat
rate of tax to be 34% -- slightly higher than the current
top rate of tax. Someone earning $40,000 now faces a
marginal tax rate of 17.5%. Colin Craig plans to double
it.
Under Colin Craig’s tax plan everyone earning over
$36,000 would be worse off and households earning between
$50,000 and $80,000 would be especially hard hit.
* * *
* *
ACT is also the only party promising to
eliminate corporate welfare, the corrupt practice of handing
over taxpayers’ money to firms who can make friends with
politicians and bureaucrats.
By eliminating this
crony-capitalism, we could use the $1.4 billion saved to
reduce the company tax rate from 28% to 20% next
year.
And by rejecting National’s proposed $1.5 billion
of election bribes announced in the last budget, we could
reduce the company tax rate to 12.5% by 2020.
No other
policy being proposed by any party in this election would do
more to increase economic growth. Significantly cutting the
company tax rate will increase investment and lift wages.
Economists estimate that a company tax reduction of this
size would increase our long-run economic growth by at least
1 percentage point: that is, by a third.
* * * *
*
The parties of the left claim to seek an end to
poverty.
But the only way out of poverty is gainful
employment. To get the unemployed into work we need a
vibrant economy: one that is growing fast and creating
jobs.
ACT’s policies of low taxes and light regulation
will create such an economy.
The Left’s policies of
high taxes, crony capitalism and ever-expanding welfare are
economically stultifying. They will only expand the number
of people with no serious prospect of getting ahead.
They
will only increase the number of children living on
welfare.
* * * * *
People also need skills to take
advantage of job opportunities.
Our schooling system
serves most children well. But it is failing around 20
percent of our children.
Only ACT has an
answer.
Thanks to ACT, New Zealand now has five charter
of Partnership schools. The pupils at these charter
schools, who were failing at state schools, are now
excelling. The improvement in grades is astonishing. Our
charter schools are doing even better than ACT had
hoped.
We want many more charter schools in New Zealand.
On our education policy for this election, the board of any
state school could choose to opt out of ministry of
education control and become a charter school.
When you
vote ACT on 20 September you will be voting to extend
charter schools to every community. You will be voting for
the only practical, positive solution to poverty: education.
Labour and the Greens plan to close our charter schools
and condemn pupils to failure. Those children are relying on
you.
* * * * *
So there it is – ACT’s case for
your vote.
ACT is the only party that does not buy votes
with money taxed from the middle class.
We are the only
party truly committed to what made New Zealand the great
country it is – to the rule of law, property rights, trade
and personal responsibility.
Only ACT MPs will push
National to stick to these principles, to live up to these
values.
If these are your principles, your values, you
have no one else to vote for.
Vote your values.
Party
vote
ACT.