“Christmas will be tough for many this year, with consumer confidence at its lowest ever level as inflation continues to bite. There’s never been a better time to let households keep more of their money with tax cuts,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“Grant Robertson has borrowed, spent and printed his way through COVID but those strategies are temporary and have consequences called debt and inflation. Over the next year we are going to see those consequences, and Kiwi households are bracing for the impact.

“While Kiwis are paying 11 per cent more for food, 9 per cent more for housing and 19 per cent more for petrol, Labour is forging on with billions of dollars in unnecessary expenditures. Three Waters, the Firearms Register, the RNZ-TVNZ merger, Auckland Light Rail… These projects are not needed right now and are increasing demand and driving costs.

“The obvious solution is to transfer resources from the government sector, which is threatening to spend one in three dollars in the economy next year, to households and businesses which will be hurting in the recession Treasury is now forecasting.

“ACT’s tax cuts would do just that, delivering a net $5.2 billion less tax to New Zealanders. Someone earning $70,000 with one child would keep $2300 more of own money to fight the private increases they’re already facing.

“The alternative is the government ploughs on consuming resources, pushing up prices while the private economy, that is businesses and households, crash down around them into a recession.

“The next government will need to clean up Labour’s mess with sensible economic policy, restore credibility to the reserve bank, and rebuild the faith of the world with a welcoming immigration policy. These ideas and more are laid out in ACT’s paper New Zealand’s Cost of Living Crisis.”

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