Tax Justice media release 30 September 2010

10,000 signatures for the Tax Justice petition in two days

"We've set ourselves the ambitious target of 10,000 signatures in two days," says Vaughan Gunson, Tax Justice campaign coordinator. "It's ambitious, but we're going to give it a shot."

On Friday 1st October and Saturday 2nd October, Tax Justice campaigners will be collecting signatures for a petition that calls on parliament to 1) Remove GST from food; and 2) Tax financial speculation.

"We're going to have people collecting signatures in Kaitaia, Kerikeri, Kawakawa, Whangarei, Auckland, Rotorua, Tauranga, Napier, Hastings, Napier, Lower Hutt, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Oamaru and Dunedin," says Gunson. "That's just the places we know about, we expect other volunteers will be motivated to get signatures from friends, family and workmates over the two days."

The last week has seen increased support for the Tax Justice campaign," says Gunson. "For instance, the number of people who like our "No GST on Food" Facebook page has shot up to 3,000, which makes it one of the bigger New Zealand campaigns on Facebook."

"We thought we'd get more support as the GST rise approached. Over the last few months we've been picking up a lot anger towards National's GST hike, which will mean people paying more for food, clothing, petrol, electricity, and other basics."

"I think many politicians fail to appreciate how tight the weekly budgets of many New Zealanders are," says Gunson. "And they fail to appreciate the anger people feel when they know the tax cuts they'll be getting on 1st October are a pittance compared to what high income earners will be getting, including the politicians."

"The two demands on the Tax Justice petition would shift the tax burden off low and middle income people and onto wealthy speculators," says Gunson. "What we're campaigning for is common sense and doable, if there's the political will, " says Gunson.

"We ask everyone who thinks that New Zealand's tax system is unfair, to go to our website, www.nogstonfood.org, download the petition and collect a page or two of signatures on Friday 1st October and Saturday 2nd October. Help us achieve our target of 10,000 signatures in two days."
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