Letters to Editor: Savings just a costly mirage

Savings just a costly mirage
Labour's latest desperate idea to save their seats involves exempting fresh fruit and vegetables from GST.
They think that if broccoli is 13 per cent cheaper (the actual portion GST represents of the price of goods), the people who at present prefer fast and fatty foods will start buying it.
This might happen for a few people, but only if they can identify the savings.
The price of fresh goods fluctuates a great deal for many different reasons. Something that is $3.99 a kilo today might be $2.99 in a week's time, or $4.99. If the GST is removed there will be a momentary reduction in price but only until the retailer hikes it back up, blaming shortage of supply or seasonal conditions.
Consumers might be better off, but if they don't know how much they are saving are they really going to eat more healthy food? I don't think so. My guess is that prices will still settle at nice-sounding amounts, such as $1.99 and $2.99 - a cunning marketing ploy used by shops.
The only real beneficiaries will be the additional several hundred civil servants required to administer the scheme and accountants who will have more work to do trying to figure out what the definition of fresh food is and adjusting GST returns.
Don't forget that the new civil servants will need a flash new building with high-class imported furniture, state-of-the-art computers and a fair smattering of consultants and policy analysts to write reports.
In addition, all the new managers and supervisors will need cars to do spot checks on greengrocers, stall-holders at the country markets, restaurants and supermarkets.
My calculator hasn't got enough zeros to work out how much all this will cost. So the bottom line is that nobody will ever know how much better off they are, and a year or two down the track our taxes will have to go up to pay for the increased expenditure added to the loss of the GST revenue. Back to square one.
Howard Bott, Napier
Labour fails to learn
Bruce Bisset, like many socialists, has a problem with the rich.
He seems to forget, tax rort or not, that the wealthy still pay 80 per cent of New Zealand's tax take.
Apart from a few rogues, most wealth was created by hard work and living off the smell of baked beans. Anyone in our capitalist system is free to seek wealth. Few do, and many crash trying. Those who become wealthy, honestly have my respect.
Thankfully they ignore the politics of envy people like Bisset try to belittle them with.
Bisset is also surprised at National's high polling. That is easily explained. People aren't over nanny state Labour yet. Remember just before they were turfed out they wanted to regulate shower-heads. Labour only managed 4 per cent growth during its term in office. World economics had never been better, only a bloated public service and unprecedented social engineering being their legacy.
And still Labour hasn't learned. They want to introduce capital gains tax. That means the wealthy liquidate their assests and reinvest their money elsewhere. A hard-working socialist who may want a second home for investment will now be taxed for his thrift.
And should Labour win the next election you can bet all online purchases will be taxed. It's all about being fair.
James Riecher, Hastings
Lanes for us all
Negotiating the streets of Hastings has become a hazardous affair. Setting off one brisk morning I waited for the squadrons of velocipedes to pass by my front gate before driving into the narrowed causeway, which now constitutes the confines of automobile usage.
I anxiously wondered how I would ever be able to enter the roundabout with such large infestations of push-power invading our streets and requiring their own lanes.
With such wide and varied versions of these man-powered contraptions, one has to first recognise and get used to the capability of each type in order to judge the oncoming speeds, in light of this newly anticipated onslaught of additional road use.
"Boy racers" on fancy, super-light Tour de France models, I deduced, would be far swifter than grandma's 1000cc runabout, mountainbikes, folding bikes or unicycles, and although the latter is much more agile on the turn it is much slower on braking, which means a much wider berth should be accorded.
Tandems and quadricycles, on the other hand, should be treated with much respect as double and quadruple power output makes these fast mobile bus queues a potential menace and difficult to calculate speeds. It has been mooted that a form of multiple seat restraint will be required for these riders so in the event of an accident they can be more easily located instead of being flung in different directions and into people's front gardens.
Trikes and cycle rickshaws will need wider scrutiny as tight turns and heaps of road gravel can spill riders and passengers under the wheels of passing trucks, but caution should be exercised as the rickshaw canopy is also a great cover for the new breed of law enforcement officers known as "chopper coppers". They will be dressed in iridescent green uniforms matching the road markings, so as to camouflage themselves within the cycle lanes and have the power to fine and impound bikes of non-conformist roadsters and "smart alecs" riding around in circles whistling Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.
Rumour has it that footpath perambulator and skateboard lanes are to be introduced next year.
Ken R Taylor, Hastings