Act promises to replace 'waste and photo ops' with tax cuts

Act leader David Seymour says National's "gravy train" is leaving the station. Photo/ Jason Oxenham

Act leader David Seymour is putting the boot into his favourite target, National Finance Minister Steven Joyce, accusing him of handing out "corporate welfare" for photo opportunities.

"Steven Joyce in a lab coat, Steven Joyce beside a rocket, Steven Joyce wearing a VR headset - you get the picture in 3D," he said in a speech on Act's latest tax cut policy and "public waste".

Barely a day goes by in Parliament that Seymour, the Epsom MP and support partner to National, does not target National - and Joyce in particular.

Seymour also slammed the $130 million taxpayer subsidies through NZ on Air for programmes such as The X Factor ($800,000), Mastermind ($685,000), Jono and Ben ($1.7 million) and Find me a Maori Bride ($590,000).

He said the $56 million-a-year Marsden Fund, which funds academic research, had even more ridiculous examples.

"What do taxpayers really gain from funding research on 'Cultivating chamber music in Beethoven's Vienna: a study in socio-musicology,' ($580,000); or anti-trade activist Jane Kelsey's 'Transcending embedded neoliberalism in international economic regulation' ($600,000); or 'Missing narratives of modern Chinese intellectual history: modernity and writings on art, 1900-1930' ($495,000)?"

Seymour said he had identified $1.1 billion in waste and corporate welfare that he would cut immediately to help fund his proposed tax cuts.

The current four tax rates (10.5 per cent, 17.5 per cent, 30 per cent and 33 per cent) would be simplified to three rates: 10 per cent, 15 per cent and 25 per cent.

That would mean a tax cut for every worker: $1516 more a year for the average wage earner on $59,920, $2020 a year for someone on $70,000 and $4124 a year from someone on $96,300.

Company tax rate would be cut from 28 per cent to the top personal rate of 25 per cent to reduce the amount of time wasted on trying to game the system.

He said Act would "demand" compulsory and automatic bracket adjustments in line with inflation.

"All up bracket creep will have cost taxpayers $2.8 billion between 2011 and 2018."

While other parties were looking for ways to spend the forecast surpluses Seymour said: "Remember, a Government surplus is a taxpayer deficit."

"Steven Joyce boasts about surpluses when he should be apologising and giving the money back."

National was not better than other parties with its Budget spending announcements.
"The gravy train is leaving the station," he said.

"Steven Joyce has now confirmed his drawn-out tax cut striptease wont even go all the way.

"He is not going to adjust tax rates despite his party spending years teasing earners with the prospect of tax cuts."

Joyce usually takes the ribbing by the Act leader in his stride. Today, responding to Seymour's claims that National's housing policy was a joke, he said Seymour was "marking out his territory and laying out his stall for the upcoming general election in four months' time."