Greens release fiscal policy for election; say they would run bigger surpluses and repay debt faster than National; tax hikes and spending detailed

By Bernard Hickey

With a month to go until the September 20 election, here's my daily round-up of political news on Wednesday August 20, including the Green Party releasing its fiscal policy of running bigger Budget surpluses and repaying debt faster than National, which it said would reduce upward pressure on interest rates.

Also, the Dirty Politics saga has elbowed its way back onto the front pages.

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS), Cheryl Gwyn, announced an inquiry into allegations the SIS might have released official information to Cameron Slater for political purposes.

She said the Inquiry would look at whether the SIS acted within the law and in a politically neutral way when it responded to an OIA request from Slater in July and August 2011. It would also look at whether the documents were properly declassified and whether other similar requests from mainstream media were treated the same.

Labour MP Phil Goff welcomed the Inquiry and urged it to be wide-ranging and completed urgenty. He said Key regularly dismissed requests for information or comment on the SIS.

"Therefore questions must also be asked about why John Key brought this case into the public arena, what communication he had directly or indirectly through Jason Ede or other staff with the Whale Oil blogger and what expectations he placed on the director general," Goff said.

Green Co-Leader Metiria Turei welcomed the Inquiry she had formally requested.

“John Key can no longer say these dirty politics allegations are ‘baseless’ and a ‘conspiracy’," Turei said.

“John Key’s strategy of attacking the claims and denying wrongdoing has failed because now an independent authority has found them worthy of investigation," she said.

Whaledumps continue

Meanwhile, Whaledump resumed the release of raw documents on the conversations between Cameron Slater and others. Today the document was a stream of messages between Slater and Auckland National Party member Aaron Bhatnagar, who has since been appointed to the Real Estate Agents Authority.

The discussion includes comments about various committees and official bodies that they thought National supporters should be appointed to. It also includes a discussion they had about Rodney Hide and texts which Slater said he had. Hide has denied any wrongdoing.

National up in poll take partially after book

Roy Morgan released results of an opinion poll taken from August 4 to August 17 (Dirty Politics was released late on August 13) showing support for National rose 2% to 48%, support for Labour fell 2.5% to 27.5%, Green support fell 0.5% to 11.5%. New Zealand First rose 1.5% to 6.5%.

Green Fiscal policy

Co-Leader Russel Norman released the Green Party's 29-page Fiscal policy in Wellington, including a review by Infometrics of the figures which used the Treasury's forecasting model updated with the new figures from yesterday's PREFU.

The plan includes:

Surpluses that would be NZ$2.2 billion larger than National's by 2017/18 and gross government debt being NZ$6.6 billion lower than National by 2017/18,

• A new top tax rate of 40% for those earning over NZ$140,000 to raise NZ$591 million a year by 2017/18,
• An increase in the trust tax rate to 40% from 33% to raise NZ$620 million a year by 2017/18,
• A capital gains tax at the marginal income tax rate to rasie NZ$300 million a year by 2017/18,
• Increasing spending on tax compliance to raise NZ$250 million a year by 2017/18,
• Introducing a NZ$25/tonne carbon tax to pay for a cut in the corporate tax rate to 27% from 28% and to make the first NZ$2,000 of income tax free,
• Raising oil royalties to international averages to raise an extra NZ$180 million a year by 2017/18,
• Ring-fencing income from rental property that stops landords from offsetting their rental property losses against other income to raise NZ$135 million a year by 2017/18,
• An unspecified extra NZ$770 million in revenues from policies yet to be announced,
• Increased spending of NZ$2.144 billion a year by 2017/18 on health, education and environmental protection to avoid real cuts  in spending relative to inflation and health cost inflation,
• NZ$894 million of spending on measures to reduce child poverty, including insulating homes, building school hubs and extending Working For Families to beneficiaries,
• NZ$490 million a year of spending on research and development tax credits and to fund an extra 1,000 places for students of engineering, mathematics, computer science, and the physical sciences.

"The Green Party budget will be more fiscally robust than National’s, but it will also be more responsible by lifting investment in our people and our environment and not leaving New Zealand with a commodities-based economy," Norman said.

"The Green Party is the only major party going into this election offering 97 percent of New Zealand households and all businesses a tax cut," he said.

Norman said during a briefing for reporters that the Green Party had assumed contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund would not resume until 2020/21, as specified in yesterday's PREFU.

He did not specify which of its policies would be preferred in any government-forming negotitations with Labour, except to say Labour's own budget policies would need to be audited first.

Joyce comments

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce said Labour and the Greens appeared to be at odds.

"Given that on current polling these two parties would both be big players in any post-election left wing government it's amazing that they can’t present any sort of united position on tax policy, spending or borrowing," Joyce said.

(Updated with SIS inquiry, Labour and Green welcoming the Inquiry, Roy Morgan poll results, latest Whaledump documents and Steven Joyce's reaction to the Green plan)

I'll update this regularly through the day.

See all my previous election diaries here.

See the index for Interest.co.nz's special election policy comparison pages here.