- By Christopher Luxon, National Party Leader and MP for Botany
There are just 31 days to go until the election, and I’m on the campaign trail nearly every day with the National Party team.
Travelling around the country, it is clear most New Zealanders’ worries are the same as they are here in Botany, with the state of the economy and the cost of living top of mind.
National has a plan to rebuild the economy. We will stop wasteful spending, cut red tape, build infrastructure, drive technology and innovation, support trade and investment and grow skills and talent in New Zealand.
A working economy means New Zealand can afford the quality public services we all rely on.
Part of our plan to grow the economy is provide hard-working New Zealanders with tax relief.
New Zealand should be a country where, if you work hard, you can get ahead.
But after years of economic mismanagement by Labour, topped off by two years of rampant inflation, huge increases in interest rates and a shrinking economy, most Kiwis are going backwards.
In particular, the squeezed middle is being left behind. These are New Zealanders who work hard, sometimes juggling multiple jobs and family responsibilities, but inflation and high tax rates are eating away their incomes.
That’s why we recently announced National’s Back Pocket Boost tax relief plan which will increase after-tax pay for the squeezed middle, making a family on the average income of $120,000, with young kids in childcare, up to $250 a fortnight better off, and an average-income child-free household up to $100 a fortnight better off.
It also provides up to $20 more per fortnight for a full-time minimum-wage earner, and up to $26 more per fortnight for a superannuitant couple.
Our plan is carefully targeted to ensure that those who will benefit the most are working New Zealanders.
We will fund our tax plan through reprioritisation and new targeted revenue measures including a foreign buyer’s tax, closing a tax loop on offshore gambling operators, and moving to user pays immigration levies.
National thinks it is about time hard workers got some relief from Labour’s cost-of-living crisis. National will deliver that to them.
Infrastructure is also a key part of our plan to grow the economy as it creates jobs and help lift incomes.
That’s why this week we announced we will supercharge the electric vehicle charging network so there are 10,000 chargers nationwide.
Under the Labour Government, investment in public EV infrastructure has not kept pace with the rising number of EVs and New Zealand now has the fewest public chargers per electric vehicle in the OECD.
There are just 1200 public EV chargers across the whole country. “Range anxiety” – the fear of running out of power – is a real consideration for people who are thinking about EVs so our policy will provide not just helpful infrastructure, but reassurance.
National is the party that gets things done and this EV network is the infrastructure that we need both to rebuild the economy, and to help us meet New Zealand’s climate change goals.
For me, it’s back on the road, working for every party vote for National to get our country back on track.
