Remove GST from food to show care for people
To read and hear New Zealand news lately, it's all about food insecurity.
Every week people dutifully carry items to add to the community food banks. Organisations plead for help to feed children who come to school hungry.
Yet New Zealand remains a standout among most countries for fully taxing groceries.
GST adds 15% to the basic food portion of every grocery bill. The government collects this revenue on the backs of those hungry children and the poor who must make choices between heat, rent and food.
Australia, Canada, Ireland and the UK do not tax basic groceries. Other OECD countries reduce such taxes to near zero.
The US is state by state, but only four of them use full sales tax rates, which are less than half our GST rate.
This is a terribly regressive tax in which poor and low incomes are shouldering a burden for the country. It could more easily be afforded by those of higher incomes, who by the way also derive more benefit for their buck.
That cohort of taxpayers are unfortunately the more powerful political voice.
The 7-year-old who comes to school with an empty stomach, the seniors' hard choices, or the family sheltering in a rented motel room have very little voice. They are political pawns.
It's time for the churches and civic organisations to belatedly begin to speak for these voiceless.
Removing that 15% can add that much food to the basket. This should be a point of shame for a country that claims to care for its people.
Kevin Burke
Mosgiel
Spending limits
Why does Nicola Willis (ODT 23.5.26) say that we cannot afford to pay for so much necessary stuff in our society?
New Zealand has a sovereign currency, it can, in principle, spend as much as it wants.
Taxation doesn’t pay for anything. One of its functions is to damp down inflation, because it always occurs after the government has spent. And the government can freely spend at the moment because we have so many unused resources such as unemployment and underemployment, not to mention struggling health services and potholed roads.
The national economy doesn’t run like a household, it issues its own currency and can never go bust, but whenever it tightens the purse strings it pushes private, not government, debt higher and the big crashes in history have followed this pattern.
R Martin
Waikouaiti
Safeguarding principles
M W Cowan (22.5.26) thinks that Kevin Clements should have acknowledged “those men and women who enlisted for military service and the many who lost their lives.”
Kevin’s earlier opinion piece was written to mark the occasion of International Conscientious Objectors’ Day, observed on May 15 each year, where we especially focus on those many thousands who refused to fight in wars past and those imprisoned today on the grounds of their conscientious objection to militarism.
Following M W Cowan’s logic, surely on Anzac Day and Armistice Day we would not only acknowledge those enlisted and those who gave their lives in war but also acknowledge those who said no to war. Sadly, that’s not a message I’ve consistently heard at these commemorations.
One of the best quotes I’ve seen comes from writer, soldier and war historian, Dan Davin, a dedication that appeared in his book, The Salamander and the Fire: Collected War Stories : ‘‘To those who, out of principle, refused to fight, and suffered for it. And to those who fought so that, among much else, that principle should be safeguarded.”
Tony Eyre
Vauxhall
Time to power up NZ’s electricity generation
Given that the incredibly stupid President of the United States and his Israeli sidekick have almost destroyed the world economy by stirring up the Middle East, resulting in a hiatus in world trade and oil supply, now may be the time to review New Zealand’s energy position.
We have to go all out electric now. There are some difficulties to be overcome, as the current supply arrangements are outdated and hampered by tradition.
The not-so-clever Key government sold off half our electric energy resources in 2014, leaving 51% as the nation’s share.
The government as major shareholder now needs to promote and support solar and other sustainable methods to mitigate against our need for oil.
It is good to see the Budget funding for KiwiRail so hopefully hybrid developments will soon run our passenger services as well.
The best move now would be to immediately solar all north-facing roofs, arrange with China to create a drop in power systems for all those Ford Rangers, and for goodness sake bring in or train electrical engineers.
Now is the time to begin changing to the third age of energy.
David Blair
Port Chalmers
Stop knocking gold, valuable in many ways
I am tired of listening to the knockers about gold mining so let me balance the argument.
Gold has many good uses. Some will surprise you and are much needed in our economy.
Gold is used in the following industries:
1. As standard across many industries that utilise solar power;
2. Used in batteries for electric vehicles;
3. Often used in the slip rings of wind turbines;
4. Used in the control boards in hydro plants. Gold-plated sensors are used to monitor water flow and turbines;
5. Jewellery use is the most common and one of the earliest uses of gold;
6. Space exploration. Enduring reliability make gold a critical use for space missions. Gold coated visors protect astronaut’s eyes from dangerous rays in space while gold plating on surfaces of spacecraft modules and space stations protect against solar radiation;
7. In medicine gold’s antibacterial properties make it a critical material used in medicines. Hearing aids are often coated with gold as are surgical tools and gold is often used in the wires of pacemakers and stents due to its durability. Pregnancy tests and Covid rapid tests use tiny particles of gold to act as indicators;
8. The banking industry buy gold to hedge against weakening reserve currencies;
9. Gold is edible and safe to digest, it contains no calories, no taste, or expiration date. Some high end liquor brands add gold to their bottles.
10. It is likely that the microchip implanted in your pet contains gold.
So you can now see how versatile gold is so stop knocking it? We need gold.
Andrew Burton
Lowburn
