Please stop saying ‘tax’. The nasty little word’s hurting my ears. It feels like abuse. ‘Tax’ is now (in my opinion) a hurty word and I’m asking the internet to ban it. And here’s why…
Governments, like households and like individuals, should create a budget, a plan of expected revenue and expected spending. A budget should either balance (spending = income) or preferably be in surplus (spending < revenue). Budgets shouldn’t be in deficit (spending > revenue) because you or the household or the government must then fund that deficit and that usually means borrowing. Borrowing means the next budget will include two new spending items: loan repayments and interest payments. Repaying the loan is fine but when eN-Zed pays interest, we could’ve spent that money on other stuff, like new drugs supplied to sick eN-Zedders through Pharmac. Those interest payments are the cost we pay for impatience. If we’d waited and only spent money when we had it, or simply not spent it at all, we’d not have to pay interest.
I have good news – we (eN-Zed) doesn’t need to borrow and even better news, we don’t need to fund a deficit because we can spend less than we receive in revenue. We can do this not by taxing more, but by spending less. Did you read that correctly? We don’t need to generate more tax. We just need to spend less.
I don’t mean eN-Zed should not buy air force helicopters or pay teachers and nurses less, and I don’t mean raising the superannuation age to 120. In fact, we could buy more helicopters, pays the teachers and nurses way more and we could even lower the superannuation age. We can and we must cut out all the unnecessary spending. The Prime Minister told Local Governments to stop spending o nice to haves and focus on the must haves. Central government should do the same.
Let’s look back over the last few years…
1. The whale song & kauri dieback project (scam)
Under the government-administered National Science Challenges (funded via MBIE), the Oranga (Wellbeing) Project received more than $4 million in taxpayer funding. Part of this budget went toward recording sperm whale calls, mixing them into audio tracks, and playing them via speakers to ailing kauri trees. The core hypothesis was rooted in traditional narratives that whales and kauri trees are biological “brothers” separated by the ocean, and that playing nautical frequencies could “soothe and cure” the trees of a devastating fungal disease. Treating a fungal disease with stupidity? Surely no one in eN-Zed is so mentally ill that they took this seriously. What a scam!
2. The total collapse of the immigration biometrics project (scam)
Immigration New Zealand’s tech upgrade was meant to overhaul the biometrics system. The project was completely abandoned after burning $33 million of taxpayer money, delivering absolutely nothing.
3. The kūmara for the gods research grant (scam)
Also funded under the National Science Challenges framework, Massey University was awarded $156,132 for a project titled Māra Tautāne. The underlying theme was documenting traditional gardening practices, government money (taxpayer money) was directly given to investigate and record the planting of kūmara specifically because ’only kūmara are suitable offerings to spiritual deities’ (Spiritual deities? Leprechauns? Pixies? Taniwha?)
4. Waka kotahi / NZTA rebranding and signage ($4-5 million)
Not roadsigns, just the name of the organisation! There has been a multi-year political tug-of-war over the name of the New Zealand Transport Agency that has cost taxpayers millions. Millions were originally spent by the previous government rebranding the agency to Waka Kotahi, changing logos, stationery, and digital infrastructure. Branding?! Like KFC’s Colonel and Apple’s apple and Balenciaga’s ripped jeans. It’s a government department called NZTA. All they need is the name a nd a font on the letterhead and website. AI can do that for free in about 2 minutes. Why is NZTA even bothered about branding? Fill in the potholes!
5. Local government consultants and contractors (e.g., Wellington’s $736/Household)
If you want to argue that this “easy money” mindset trickles down from central government to local councils, the data on consultant spending is a goldmine. The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union annual audits regularly highlight astonishing payroll blowouts. For example, Wellington City Council was revealed to be spending $736 per household purely on external contractors and consultants, giving it the densest and most expensive bureaucratic workforce per capita in the country. ‘Dense’ might be the most powerful word in all of that, dense as in ‘thick’. Wellington City Council is fast becoming synonymous with incompetence or corruption.
So anyway, stop saying ‘tax’ and start saying ‘sensible spending only’ like Pharmac and superannuation and fixing the potholes.
eN-Zed 