The ACT party has laid out its alternative vision ahead of next week's Budget, proposing to slash spending by $11.2 billion to both reduce debt and cut taxes.
ACT's leader David Seymour and deputy leader Brooke van Velden. Photo: Dom Thomas
The plan - which ACT calls "the Budget for the Battlers" - has at its core a pledge to drop the 30 percent tax rate to 17.5 percent.
It would also roll back the new 39 percent tax bracket and reverse Labour's interest deductibility changes designed to slow runaway house prices.
ACT leader David Seymour said hardworking New Zealanders were being unfairly squeezed in order to pay for Labour's "wasteful, ideological spending".
"ACT's alternative budget will make $11.2 billion in savings, taking on $23 billion less debt and deliver $3.8 billion per year in tax cuts," Seymour said.
The document shows the opposition party would cancel all unallocated spending from the Covid-19 recovery war chest.
KiwiSaver subsidies would hit the scrap heap, as would film subsidies, Winter Energy payments, Best Start payments, and the first year fees free scheme.
Senior leaders in the public sector would have their salaries docked 20 percent, while overall core Crown personnel spending would be cut by 10 percent.
ACT would also spend 20 percent less than the Labour government is forecast to on "new operating spending" every year.
Seymour has previously promised not to cut the existing health or education budgets.
"We all need to do our bit, but it wouldn't feel like such a burden if we knew we were paying for high-quality infrastructure, health and education, but right now much of that money is being aimlessly thrown around.
"Why should workers' pay more tax to support Labour's wasteful, ideological spending?"
A graph in ACT's alternative budget shows its plan would reduce net core Crown debt to just over $165 billion by 2025. In comparison, Labour's debt level would be just below $190 billion.
"If it's not you paying it back, it will be your children and their children.
"Everything this Labour government does is either about taxing and redistributing, or dividing us against each other. There is a better way, as ACT is showing today in our budget for the battlers."