David Seymour: ACT Party leader reveals why he disagrees with National's new tax policy

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has suggested a higher fuel tax, a bed tax and a bank levy could be discussed as part of a second term, but the ACT Party's not so keen.

Leader David Seymour says voters don't want new taxes, and there's a possibility that they could grow as discussions continue.

He says income tax started out as a small percentage impacting a handful of earners, and now we all pay up to eight times that starting rate.

"That's just a perfect example of why you say you're going to put a tax just on banks...but we all know that the customers will pay that." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Within hours of the Prime Minister this morning naming the
three taxes that he'd like to pursue next term, David
Symol just said, a flat note to all of them.
The taxes are a hike to fuel tax, a version
of a bed levy, and a tax on the bank's
David Seymour was obviously the leader of the AX party
and with us Hi David Hey, Heather, no to all
of them.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, that's right. The reason you don't introduce new taxes
is that they always start off as a teeny weeny
tax on a few people you don't like anyway, and
over time they grow. Income tax was introduced at five
percent on incomes of over three hundred pounds, which at
the time was enough to buy a small villa in

(00:39):
grayln And of course now we all pay up to
eight times that tax rate. And it's just a perfect
example of why you say you're going to put a
back a tax just on banks. That's okay, but we
all know that the customers will pay that. You say
that it's just a tax on foreign tourists, but the
truth is it's also a tax on the motel and

(01:02):
hotel industry, and so it goes on so the first
thing you do, don't introduce new taxes and work out
how you make better use of the money you have.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Okay, what about the fuel tax increase? No to that too.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
No, that's not a new tax, but it is an
unusual tax that it's not a percentage. The fuel tax
is at seventy cents on every litter. It's been the
same since twenty twenty. If it had been increased just
with inflation, it would now be ninety cents a letter.
And you have to ask yourself, are you prepared to

(01:34):
see potholes and roads that don't go ahead and burn
more petrol sitting in congestion because you've got a tax
that is in sense rather than a percentage like every
other tax. So I think reasonable people would say, yeah, okay,
we do actually need to change that from time to
time where there's inflation. But I certainly wouldn't introduce new
taxes precisely because once you get one, you end up

(01:57):
seeing it increase over time.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Okay, you said that you've already stopped three taxes this term.
What are they?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, there was supposed to be a stamp duty on
houses brought by foreigners. The National Party campaigned on that.
I knew that if a stamp duty was introduced on
houses brought by foreigners would only be a couple of
election cycles till it was a stamp tax on everybody.
We don't want that. There was publicized at the budget
we've just had that there was going to be a

(02:25):
tax on banks that has been stopped. And there's also
been persistent rumors of a tax on tourists staying in motels,
a so called bed tax. The truth is that tourists
already pay more on GST than they take out. The
government has one hundred and forty odd billion dollars worth
of revenue. If we're really saying that we can't have

(02:46):
a few boats sailing on the harbor with one hundred
and forty billion dollars of revenue they've already got unless
we introduce a new tax. I don't think that the
government is taking people's money and our fiscal future.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Seriously, are you guys going to lose this election?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
David, Well, that's up to the voters. But the last
poll I saw had us ahead, and frankly, if we do,
then the real victims will be young people in New
Zealand who see higher and higher debt which will be
paid off in tax with interest at some future time.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Because at the moment, if opportunity make it and given
that the Prime Minister has ruled out working with opportunity,
if they make it in this is a left wing
government that's forming, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Well, there's always lots of ifs. And we could also say,
if you know, they start to face the scrutiny they deserve,
people are going to say number one, these guys are
hard hard left, not center. And number two, they're not
actually what they've presented themselves as. And there's only one
thing worse than hard left. There's hard left that try
and misrepresent themselves. So it could be a very long

(03:52):
twelve and a half weeks for those guys. But hey, look,
I'm here to say two jobs. Number one, lock labor
out and the ACT Party I can certainly say better
than anyone that we're not labor, never worked with labor,
and we're not labor light. And our second job is
to unlock New Zealand's potential, because this country's got huge potential,
but we stuff ourselves with excessive government, too much waste,

(04:15):
too much spending, too much rules and regulations, and while
I don't claim the current government's perfect, I am very
proud of the role that the ACT Party has played
in cutting red tape and we reckon for everybody that
voted for us last time, we've cut fifty seven thousand
dollars out of the government budget. I reckon that's good
value for a party voted more people should give it
to ACT. David.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Thanks very much appreciated, David Seymore, Act Party Leader.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
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