Alliance Tax Tables

Below are the Alliance tax tables. I felt it was time to remind people that there are other alternatives out there to the two big parties. The Alliance is the only one of the smaller parties to cost out their policies. We know where evert dollar comes from and where every dollar goes. If you factor in the fact that under an Alliance government there would be no school fees, no health care fees, no prescriptions, no student loans to repay, and no tertiary fees (no bonding either) you can clearly see how you will wind up with more money in your own back pocket. If you want a more detailed account of our tax programme and our budget, check out the website, www.alliance.org.nz

INCOME	MARGINAL TAX %	INCOME	TOTAL TAX %	TOTAL MAX $	TOTAL DIFFERENCE
0 – 10,000	nil	10,000	nill	nil	Up To $1,530
10 – 20,000	24	20,000	12.00	2,400	841,000 kiwis will average $1,400 less tax
20 – 30,000	26	30,000	16.67	5,000	372,000 kiwis will average $984 less tax
30 – 40,000	30	40,000	20.00	8,000	339,000 kiwis will average $428 less tax
40 – 50,000	40	50,000	24.00	12,000	314,000 kiwis will average $232 more tax
50 – 60,000	42	60,000	27.00	16,200	225,000 kiwis will average $1,009 more tax
60 – 70,000	46	70,000	29.71	20,800	146,000 kiwis will average $1,794 more tax
70 – 100,000	50	100,000	35.80	35,800	205,000 kiwis will average $4,943 more tax
100,000+	54	200,000	44.90	89,800	138,000 kiwis will average $16,717 more tax

• No tax on the first $10,000 means that all on that income will keep the $1530 they pay at present; super and benefits will be adjusted to give those receiving them the full value of our tax cuts plus some extra for married couples
• The 67% of New Zealanders under $41,000 will pay less tax

Alliance refuses to take no for an answer in Wellington Union debate

Latest Press release. This time the CTU have redused to allow me to speak at their forum for political parties to convey their policies relating to workers and worker’s rights. How ridiculous!

Alliance Party media release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday 30
September 2008

The Alliance Party is demanding the right to speak at a Wellington
Union forum.

The Council of Trade Unions is holding a workers election forum on
Thursday 9 October 2008, 12 – 2 pm at the Main Hall, St John’s in the
City, corner Willis and Dixon Street, Wellington. But the Alliance has
been turned away.

Alliance Party Wellington Central candidate Richard Wallis is fuming
that he has been turned down in favour of anti-worker candidates from
ACT and the National Party.

“As a working secondary teacher and an active unionist with the PPTA,
I am outraged that I am being stopped from addressing fellow unionists
who will instead hear from anti-union, anti-worker parties like ACT,
National and United.”

“The Maori Party have said they will cut a deal with National, and
they get an invite. But not the Alliance.”

“The Alliance will fight National tooth and claw. We would offer
critical support to a Labour Government if re-elected to Parliament,
while rejecting Labour policies such as free trade, student debt and
tax cuts for the rich.”

Mr Wallis says if it wasn’t for the Alliance, Kiwibank and Paid
Parental Leave would never have been introduced.

“The argument that only parties in Parliament should have speaking
time is garbage. There are a lot of parties in Parliament that are
anti-union. Why is the CTU promoting them? They should be helping the
Alliance get back into Parliament.”

Mr Wallis says he will attend the debate regardless and would accept a
last minute invitation to speak.

“The Alliance is 100% pro-union and all we want is the opportunity to
speak to workers.”

Alliance Party Dunedin North candidate Victor Billot says he has been
invited to attend a CTU forum in Dunedin and can’t understand why this
is a problem in Wellington.

“As a member of the Maritime Union, I resent that ACT and the National
Party are promoting their policies at a Union forum and the Alliance
has been excluded. Alliance candidates have been supporting workers
and unions for years, as union members and on picket lines during
disputes.”

The goal of the Alliance workers rights policy is secure, well-paid
jobs. The Alliance will help workers in low-paid and insecure jobs,
reduce the working week and increase the minimum wage.

•The Alliance will increase the minimum wage to $17 per hour.
• We will introduce a 35-hour working week with no loss of pay.
• We will immediately introduce five weeks’ annual leave.
• We will introduce greater protections for casual workers.
• We will ensure responsible contracting – where private business gets
public money to deliver services, they will be required to meet
national standards in pay and conditions.
• We will improve paid parental leave – workers who become primary
caregivers should get 12 months’ paid parental leave and their
partners should get two weeks’ paid parental leave.
• We support the right to strike: workers should have the right to
strike to enforce their Collective Agreement, to oppose layoffs, to
support other workers and for political reasons.
• Workers should have a say in the way work is organised. We will push
for stronger employment legislation to ensure greater workplace
democracy.
• We will ensure genuine full employment promoted by public-financed
regional economic development and public works’ programmes.

ENDS

Wellington Bus Driver’s Lockout Press Release

Back the Wellington bus drivers!

Alliance Party Wellington Central candidate Richard Wallis says Wellingtonians should support their local bus drivers in their quest for better wages and conditions.

Over three hundred bus drivers have been locked out by their employer.

“Bus drivers have a responsible job and work hard. They get paid poor wages and they deserve a better deal.”

Mr Wallis says that public transport is of huge importance to New Zealand.

“How can local and central Government be serious about promoting public transport when they stand back and allow the workforce to be treated like this?”

He says the Alliance supports a minimum wage of $17 per hour plus a major investment in upgrading public transport to deal with rocketing fuel costs and climate change.

Education

Recently Labour announced that they would make some form of training compulsory of all people under 18. This means that if you want to leave school, you either need to be excused from education (apply for an exemption) or go elsewhere for training, such as a polytech. The link is here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4698496a11.html. This is all well and good if you don’t mind finishing your teenange years with a student loan and little hope of paying it off.

What we really need is to invest significant amounts of money in education. $40 million is a drop in the bucket. It will make no difference to anybody currently stuck in our under funded and under resourced education system. If you want classrooms where teachers can engage in some serious one on one time then you need to reduce class sizes. To do that you need two things, more teachers and more support for those teachers.

To get more people into teaching you need to remove that most significant of barriers, cost. By making teacher education free you automatically make it a more enticing option for people. Once there we need to encourage people to stay. As it currently stands there are more and more teachers leaving the profession. This is leaving us with under staffed schools and classes that see a different relief teacher every day. A class of 20 (Max) would instantly make the life and workload of teachers more bearable.

So we can thank Labour for another drop in a rather empty bucket, or we could take a radical approach and say, “well actually, we want something better. We want classes of 20 max and we don’t want to have to take out a student loan if school isn’t working for us.”

The Alliance would invest an extra $2 650 million in education. This is more than enough to fill the bucket to over flowing. With this we can do many things, like smaller classes, make tertiary education free, wipe student loans, Implement our teacher sabbatical plan, create new teaching posts, create new tertiary posts, and abolish school fees amongst other things.

Check out our manifesto on our website for more details.

Affiliation

The time has come for unions that are affiliated to any political party to question their apparent blind loyalty. As far as I can see, it makes no sense to continue to support a political party that works against the ideals of unionism. Most unions that do have affiliations are affiliated to the Labour Party. It makes no sense to continue to support them given their tendancey to sign free trade agreements. Free trade agreements do nothing but open up our markets, threatening the job security of those of us here. Also Labour had to be argued into raising the minimum wage UP to a pitiful $12.50 and hour which, after tax, is even more pitiful.

I wonder if anyone remembers that they also had to be argued into accepting that both paid parental leave and kiwibank were good ideas. Without their coalotion partner of the day (one Alliance Party of New Zealand) fighting to make these things a reality, they would never have seen the light of day. Labour would have been happy for them both to remain dreams of the people.

So I ask all unions with affiliations to immediately review and justify this blind loyalty to a party that has done little to help the working class. The argument that they are better than National continues to lose water faster than a broken sieve. Both major parties are in favour of user pays and free trade, policies that continue to undermine the ability of the working class to make ends meet.

Poverty

About two weeks ago I had the priviledge of attending a forum on poverty organised by the Palmerston North Catholic community. My speech notes can be found here. Although the philosophical meanderings of some of my fellow political represenatives did nothing to advance the cause of eliminating poverty some did make a little sense. The need to invest in the plight of the less fortunate was apparant. Where I differed from my collueges at the forum was how we should go about it. The question before us what about how best to assist those who are less fortunate. While some said that they should be left to their own devices others outlined the need to reallocate resources. What they didn’t do, but we did, was to outline how this would be achieved.

As a result of this forum I am concerened that the public of New Zealand will be entering the polling booths in an informational vacuum. We must ask all candidates how they intend to eliminate poverty. What is their plan? If they cannot come up with something as basic as a taxation plan or even a budget for how they would do things if in power, then alarm bells should ring.

Societies are often judged on how well they take care of the poor and sick. How well does New Zealand take care of its por and sick? Can we do better? Yes we can. Ask your candidates what they intend to do about those struggling at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Alliance delivers their alternative budget

Earlier this week we released our budget.  I’ve been looking forward to this for a while now because it means that we can now tell you where we get the money from and how it will be spent. Follow this link to see it in detail.

We’re the only party suggesting that it is possible to not only remove GST but actually increase our social spending by replacing it with another, fairer system, FTT. I personally would rather pay 2 cents out of every $100 in tax that the current $12.50 paid through GST. That just makes sense to me. it leaves money in my pocket. Isn’t it better to leave more money in the poket of those who have a low income so they can afford to pay the rent, the power bill, the grocery bill?

People on low incomes tend to spend their money on domestic products like food as they can’t afford to pop off overseas or import expensive items. So I figure that logically, if you leave more money in their hands, its better for our economy and better for them too.

What do you think?

National Party policies

I must admit that I am a little bemused as to why people are waiting so expectantly for the National party to announce their policies. The policies will be the same as they have always been. User pays, reduction of the health and education vote and the privatisation of anything they can get away with. It would be a miracle if they went with anything remotely different.

The announcement that they would look at ways to open ACC up to competiton must be een for what it is. Privatisation. They have said they won’t sell off any assets in their first term so they need to find other ways to open up ACC to their big business mates. Anyway, they will no doubt spend their first term in power (if they get there) preparing to sell off the family silverware.

Of course, they might say this now and sell them off anyway. Stranger things have happened in New Zealand politics.