The Politically Incorrect Show - 24/05/2000

[Music - Die Fledermaus]

Good afternoon, KAYA ORAAAA & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Wednesday May 24, proudly sponsored by Neanderton Nicotine Ltd, the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit & excellence against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.

[Music up, music down]

Last week I offered the government some helpful advice as to how to ease the hardship created by rising petrol prices: cut the petrol tax in half & thus lower the price by about 20 cents a litre. Today I'm pleased to offer some more suggestions. These, note, are not a blueprint for a libertarian society, which is a longer-term project, but are things this non-libertarian government could do to revive a badly-wounded economy & enhance our freedom at the same time.

#1) Dump all tariffs immediately. Tariffs are a tax on imports which artificially raises their price not just for consumers but also for exporters & other businesses using imported components. Relieving them of this cost will dramatically help their viability. As it is, the government's Zero Tariff Reduction Amendment Bill will stop the planned reduction of tariffs to 15% on July 1 this year & freeze them at last year's level of 19%.

#2) Drop GST to 10% this year & then by a further two & a half per cent each year thereafter until the wretched thing is gone. It's a nightmare for small businesses in particular, & even though this measure would not remove the burden of compliance until GST had disappeared, it would allow businesses to charge less for their products & thus do more business.

#3) Exempt the first fifteen thousand dollars of one's earnings from income tax altogether & set a flat rate of twenty per cent on all earnings above that level. This would simultaneously help those at the lower end, about whom the government professes such concern, & remove the current disincentives to reach the upper end.

#4) Relieve employers of the burden of PAYE administration other than simply informing IRD of each employee's level of remuneration. IRD could then send each taxpayer a quarterly bill much as councils do with rates.

#5) Dump the Fringe Benefit Tax. Another irksome compliance burden, whose removal would leave employers free to provide perks to valued employees at no extra cost.

#6) Reduce Company Tax to twenty per cent also, from its current level of thirty-three per cent. This would make it much more attractive for newcomers to set up in business & for already-established overseas concerns to invest here.

#7) Dump the minimum wage. This would see a proliferation of low-paid jobs for the unskilled, who would also be benefiting from the $15,000 tax threshold & dramatically lower prices generally.

#8) Dump all legislation specific to the labour market & treat employment contracts like any other contract - something to be enforced by the government if breached. As it is, the new Employment Relations Bill is going to lock large numbers out of the workforce by restoring union monopolies. Tear it up!

Well, there are eight suggestions - enough to be going on with for now. They're really quite wimpy & by no means comprehensive. I've left out re-privatising accident insurance, which should go without saying, & a raft of other possibilities no doubt. What should the government do about lost revenue? Leaving aside the extra income generated by the hyperactive economy these measures would induce, I would say "whatever it takes" in the way of reduced expenditure, beginning with the abolition of such useless, bossyboot quangoes as the Ministry for Economic Development, the Ministry of Women's Affairs, NaZis On Air & so forth. Expenditure on benefits would also drop by attrition as beneficiaries re-entered the work force. Government SHOULD be reducing its expenditure in any event, stimulating economic growth by getting off the backs of the wealth creators - and, even more important, enabling us to revel in more freedom as it does so. Who knows - people might enjoy it so much they'll take it into their heads to go the whole hog!

Politically Incorrect Show, always obliging with constructive suggestions ... 309 3099.

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