At long last!

I am always ready to praise Labour when they do something right, so I can only offer my congratulations to Dr Cullen for his announcement in this morning’s pre-budget update of a reduction in the middle tax rate.

It isn’t as much as I would like, being only a 2c reduction in the 21c rate but it’s a good start. To quote Dr Cullen “While our priority remains investing in services and infrastructure, the level of our structural under-lying surplus is high enough to allow the Government to lower tax rates on low and middle income New Zealanders”

The cost of the tax cuts is $580 million a year. Not anywhere near enough with a surplus of over $5 billion but it is useful progress.