Keep them away from GST

Radio NZ reports:

A skin cancer expert is calling for sunscreen to be made cheaper – either by removing GST or offering it on prescription – to reduce New Zealand’s sky-high melanoma rate.

University of Otago skin cancer prevention researcher Dr Bronwen McNoe told Midday Report’s Charlotte Cook that sunscreen was significantly more expensive in New Zealand than in Australia.

The two countries shared the world’s highest melanoma rate, and New Zealand had the unenviable record of the world’s highest death rate from skin cancer.

McNoe said she supported any initiative that reduced the cost of sunscreen for consumers, including the current petition demanding the removal of GST.

No, no, no, no, no. The moment you start treating the GST as a way to decrease prices on things you approve of, and increase prices on things you disapprove of, you destroy the simplicity of the system and massively increase compliance costs.

If the barrier to sunscreen use is price (of which I am not aware of any quality research), then you deal with that through Pharmac, or subsidies. You do not wreck the GST system.