Tax cut protest takes roundabout way to Wellington

Dave Stewart plans to take his protest against tax cuts to Parliament — but he is kicking it off from the podium of a downtown Whakatāne roundabout.

He said the Government’s determination to carry through on its promise to deliver tax cuts — despite public and political pressure to postpone them — was simply “feeding greed” and would be paid for by taking services from the poorest in the country.

“With the coalition Government’s tax cuts being universally condemned, I think it’s important to ask that they be postponed,” Stewart said.

Tax cuts for middle to low income earners were one of the National party’s campaign promises during last year’s election, however, many are opposed to them through fear of where funds will be taken from.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced last week in a Budget Policy Statement that she intended to go ahead with them.

“One of the priorities in the upcoming Budget was to deliver meaningful tax reductions to provide cost of living relief to New Zealanders who had seen no change in personal income tax rates and thresholds since 2010,” she said.

In a media release, she said tax reductions would be funded within the operating allowance through a mixture of savings, reprioritisation and additional revenue sources, though did not specify what those were.

Stewart said the Government would pay for them with increases in other areas.

“The tax cuts aren’t making sense. If they go ahead with them they will lose all the support that they’ve got. There’s so many people against them.”

He hoped that anyone who was against the tax cuts would join his protest.

Up until Budget day on May 30, he plans to protest every Friday between 3pm and 5pm on the Landing Rd roundabout. He said as more people joined him he may have to move from the roundabout as he did not want to impede traffic flow.

He said he expected the protest to snowball as more people become involved.

“I’ve got a network of people I’ve reached out to and it will build up to a massive protest in Wellington on Budget Day if they don’t surrender by then.”

Stewart is no stranger to such protests. In January last year he took to the streets protesting the hate and vitriol being directed against Jacinda Ardern that surfaced after she resigned as prime minister.

He was fully in approval of the recent upgrade of the Landing Road roundabout Whakatāne District Council has built at the western entrance to town, which had been criticised by some for its lack of colourful flowers.

“It’s a perfect protesting roundabout. I watched them build it with much glee. I thought, ‘for me?’”

Stewart has started an online petition on change.org called Postpone the Tax Cuts.