National denies it misled voters over taxes

Finance Minister Bill English during his speech at the ANZ post-Budget breakfast. Photo / Mark Mitchell, NZ Herald

National has denied it misled voters before last year's election, when it vowed not to introduce any new taxes, by announcing two new taxes in this week's Budget.

The Government has consistently denied its changes to taxing the capital gains on property and the introduction of a new airport levy are new taxes, with Finance Minister Bill English today accusing anyone calling them a tax of playing "word games".

It came as Mr English denied National had misled voters.

"No, we didn't. The airport levy is a user charge, and across Government we have user charges for all sorts of things," he told TV3's The Nation.

"In this case we've got demand at the border, lots more people coming in, it's a problem with success, we've got biosecurity risks, and so we've taken the opportunity to shift the cost from the tax payer to the user."

However, he could not say that every cent of the traveller levy would go back into airport security.

"That's yet to be seen just exactly where it all goes," he said.

People were playing "word games" by calling it a tax, Mr English said.

Asked about the introduction of two new taxes within a week, Mr English said he would "simply disagree with that".

"We've made it pretty clear what we're doing is working with existing tax law, we're bolstering it, we're making it enforceable," he said about the capital gains announcement.

"And I think most people will see the impact on the housing market's going to probably matter a lot more than the word game over whether it's called a new tax or not."

Meanwhile, Labour's Grant Robertson denied party leader Andrew Little wants to means test superannuation, saying Mr Little was only answering a question about fairness in the system.

Mr Robertson told the programme "means testing [superannuation] is not Labour policy, it's not part of our review [of superannuation policy]".

However, he said New Zealanders "need to have an honest conversation about a superannuation bill of $30 billion".

But he hit out at the Government's Budget, saying it did not constitute a plan to improve poverty in New Zealand, and said said the "whole Budget's a broken promise Budget".

New Zealander of the Year Dr Lance O'Sullivan said he considered the Budget a "step in the right direction" to help ease struggling families out of poverty. While changes like the proposed $25 weekly increase to the benefit were no "magic bullet", he said, they would "make a difference".