Goff boarding bus to campaign against GST rise

Labour leader Phil Goff and his MPs will travel the country by bus to campaign against the National Government's proposed increase in GST - but Mr Goff will not say if he will reverse the rise if Labour wins back power.

Mr Goff yesterday announced that Labour MPs would travel around New Zealand to oppose the Government's expected GST increase to 15 per cent in the upcoming Budget.

Prime Minister John Key has said any increase would be linked to compensatory personal tax cuts and increases to other entitlements and that the vast bulk of people would be better off.

Mr Goff said National had not campaigned during the last election on any promise to lift GST. "But Labour is going to campaign against it."

However, he would not say whether a Labour government would reverse the increase, saying the party would release its own tax policy in due course.

Mr Key said he was not concerned that the bus trip would stir up a groundswell of opposition, despite a TVNZ Colmar Brunton poll showing 64 per cent of people were opposed to an increase and a similar percentage did not believe the PM's assurances that the vast bulk of New Zealanders would be better off.

He said that while acknowledging there was some concern about whether it would benefit them, most people were "open minded" and waiting until they had seen the detail in the May Budget before deciding.

The Prime Minister scoffed at Mr Goff's bus tour. "I'm hoping they will wheel the bus driver out to point out how big his tax cut is going to be."

He said if Mr Goff was campaigning against the increase to GST so strongly, "one would assume he's going to reverse it".

"If Phil Goff is going to reverse any [possible] decision to raise GST then he will be campaigning in 2011 on raising personal taxes right across the board, reducing superannuation and reducing benefits entitlements. Good luck to him if he wants to do that."

A spokesman for the Labour leader said: "Mr Goff won't announce Labour's tax policy yet, but what Labour can say is that it will be far fairer than National's, which involves increasing GST for families and large tax cuts for the highest earners."

Mr Key said he was not worried that the bus trip would build a storm of anger against the proposals. Other recent polls had shown most New Zealanders were reserving judgment until they saw the final details in the Budget.

Labour's bus trip will begin on Sunday in Auckland and will travel throughout the country over the following fortnight before finishing in Dunedin.