Letters: Politics, wages and tax

National Party leader Judith Collins. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Opinion

Let's not undo farmers' good work

Judith Collins remains divisive, charging the left with creating an urban/rural divide. The Government and farmers have progressed well in mitigating pollution and looking at climate change remedies. We don't need a cynical politician's lust for power to enable the worst elements of farming to undo all this work.
Niall Robertson, Balmoral

What MMP means

With the current big changes in percentage support for all the minor parties of Greens, NZ First, Act etc, I am now reminded of what I thought MMP stood for when it was first announced. I immediately imagined it was simply the abbreviation for Mickey Mouse Parliament. Was I wrong?
Murray Hunter, Titirangi

Lowering wages

Regarding Andrew Parsons' letter (Letters, September 27), lowering wages drastically worsened the Great Depression. JM Keynes pointed this out when positing increasing aggregate demand as a far better policy for protecting employment and output levels. Keynes argued that lowering wages would lead to lower output prices, further depressing investment, employment and GDP.
Robert Myers, Auckland

Tax deduction

Patrick Deane (Letters, September 27) suggests removal of tax deduction on interest expense on rental property. Landlords contribute no net benefit to the economy unless they buy new builds. Then whether a house is rented or owned by the occupier makes nil difference to the total number of housing units available. Any landlord who owns a property outright would be no worse off under such a law. Longer term, reduced competition would lead to stable property prices and lower housing costs for buyer occupiers. Indirectly capital would be freed up for investment in productive enterprise and collectively New Zealanders would own more of those enterprises thereby contributing to increases in productivity.
Also one has to ask why a borrower should benefit personally from the use of money which they have made no effort to create. Overall it is hard to see any negatives.
David Reid, Cockle Bay