United Future Policy Statement

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Business and the Economy


United Future supports market-orientated policies to enhance economic growth balanced by social responsibility. A strong business community increases opportunities for all New Zealanders to participate in community life, and contributes to enhanced employment opportunities, health and well-being and the formation of good relationships.

We aim to promote a free and open market to provide businesses with the best opportunity to move New Zealand forward in a strong and prosperous direction. We must also seek to ensure global market success does not come at the expense of the small and medium businessperson.

United Future's economic policy promotes steady economic growth, international competitiveness, and innovation, while also supporting family and community values. United Future will work to establish a fair and even-handed economy for the working, the unemployed and businesses. We will help employees acquire the necessary skills to will ensure that New Zealand's labour force can weather the changes in the global market.

United Future wants to continue to build an enterprise economy, which rewards excellence and participation across all levels of society, and provides each person with the opportunity to contribute as an individual, or within a family or as part of a team.

Our policies are carefully integrated to ensure we can achieve the following objectives:

  • Reduced impediments to business performance
  • Promotion of an export-friendly economy
  • Encouragement of innovation
  • A taxation system that takes into account the costs of raising a family
Improved Business Performance

United Future will:

  • Reduce company tax to 30 cents in the dollar over the next three years
  • Abolish fringe benefit tax and phase out the remaining excise duties
  • Streamline the tax compliance and penalties regime
  • Establish an independent Tax Ombudsman
  • Review all legislation and regulations that impose coercive powers (for example, the Resource Management Act, Occupational Safety and Health Act) to ensure the impact on business is minimised, consistent with the overall public interest
  • Establish a Business Finance Advisory Service to assist small and medium sized business.
Personal wealth creation

New Zealanders are poor savers, with one of the lowest savings ratios in the OCED. United Future believes personal wealth creation and savings behaviour must be encouraged through a taxation system that is internationally competitive and takes into account the costs of raising a family.

United Future will:

  • Further lower tax rates, as economic conditions allow, with the goal of establishing a tax rate which is comparatively flat.
  • Introduce income splitting for families
  • Introduce a home carer's allowance for parents at home caring for children under the age of five.
  • Increase tax rebates currently available for child care costs.
  • Increase personal tax rebate on donations to charitable organisations from $500 to $5000.
  • Require the Inland Revenue Department to ensure that families fully access all tax rebates and family support entitlements.
A Strong Economy

United Future will:

  • Support free trade and embrace free trade agreements and pacts where there is a reasonable opportunity for New Zealand to benefit.
  • Ensure foreign investment is an absolute priority. Create a long term, targeted vision for foreign investment.
  • Research the benefits of a common currency with Australia and/or USA.
  • Encourage more New Zealanders to become entrepreneurs by promoting positive attitudes towards wealth creation and business success.
  • Work with local government to develop regional businesses. This includes providing a stable and transparent environmental policy, which encourages long-term business planning; devising regulatory interventions that do not distort resource allocations; and minimising compliance costs.
  • Improve transport infrastructure, especially where roading constraints are holding back economic growth and development.
  • Continue government support for low inflation and debt reduction as embodied by the Reserve Bank Act, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the Public Finance Act, and the Employment Relations Act.
  • Establish an Export Licensing Authority to administer any coercive powers delegated by Parliament relating to international trade and surpluses.
  • Retain the Ministry of Economic Development, but re-focus key elements of their work
Industrial Relations

United Future will:

  • Promote a modern, flexible labour market that is stable. We will avoid wholesale changes to employment legislation every time a government changes on the grounds of ideology, and instead amend current legislation to make it better. We will not indulge in the political ping-pong associated with this issue.
  • Increase workforce skills by getting more people into industry training. We will aim to increase the numbers involved in formal industry training to 160,000 per year by 2005.
  • Improve workplace literacy, since currently 20% of New Zealand adults have insufficient literacy skills to hold down a job.
  • Review grievance and dismissal procedures in the Employment Relations Act.
  • Amend the Holidays Act to allow fairness and flexibility for both employers and employees.
  • Support greater competition in the provision of ACC services
Research Development and Training

United Future will:

  • Improve links between research and commercial applications and increase the amount of private sector R & D to 1.5% of GDP by 2010.
  • Introduce a watertight tax deductibility scheme for research and development projects.
  • Implement a more realistic software development taxation regime
  • Establish one-stop-shop Community Service Centres and a Business Finance Advisory Service to assist small and medium businesses to manage their own response to welfare and unemployment issues
  • Increase spending on scientific research to at least one per cent of GDP and establish a Public Good Science Fund that will focus on areas of strategic importance for the future of New Zealand.
Immigration
United Future will:
  • Implement a stable population and immigration policy with the objective of an additional 0.5% annual increase to overall economic growth.
  • Encourage more foreign students to undertake study and work in New Zealand
  • Deploy recruitment teams to New Zealand Embassies to interview and screen potential immigrants.
  • Establish a one-stop Migrant Business Development Agency within the Immigration Service
  • Remove all occupational licensing statutes to remove restrictive practices, and empower NZQA to be the organisation responsible for assessing the professional qualification of new migrants and break closed shops
  • Actively promote multi-culturalism as a signpost for the future.
Environmental Standards
  • Introduce mandatory environmental reporting and disclosure requirements as incentives for business to improve environmental performance
  • Encourage wider use of natural resource accounting systems, to better match environmental and economic decision making.


United Future Parliamentary Office: Bowen House, Lambton Quay, Wellington
Email: Phone: (04) 471 9890