A CENTENNIAL SUGGESTION

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22465, 28 July 1938, Page 12

A CENTENNIAL SUGGESTION

♦ Statue of New Zealand Taxpayer MR WILKINSON DISCUSSES PUBLIC EXPENDITURE [From Our Parliamentary Reporter.] WELLINGTON, July 27. The suggestion that at the Centennial Exhibition in 1940 a statue should be erected in honour of “that rugged individual, the New Zealand taxpayer,” was made by Mr C. A. Wilkinson (Independent, Egmont) during the financial debate in the House of Representatives to-night. Mr Wilkinson said the statue would be well justified, because the New Zealand taxpayer could carry a load with anyone in the world. , . . “One of the outslanu.-ffi features of the Budget is the evidence it affords of the alarming growth of national expenditure," Mr Wilkinson said. “There is no doubt that the New Zealander, in his capacity to pay, is a rugged individual indeed, becau be has to carry a burden equal tc that of an nation on earth. In the last 11 years taxation a head in New Zealand has risen from £l2 17s 7d to £23 Is 3d- but the Minister for Finance suggested last year that we should take heed of what we have left, rather than of what we have to pay out. is simply the doctrine of Ned Kelly. “Has Run Amok” “This Government’s policy is to gel the highest possible taxation ut of the people, and it is full of danger for this country,” Mr Wilkinson added. “The Government has run amok; but a reduction in taxation and expenditure will have to come some time, and the longer it is left the more difficult will it be to do.” Mr Wilkinson also discussed the increase in local government rates, and instanced one farm property, the valuation of which had been the same all the time, and on which the rates levied had risen from £69 7s 6d in 1936 to £93 16s in 1937, and £134 10s 5d in 1938. Land tax on the sameproperty, which admittedly had other properties connected with it, had increased by 100 per cent, through the introduction of the graduated land tax. On a property in the town of New Plymouth the rates had risen from £134 0s 7d in 1936-37 to £l5B 19s 3d in 1937-38, while on one property m Eltham the rates had increased from £lll 9s 6d in 1934-35 to £137 11s lOd in 1937-38. “In England, where our heavily taxed farmers have to sell their produce, there are neither rates nor land taxes on farm properties,” said Mr Wilkinson. “In addition, our farmers have to send their produce 12.000 miles to compete in the open market.