Taxation ‘a key issue'

Press, 13 November 1981, Page 19

Taxation ‘a key issue '

MR

F. I. DOW

Unemployment, low productivity, high taxation, and inflation are the key issues facing both New Zealand and the Ashburton electorate says Mr lan Dow, the Social Credit candidate. The electorate of Ashburton is mainly related to agriculture and the servicing of it and its subsidiaries, he says. The problem of unemployment will be answered only if more industry is established to produce valueadded products from agriculture and servicing industries. The establishment of locally produced fuel from crops is an example of that and it would be done on a

regional basis, he says. By moving along those lines, together with the redirection of funds back into the private sector, with particular emphasis on small and medium-sized individually and co-operatively owned enterprises, production would be stimulated. It would provide the jobs so necessary to both reduce unemployment and increase output, says Mr Dow. “It is only through such expansion that the tax base can be produced to allow meaningful and real reductions in the burden of taxation on individuals and small companies,” he says. He says that Social Credit would also reform the rating system and have that extended to the home owner, with rates becoming a taxdeductible item. The present “iniquitous” hubometer tax on the road transport industry 'would be abolished. Social Credit

would work to see that agriculture had the resources it required to realise its full potential. “In areas where irrigation is necessary, let the yardstick of 15 per cent' return on investment be disbanded," says Mr Dow. The other prime concern is inflation. Unless that can be controlled, the outlook for future generations is gloomy, he says. Job opportunities, business expansion, and agriculture would all be adversely affected, not to mention those on fixed incomes.

“The factors which I believe are the causes of this malaise must be controlled: a lowering of interest rates and more investment in production at cheaper rates of interest will lower our cost of total production to enable both internal and export industries to expand,” he says. Broadly speaking, 1 would work to see that encouragement be given to the electorate. The guidelines or policy set by Government should allow people to go about their own business without central Government interference in their affairs. “A new direction is needed and I feel confident that by working to see the policies of Social Credit put into being, that new direction will become reality." Mr Dow, a sheep and cropping farmer from South Canterbury, is making his third attempt to get into Parliament this year.

R / CREDIT \