Price rises put pressure on families

In less than a fortnight the GST increase National promised it would never impose, will put further pressures on household budgets.
The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research has just released its quarterly predictions, indicating that half of New Zealand households will be worse off than they were a year ago.
Government imposed price increases, including GST, will impose higher costs on people than will be compensated by income tax cuts.
That makes a lie of John Key’s promise that the vast majority of people will be better off after the tax switch – more of a tax swindle actually!
The GST hikes come at a time where New Zealanders are struggling to keep up with their household bills.
Baycorp warned this week that the number of people unable to pay their power bills on time is set to increase over the next six months with the average monthly bill rising from around $520 to $615.
This is not the time to make things even harder for struggling families – leading up to 1 October Labour will be focusing on the increase in cost of living, and what we can do to ease the pressure off families.