New charities policy

Last week I followed up the speech I made earlier in the year about New Zealand's emerging underclass, by announcing our new policy on the tax treatment of charitable donations. The National Party believes that 'more government' is not the answer to every social problem. We want to encourage the innovation and entrepreneurial generosity we see in the charities and private groups that make a real difference in our communities.

A National government will remove the cap on tax rebates for private donations to charities, remove gift duty on donations, remove the cap on the proportion of net income that businesses are allowed to donate as a legitimate expense, and allow all businesses, such as small companies, sole traders and partnerships, to claim deductions on donations.

This will not just benefit groups providing social services, but also cultural groups, the arts, the SPCA, and international aid organisations. The policy will cost the government around $60-90M, but could boost private donations to charity by $300 million – nearly doubling the amount that goes to the sector.

By 'turbocharging' charities, we believe that, along with improvements to how the government delivers social services, we can make real progress in overcoming social exclusion in our communities and providing opportunity to those New Zealanders who know only welfare dependency and hopelessness.

Update on Food in Schools

I continue to be astounded by the response to my challenge to New Zealanders to help out our hungry schoolchildren. Since we drew attention to the issue, the KidsCan operation has almost doubled. It now provides food for 6,000 kids around the country. And the offers keep rolling in.

James Crisp Ltd has donated an astonishing 100,000 packets of Cinderella raisins and is looking to form an ongoing relationship with KidsCan. Tasti Foods has given 100,000 snack bars. And last week Watties donated 16 pallets of fruit pottles to 16 schools in Auckland.

Every week, more and more school principals write in, thanking us for highlighting the problem of malnourished schoolchildren, and asking KidsCan and other charities for their help.

Environment Day in Canterbury

We need to be careful that our environmental policies are not just expensive and ineffective knee-jerk reactions to the issues of the day, but practical and pragmatic responses to the real environmental problems we face.

Labour's claim that it wants the country to achieve carbon neutrality looks good in press releases, but is nothing more than pie in the sky thinking in an effort to distract Kiwis from the chaos of Labour's climate change policy, which is causing record high deforestation.

We need to keep our feet on the ground. On Tuesday I spent the day in and around Christchurch with our environment spokesman Nick Smith and our agriculture spokesman David Carter, looking at some of the real environmental problems we face, and what a National government will do to help fix them.

We believe that forest owners should get a proportion of the carbon credits they have accrued since 1990, and which the government has so far refused to pay them. Without such an incentive, our record high deforestation will only get worse.

I'd like to thank all the people I met who gave up their valuable time to share their concerns. I learnt a lot about the real problems we face, and the good work that so many Kiwis are doing to help our environment.

In my mind, the day really helped reinforce the National Party's Bluegreen vision for New Zealand, that:

· Our resource use must be based on sustainability,

· Economic growth and improving the environment must go together,

· Good science is essential to our environmental decision making,

· People respond best to change when they are given the right incentives, and

· New Zealanders have a unique birthright to enjoy our special places.

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