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- Date published:
9:12 am, February 14th, 2026 - 79 comments
Categories: benefits, TOPS, uncategorized, welfare -
Tags: Citizens Income, Guaranteed Minimum Income, social security, ubi
TOP have a plan to ditch Superannuation. Maybe its replacement makes sense, or some of it does, I don’t know. But still tucked away in there is the dismantling of all welfare.
TOP leader Qiulae Wong was interviewed on Morning Report,
Wong said TOP would replace NZ Super – along with all other forms of government assistance – with a new citizens’ income.
This is similar to a universal basic income but is means tested so that people who earn more than $350,000 a year cannot access it.
She said this weekly payment would be a bit lower than NZ Super but in the interim a top-up would be paid for people who qualify for NZ Super.
That seemed a bit misleading, implying that beneficiaries would get a bit lower than Super too, but no, what TOP is still proposing is that all New Zealanders get the equivalent of the dole,
Ending the cost-of-living crisis with a Citizen’s Income. A Citizen’s Income backs every Kiwi so they can afford the basics to live well and contribute. Most adults will receive a regular payment roughly in line with the current Jobseeker benefit. No paperwork, no bureaucrats – just a financially secure base to build a life on. The Citizen’s income is paid for by introducing a Land Value Tax and eliminates the ‘welfare trap’ where people on a benefit pay an effective marginal tax rate of up to 90% for taking on work.
That last bit about abatement rates functioning as a super high tax rate on beneficiaries is good, and it’s doubly good to see TOP paying some attention to how welfare works. But here’s the problem. If you can’t work to top up the dole-level Citizen’s Income, you are forced to live on the equivalent of $10/hr before tax. Current Living Wage is $28.95/hr.
Maybe TOP have a plan for top ups for disabled people and young mums. But where is that policy or even mention of it? Why should disabled people, and others who can’t work, trust that TOP understand the risks here and will build in safety? TOP have been told about this for years and here they are still designing dangerous policy and ignoring the impacts on some of the most vulnerable people in the country. There are 100,000 people on Supported Living Allowance in New Zealand (the benefit for long term disabled people). It’s unconscionable that a party seeking to enter parliament has this little regard for them.
If you dismantle welfare, topups stop being entitlements under the Social Security Act, and instead people’s ability to feed and house themselves and their kids becomes dependent on the vagaries of the incumbent government.
UBI’s are a good idea. But you have to bolt welfare on and tory-proof it, or they will become the right’s favourite way of using poverty as an economic tool for force wages down and turn poor people into migrant and precariat workers. This is why the Greens’ policy is a Guaranteed Minimum Income for those that need it, it doesn’t assume everyone can work or that everyone’s income needs are the same. Nor that people will have access to Kiwisaver.
Here’s the key difference. The Greens’ starting point is wellbeing of people and their families. TOP’s starting point is economics. Which is why TOP’s income policy is categorised under Tax. The Greens’ have the GMI under Livelihoods this year, nice. Never let economists design social security.
TOP’s UBI ideas started with Gareth Morgan, who openly hated welfare and thought women on the DPB should move in together to make ends meet. TOP have changed policy in various ways since then, and definitely softened the anti-welfare rhetoric, but dismantling welfare is still core to the plan. I can’t tell if they just don’t get how welfare works, or if it’s not a priority for them, but it undermines the otherwise good ideas they are bringing to the table.
I’ve written about TOP and UBI before. This one in 2017 about the utter discrimination against disabled youth, and in 2020 UBI, what is it good for?
The left needs to get its head around UBI proposals, what works and doesn’t, and not just buy into TOP’s feel good approach to dumping evil WINZ. The tricky thing here is that the way we run welfare now is harmful, wasteful and woefully inadequate. What TOP don’t seem to realise is they could replace that with something worse.
No, not at all, it would be more of a shock if any political party (bar the Greens) actually showed the slightest regard for us.
And the fact that the vast majority vote for parties that have no intention whatsoever of making the lives of disabled people better, is a sad indictment on it's citizens.
The payment to those with disabilities should be at the super level.
This is really hitting on the main point, Gareth Morgans original UBI proposal would be a disaster for beneficiaries. In fact, I'll go further and point out that Gareth is a smart guy, smart enough to understand if there was a way to fix it he would have proposed that solution, rather than what TOP has advertised as a policy. It seems to be quite a deceptive move to continue to put this policy out in the hope that supporters don't notice the obvious (already known) flaws.
Having said that, I would go further about the validity of UBI policies. The 90% marginal tax rate on beneficiaries incomes is not a flaw and is not something to address, it's actually the point. Temporarily putting aside that WINZ assessment of a guaranteed minimum income is too low and should be increased (and made less secretive) there is still going to be a high marginal tax rate at the point this top up ends. Whether or not we call this a high marginal tax rate when the source of someone's income switches from government to employer, this is beside the point, the point is they receive that much income.
The other claims about UBI's are simply bullshit. The fact that WINZ has to do paperwork to assess benefit eligibility is a trivial cost of the welfare system (and again the way WINZ does this could obviously be made much, much more socially fair). But the 'saving' of not bothering to do that in no way makes up for the massive inefficiency of paying a bonus allowance to so many people who don't need it (with incomes up to $350,000 p.a). Calling that an efficiency is magical thinking. What is actually being proposed here is to 'fix' the government budget on the backs of beneficiaries.
There might be some reasonable proposals to pay everybody (that includes beneficiaries) a small UBI, but these are basically equivalent to lowering some universal tax rate (including adjusting WINZ minimum income assessment rates in line with that). Nobody thinks (or should think) that's 'fixing' the government budget, and probably better things would result if you instead added that to public spending in some broadly helpful way anyway, so I don't really see the utility of any UBI policy proposals.
Not quite following you there. At some point when a beneficiary in part time work reaches a certain point, they need less income and thus less benefit. The key issue here is how to not keep that person in perpetual precarity. Some of that is how the abatement rate works, the other is the insane requirements from WINZ in terms of paperwork around income. Last time I looked people on JS had to file weekly. Imagine asking the rest of the population to file a weekly tax return 🙄
Abatement applies to all income and cuts in at different rates depending on which benefits you get.
Where it really hits is people in part time or casual work who can't get enough hours to reach a living wage or even minimum wage, so need JS. They're in a constant accounting chaos between WINZ weekly reporting, trying to juggle hours worked against the abatement and if they get TAS it's even worse. It's a mess, and it needs to be sorted out. The Greens' GMI is the closest I've seen to a real solution.
Thanks for that detail. I had no idea that people were filing weekly import reports to WINZ which is ridiculous.
My point is, the framing of TOP is to talk about the 90% marginal tax rate, which makes it sound like it's an additional tax faced by beneficiaries intentionally. The TOP framing intentionally presents the source of this income top up to beneficiaries in language which makes it sound harmful. It's not harmful, it's their source of income or bringing their income up to a minimum level when they don't get sufficient from an employer. Any implementation of a means tested minimum income level will have such a threshold (which may also be different depending on individual means).
Of course, the GMI policy is a well thought out way to address many of the actual issues with WINZ administration of this policy however.
Finally, just to address the point about perpetual precarity, because it's somewhat separate. The issue is that people in this situation of partial work/partial benefit can't find sufficient work to generate a full income. Like it or not benefits are always going to be at a minimal relatively precarious income level for most people (people who can't be expected to work should clearly have that further supplemented). There is a way to address this however, which is for the government to provide a job guarantee (paying the minimum wage up to full time hours). When somebody signs up to this the government finds something useful for them to be employed doing locally. That way anybody on a benefit has a way off their benefit with full income, from there they may either find their way into more or less full-time private sector work (which will have become greatly assisted by having a recent work history) or can simply stay in the job guarantee as they see fit. There is then a way out of the perpetual precarity situation at all times, regardless of the state of the economy. NZ overall would also be benefiting greatly from all the useful work these people do.
I'm going to say however this is not fundamentally a different path from how WINZ wants people off benefits and into jobs. WINZ policy tends to use the stick approach rather than the carrot, but the path out of perpetual precarity is still one off welfare and into work.
…. and supposing there isn't anything useful locally? Work camps as in the 1930s?
I would suggest to you to just show a little creativity.
For a start nobody is going to be required to work in any job what so ever. If anybody prefers they are entitled to just remain on welfare (which is still needed because there are definitely people who can't work).
Yes, there are going to be some requirements around what work people are doing under such a scheme, because the government is paying the wage here.
1) It's not for private profit.
2) Employers should be maintaining a functional work requirement, and work record, same as any other employer.
3) Workers get the same benefits as any other job.
4) Workers are employed, and the employer is responsible for their health and safety same as any other job.
5) Employers need to supply all necessary equipment and materials for any job.
6) Work should be largely non-skilled (you should not need prior training to complete it) and obviously not particularly labor intensive.
With those kinds of requirements in place and able to be administered you can open up the scheme to non-profits organizations as well as local community groups to bring projects to be completed. Once it's well enough administered that can expand to clubs and community groups. Once you apply a little imagination it becomes clear the prospect of 'there is nothing which needs doing round here' becomes an irrelevant concern.
It was like that for a long time. I looked earlier and it does seem like they offer beneficiaries the option to choose yearly. Whether that option is a real option that actually gets offered is another mater.
Yes, I remember having to do that 25+ years ago when I had a casual job, the last time I was able to hold down paid work. I never knew week to week how many hours I'd have so I had to report into WINZ every Friday for my benefit amount to be 'reassessed' for the upcoming week. Honestly, it wasn't worth the stress so that was the end of working.
it blows my mind how much WINZ policy actively deters people from getting work. I hope the option to choose yearly is a good process and makes people's live better.
One of the few areas where UI makes sense is
as a payments system to those in casual work or part-time work.
(the check would be IRD knowledge of earnings received, rather than W and I reporting).
That would include students not on the allowance of Tertiary Loan living costs (part-time study).
allowance
ofor Tertiary Loan living costsThe 90% marginal tax rate is actually a fiction. It is posited only because a benefit reduction is being thought of as a tax; which it is not. Of course a beneficiary weighing up the pro's and con's of taking on part time work would consider a benefit reduction a 'con'. However, that's really WINZ's problem rather than TOP's. The latter is now saying that it will address that problem, though admittedly it doesn't as yet say how.
I don't know if it's a marginal tax rate. Some beneficiaries lose 100% of what they earn. You can call it something else, but it's still a) unfair, and b) counter productive to getting people out of poverty and into work.
You are probably right when you say it's unfair. However you can hardly blame TOP for that situation when they are not even in parliament. And TOP's tax policies (flat tax and UBI) are not a contributor to the situation.
TOP's plan is to get rid of that problem by destroying welfare.
We should be holding TOP accountable for that appalling policy position. That's the point of the post.
From the TOP Platform
This refers to the impact of abatement (70 cents) + income tax.
They do not need to, because that is obvious. A CI not abated by earning other income and instead that income taxed at the flat rate.
Have TOP dropped the clawback via tax idea for higher income earners and instead literally would pay it to everyone. That would be remarkable, especially politically at this time.
No, of course not. That's basically all this policy is about is that despite NZs internationally low levels of public debt, and low per capita public sector budgets, they still think the deficit is too big at virtually all times.
[Have TOP dropped the clawback via tax idea for higher income earners and instead literally would pay it to everyone. That would be remarkable, especially politically at this time.]
What is this clawback? I have followed TOP's policies since they first started in 2017, and I am not aware of any 'clawback'.
If you mean the flat tax idea, then, yes, it is still part of their policy.
Universal Income (financed by a land tax) and a flat tax.
Two extremist ideas.
GM wanted to tempt those, who did not own land (younger people or the working class person renting for life), with the offer of money, if they would agree to pay the same rate of tax as those on higher incomes.
The affordability of government would then depend on the rate of that land tax (on home ownership and farmland) and the rate of that flat tax.
Rather than maintaining progressive income taxation and having CGT and taxation on estate wealth.
None of that is a 'clawback'. Incorrect terminology leads to woolly thinking.
The flat tax ( 33c/$ ), coupled with a UBI of $13,000 p/a, as advocated by TOP in the 2020 election would have meant that anyone on an income of $39,000 would effectively have been paying no income tax. Anyone earning less than that would have been on an effective negative tax rate. Compared with that the so called $15,000 tax free zone advocated by the MP would be nothing to brag about.
A land tax would have been a very good idea by the way. One of our economy’s major problems is the ‘free lunch’ enjoyed by landlords in respect of land ownership.
A land tax would apply on all land and most of the revenue would come from homeowners in residence and farmers.
That is "woolly thinking", it is the UI that provided for that benefit, not a flat rate of tax. And the UI was to be funded by the land tax.
A land tax would apply on all land and most of the revenue would come from homeowners in residence and farmers.
A land tax would provide the government with revenue that could be used to reduce, and perhaps even eliminate, income tax. Marx, I think, thought that the tax burden should fall on land rather than on wages and profits.
it is the UI that provided for that benefit, not a flat rate of tax. And the UI was to be funded by the land tax.
The UBI would have been partially funded by the difference between actual tax as it is at present, and the flat tax. In any case case it doesn't matter much: a tax free zone of up to $39,000 is not something to be sneezed at.
Marx saw land tax as a transition to (nationalisation) state ownership of land. His ultimate goal was to make land common property, rather than just taxing private land. He criticised "bourgeois" reformers who thought a land tax alone would solve all problems.
(All land in Singapore is ultimately owned by the State, with most owned directly by it).
I agree with Marx's view that public ownership of all land would be better, but I cannot see any party promising to nationalize land making it into parliament.
The TOP say they would fund UI by a land tax.
Their flat tax is to replace the existing progressive rate system.
I await, as at each election, an independently costed TOP budget.
The TOP say they would fund UI by a land tax.
The difference does exist so it must be a contributing factor.
Why would landlords not pass this cost onto tenants? They already do with rates.
They would want to and in some markets would get away with it.
That would result in a higher AS cost to government (as to the credibility of TOP budgets).
(I do not not get the link to the fact that most of the land tax would be paid by homeowners and farmers and maybe golf course owners).
lol, true.
TOP wants to do away with AS.
That would create a lot of demand for income related housing.
Would TOP fund Kainga Ora and other social housing providers?
AS? What is that?
The Accommodation Supplement
is a non-taxable, weekly Work and Income payment in NZ designed to assist with rent, board, or home ownership costs. It is available to people on low incomes or benefits, provided they are 16+, NZ residents, not in social housing, and meet income/asset tests. The payment amount varies based on location and household size.
They probably would not need an AS if they had a UBI.
@SPC (no reply button on your comment?) of course, the AS hasn't been fit for purpose for years now ie ever since private rentals went stratospheric. Nearly all of us in private accommodation now also get the Temporary Assistance Support on a permanent basis, and have to go through the performance of reapplying for it every 3 months. But without it there would be many, many more homeless out there.
The landlord probably would pass it on; after all it seems logical that the tax should be paid by the user of the land. In the hands of the tenant the tax should probably be offset by a reduction in income tax.
PS: It does seem odd that both landlord and tenant both get deductions for the one expense.
I thought the original plan was that you paid everyone the UBI, but people on higher incomes paid more tax, so the end result was that a bunch of well of people didn't get the state handing them $250/week.
Red Logix outlined it in a post a long time ago
https://thestandard.nz/universal-income-revisited/
He looked at the modernisation of income and payments at the IRD level
He used the example of UI with a 40% flat rate tax.
It included a higher rate of UI to those on super (but did not go into the complexity of various benefit categories).
It also did not include a land tax. Or CGT. Or estate tax.
I looked at Red Logix' post, and the gist of it is that everybody receives the $10,000, billionaires and paupers alike. However, while the $10,000 would be of enormous benefit to the pauper, it would hardly make much difference to a billionaire's income.
my bad. It's been a long time since I looked at it.
As an assetless superannuation receiver I think they should pair the policy with a massive increase in budget for assisted suicide.
They probably would not need an AS if they had a UBI.
Supported Living Payment + AS + disability allowance + TAS = $800/wk (after tax)
UBI = $361/wk
Do you know anyone that can live on $361/wk?
I'm sure most could live on $1,161/wk. It would be misleading to suggest that anyone would have to live on $361/wk as a result of TOP’s policies.
did you read the post. This is exactly what their policy does.
and,
My emphasis. If benefits are gone, where does additional income come from above JS?
I don't think they said the CI would be $361/week. In fact I don't think they have given us any figure for the UBI as yet.
At $395/week the Greens' income top-up target is $34 more than the JSB. Well done!
from the post,
JS, single adult, after tax is $361.32
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/products/benefit-rates/benefit-rates-april-2025.html
2020 policy,
https://thestandard.nz/green-party-rocks-their-new-guaranteed-minimum-income-policy/
The Greens are proposing UBI with welfare bolted on,
Current TOP
So from over $500 on Super to closer to Citizen Income at the Job Seeker Benefit rate (a bit over $300) + a top up (unspecified).
So they would reduce it down to the CI level, if those on Super had other income.
The presumption being that longer periods on Kiwi Saver (since 2007) would mean a future where more people had other income.
The detail as per those on benefits paid at a higher rate than JSB, or access to AS, is not provided.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/586825/ditch-nz-super-entirely-minor-party-says
JSB
age 20-24, $314
over 25 $361
The important thing to remember is that at best top, will be a minnow party, there for they won't have any power, but they are a refreshing change from the same old ledt right tripe.
they're a centrist party who have the potential to be kingmaker and thus make substantial policy gains and get ministerial positions if they get about 5% or gain a seat.
That makes them dangerous, because they could do a deal with National to start dismantling welfare in exchange for partial policy gains. Worst of both worlds.
That makes them dangerous, because they could do a deal with National to start dismantling welfare in exchange for partial policy gains. Worst of both worlds.
Your crystal ball seems to be malfunctioning. Time to chuck it out and get a new one.
make an argument to prove me wrong then. Are they not still willing to support National into government?
Have they ever said they would support National generally. The only time they did was when Raf Manji tried to to get National to gift him a seat, but that was only because he was standing in a National held seat; if he had been standing in a Labour seat I imagine he would probably have asked them to gift him a seat.
More importantly, there is no way that they would ever ask a major party to dismantle the social welfare system. WfF might be dispensed with, along with rent subsidies, as being no longer necessary if a UBI was put in place, but that's probably about all. They have always said that a UBI would be subject to top ups in the case of welfare and National Super if the amount was insufficient to live on.
Afaik their position has always been to go with which ever major party works for them at the time. They are by design a centric party in MMP terms. There are really good reasons why the green party doesn’t position themselves like this, and it’s because they don’t want their voters to think that they might support a national government into power. TOP are actually okay with people knowing that.
From the post,
What do you think Wong meant when she said along with all other forms of government assistance?
The best I have seen from TOP is some vague hand waves towards top ups, that’s not good enough. You absolutely cannot and shouldn’t be designing Social Security to make the actual Social Security less secure at the same time as not designing in the safety nets.
Worse, this absolutely no mention of the top ups in either the RNZ piece, or on their website where they talk about the citizens income. My question in the post was why should beneficiaries and disabled people trust TOP when TOP don’t regard the top ups is something necessary to even mention let alone have policy on.
"top, will be a minnow party, there for they won't have any power,"
Tell that to ACT/Seymour/van Velden and NZF/Peters/Jones/Costello et al.
With a weak leader like Luxon they could have more power than they could handle!
What do you think Wong meant when she said along with all other forms of government assistance?
I hadn't previously seen, nor been aware of the RNZ piece. But on the website they say the "citizens income" will be for everyone, and sufficient to cover the basics. They are also promising to "end the cost of living crisis" and bring own house prices.
I still think that accusations that they will leave beneficiaries in the lurch is just a "smear".
there's an expectation on TS that people commenting under a post about the things in the post, will actually read the post. I covered this in the post, and supplied links of previous posts that support what I am saying.
But this in particular,
There is no evidence that 1) TOP understands how welfare works 2) what removal of it would mean for disabled people 3) that their plan has any kind of plan at all for those people.
They clearly want to remove all government support (she literally said that), and people will be entitled to the dole level UBI (assuming it is an actual entitlement written into law).
People's vague 'oh TOP will look after everyone' ideas just don't hold up, and certainly cannot be relied upon in an election year.
We won't know until we hear the detail. However there is no need at this stage to assume they are somehow “dangerous”.
I'm basing that on past policy.
So am I.
When you have been on the receiving end of 40 years of being bashed around by assorted governments/political parties, it's not difficult to assess – based on general policies- just who, and who isn't "dangerous."
While one would like to take the innocent until proven guilty approach, by default, all political parties are now guilty until proven innocent.
Indeed. I trust the GP policy, because they produce a costed policy that takes the various welfare issues into account. It's not perfect, but they know what welfare is and don't want to just throw it in the bin.
Personally I wouldn't be too concerned about anything the opportunities party says. They beloved by our wildly neoliberal MSM as the safety valve of the Les Mills crowd, but politically they the clueless second cousin of Morgan McSweeny.
lol, true. But they can pull votes from Labour and the Greens on the basis of superficially plausible policy/protest vote, and given an outside chance they actually get into parliament, better to be prepared.
“superficially plausible policy”
That sounds like a veiled criticism but, other than the beneficiary and handicap support issue, do you have any other basis for thinking that a UBI with a flat tax and a land tax might not be a good idea.
We have argued and nauseaum about the b+d issue but we have ignored the issue of a need for the change in the tax system.
UBI with welfare bolted on is a good idea.
How that gets done is the issue.
I can't see any good reason to pay wealthy people the dole every week.
It's been a long time since I looked at TOP's tax policy, will wait to see what this year's one is like.
Land taxes are problematic because people on low incomes who own their home have less ability to pay, and landlords will certainly pass on land tax costs to tenants.
It's possible to design UBI with progressive taxes to give the same mathematical effect as an abating GMI.
One of the original points of combining UBI and flat income tax was that the effective marginal tax rate (EMTR) was similar for every $1 earned so there was no tax incentive or disincentive to work and the net effect was progressive. However, if there were at least two tax brackets, the net UBI would naturally abate to 0 courtesy of the higher taxes.
Note that this is based on a strictly mathematical calculation of gross income + UBI – tax.
The difference between wealth and land tax for most people is window dressing.
Greens usually do their eligibility for benefits etc. based on individuals which suggests that the GMI will be paid to well-off couples with one working partner.
Can you explain how it's possible to match a UBI and GMI policy choice with tax rates.
Take for example someone in work vs a retiree. The person in work gets UBI + Income and the Retiree get's just the UBI.
In the GMI case maybe they get the same because the Retiree gets about as much as the person in work or the GMI (which sounds reasonable).
Matching the average incomes in some form is not the same, and totally insufficient policy choice in important cases here.
It's possible to design UBI with progressive taxes to give the same mathematical effect as an abating GMI.
One of the original points of combining UBI and flat income tax was that the effective marginal tax rate (EMTR) was similar for every $1 earned so there was no tax incentive or disincentive to work and the net effect was progressive. However, if there were at least two tax brackets, the net UBI would naturally abate to 0 courtesy of the higher taxes.
Note that this is based on a strictly mathematical calculation of gross income + UBI – tax.
This is possibly true, but why would you want to. The beauty of the original proposal was that it was the same for everybody.
The difference between wealth and land tax for most people is window dressing.
Wealth can include company stock, bonds, gold, interest bearing cash deposits, and probably other things, including the built up value of property.
everyone's income needs are different.
I can't see any good reason to pay wealthy people the dole every week.
The purpose of the dole is to maintain purchasing power in the face of unemployment. A wealthy person may not have much purchasing power if his wealth is tied up in fixed assets, Spending drives an economy.
Land taxes are problematic because people on low incomes who own their home have less ability to pay, and landlords will certainly pass on land tax costs to tenants.
Land taxes help to reduce land prices, and keep them low.
Land taxes would no more reduce land values than rising rates and home insurance bills.
If it they don't then they would push up price levels while land values remain the same, which would amount to the same thing. I think that they would dampen land values, but we would not know until they were implemented.
Would the banks be willing to lend so much against land given that there is a tax in place which might curtail the land’s capacity for payment of interest.
Up to an income of $350,000?
Jeepers, I need to run for Parliament.
'Cos MPs are pretty well paid……
Yonks ago, I worked at a call centre (they tried to treat us decently, but the job was very stressful and had high turnover). The trainer observed "the real problem is that the people at the top making the decisions are never affected by them. The CEO of this company is never going to ring the 0800 number – he'll get some minion to do it."
How many MPs and economists have ever been solely responsible for raising a young child on a low income? (Hint, the majority are still men…..not to dish men as caregivers, was raised by my own dad after mum died when I was 12. Later I was a single mother, so I've experienced both sides)
I think it should be required experience……'cos too many are incapable of empathizing with something they've never been through themselves….