Thursday, 22 April 2010
One down, one to go
Sir Roger's youth minimum wage bill was defeated, but today's ballot drew his Tariff Act 1988 Repeal Bill which, if I understand it correctly, would either abolish the Tariff Act or set all tariff rates to zero. While New Zealand is a relatively free trading nation, we still have a few tariffs. Footwear gets a 26.5% tariff, for example. No Right Turn reported on the bill back in November, noting that National opposes the move. Odds National will support this one through first reading?
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Would you imagine there's a second-best case to not instantly eradicate the remaining tariffs in order to keep some sort of political bargaining chip when negotiating unilateral trade agreements?
ReplyDeleteI can't see it. Our biggest tariff revenue earner, besides excise equivalent duties which wouldn't be touched by the bill, is on clothing, footwear, and bed linens. That's coming from China, with whom we already have a trade agreement. I can't see how anything in our existing tariffs is large enough to serve as bargaining chip with the US or the Pan Pacific meetings.
ReplyDeleteWe even have tariff categories that collect less than $10 per year. Odds that the admin costs on those are less than the revenues?
The odds of spotting Parekura on a treadmill are higher.
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