The Government was announcing the 2010 Budget as we were going to print last week. Very inconsiderate. It meant we had to do our own analysis and not wait to see what the ODT did for us the next day. Taxing.
I woke up on Budget Thursday to mail from Inland Revenue. After four years at Otago, I owe them over $45 000. There was nothing in Bill English’s announcement to help me out with that. But then, I wasn't expecting anything. Student media stalwart and blogger Keith Ng summed it up best: “This is a tax cut for the rich, yes, but I struggle to get too worked up about it. Key said it was a tax cut for the rich, National campaigned on tax cuts for the rich, and people elected them to give tax cuts to the rich. Meh, this is how governments work.”
The big change, as you will already know, is to how we’re all taxed. GST is going up but most tax rates are going down. All the political parties have different opinions on this, of course. The right says the majority are better off; the left vehemently disagrees.
The significant changes in tertiary education were that perpetual students and those failing most of their papers have been put on notice, and the Government has scrapped and replaced the fee maxima scheme. Our News Editor Gregor Whyte and political columnists Edward Greig and Dominic Szeker weigh in on this and other issues on p8.
Most students will find most of the changes academic, and the posturing from all the political parties annoying. The tax cuts will be helpful to those with jobs, but having to pay more for, well, everything is not ideal. But, the Government did say they will offset the rise in GST by increasing Student Allowance payments by 2.02 percent.
How nice of them.
The other major story this week, and possibly for the next 25 years, has been the unveiling of the new Master Plan for the University campus (p10). The concept looks beautiful and beyond anything I had imagined when daydreaming about how the campus could be made pretty. To implement it, however, will cost a lot of cash. Does the Uni have it? At the rate they’re slashing jobs and departments, you’d think not. But then, at the rate they’re buying student pubs and renting out Castle Street flats (p13), maybe they do.
This story has just begun and you can expect a lot more in Critic this year and well beyond.
Editorial - 12
