Vax for less tax a perverse incentive: Raising benefit levels would be more effective / A.J. Hendry

Yesterday, David Seymour and the ACT Party announced, a policy to provide a $250 tax credit for anyone who has been vaccinated.

In their press-statement ACT announced that they were “launching a new tax incentive policy that would see fully vaccinated New Zealanders receive a $250 tax credit,” in the statement David Seymour went on to say that he hears “…every day from people who say ‘I’ve done my bit, followed the rules, paid my tax, and got my vax. When do I get a break?’ Vax Bucks will reward New Zealanders for doing the right thing and following the rules. If you’ve had the vax and paid your tax, you deserve some relief.”

Essentially the policy would mean that if you got the vax, you’d pay less tax.

I’ve been in complete support of the vaccine rollout as I’ve believed, and continue to believe, that vaccination is an important tool to protecting our communities (I’ve written more about this here). And though I have huge empathy for those in the health and medical sector whose convictions will not allow them to get vaccinated and will thus be choosing to step away from their much-loved careers, I have understood why the Government has made the decision to mandate these sectors (I’ve also spoken on this briefly here).

But for me, there is something perverse about using cash incentives to encourage vaccination when so many people don’t have enough to survive on as it is.

A $250 tax break won’t hit the same for everyone. For the upper to middle class, it’s nothing. Nice to have, but not essential. Likely those motivated to get vaccinated in order to claim this reward would already have planned to get the vaccine anyway a likely are only dragging their feet a bit.

However, for those who already don’t have enough, for those languishing on the benefit, surviving from food parcel to food parcel, $250 might just make all the difference. For that week at least.

Now, you might say that’s the point. If it get’s people vaccinated, well job well done.

But, let’s put this into perspective.

Right now, if you’re on the benefit here in Aotearoa, you will get into your account anywhere between $200-278 (there’s a bit of difference depending on whether you have kids, or are in a relationship, but this is about the average). You can than get an Accommodation Supplement on top of that to assist with your rent, but it’s not much, say between $70-$165. This would mean that if you were receiving the lowest amount, you might be getting around $270 for rent, food, essentials, etc. (you can check the details for yourself here).

The living wage in Aotearoa is $22.75 (find out more about that here). If you were on the living wage, and were working say, a 40-hour job, your take home pay would be roughly $910 before tax. And even that’s a stretch for some with average rental prices in Auckland being on average $564 a week according to this report in the Herald in July this year.

The contrast between the financial support we are providing our most marginalized whānau, and what we actually need to live, here in Aotearoa, speaks for itself.

And so, when we start talking about giving a $250 tax break to incentivise vaccinations, who is that going to influence the most? It’s not going to be the rich or comfortable upper to middle class, it’s going to be those below the breadline.

There is an old Hebrew Proverb that says (basically) that if you have the power to help someone, don’t wait until tomorrow, act now, while that person is with you (Proverbs 3:27).

There is something perverse about discussing tax breaks for the wealthy, while denying those expierencing poverty access to the basic resources they need to thrive.

This policy will target a vulnerable group of people who are already struggling and in desperate need of support, support that we could be providing, but have chosen not to give.

An uncomfortable reality for many of us is that incentives like these would be unnecessary if we were already ensuring that all our whānau had access to the basic resources they need in order to thrive. The fact that successive governments have failed to uphold the right to housing for our whānau and ensure our people were provided with adequate resources to meet their basic needs, has contributed to vaccine hesitancies in some of our more vulnerable and marginalized communities. This hesitancy is understandable. Because it is our Government that has for generations failed to stand with, and stand for, our people.

 So, it is no surprise that some of our whānau do not trust the Government. It is no surprise that some of our whānau believe the Government to be capable of trying to deceive them in order to use the vaccine to eradicate them. In the case of our māori whānau at least this has happened before. Many of our māori whānau still remember a time when our very government sort the extermination of their culture and their identity. Some could argue that time is still with us.

As the lockdown drags on, there are those who are beginning to call for more extreme measures in order to help us reach this elusive 90% target. ACTS’s policy is but one example.

I would like to suggest that how we reach that target, is as important as reaching it.

No small amount of vaccine hesitancy in our vulnerable and marginalized communities is down to a fundamental lack of faith and trust in our government.

So, let’s build that trust.

Let’s announce that we’re going to raise benefit levels to match the living wage. Let’s give our whānau enough to thrive on, ensuring our people don’t have to live food parcel to food parcel in order to scrap by. Let’s enshrine the right to housing into our law, committing to working towards an Aotearoa where the basic human right to housing is protected. Let’s give power back to our Kaupapa Māori health care provider’s, providing them with the resources by need in order to be empowered to lead and serve in their communities in ways that only they know how.

We can reach the 90% threshold without perverse incentives.

But it may take getting serious about upholding our people’s basic human rights, and ensuring during this pandemic, and even after it, that all our people have enough – not just to survive – but to thrive.

And in the end,  would that be such a bad thing?

 A.J. Hendry is a Laidlaw College graduate, and now a Youth Development Worker and housing advocate, working in the Youth Housing and Homelessness space. He leads a service supporting rangatahi experiencing homelessness and is also an advocate working collectively to end youth homelessness in Aotearoa. He is also the curator and creator of When Lambs Are Silent.