When Labour repeat their lies about National having cut health funding, it is worth reflecting on the significant increase in doctors and nurses employed by DHBs.

This advertisement has appeared as a full page advert in the five largest newspapers around donations, funded 100% by members and supporters of the Taxpayers Union.

You can help it appear to more and more people online, by donating here. Not only will ever dollar you donate go 100% towards buying more impressions for the advertisement, a generous donor has agreed to match every donation dollar for dollar (up to $15,000).So if you donate $50 we can spend $100 more on advertising it. So far over $7,000 already pledged.

On average a $50 donation will see the bribe-o-meter page visited by a further 1,400 people. A real way to make a difference and remind voters that all these promised political parties are making, have to be funded by taxpayers.

Government in full swing to free up the movement of fuel to where it is needed, and minimise disruption to Kiwis and visitors.

Final election ad released.

Auckland fuel crisis exposes frailties of overseas investment.

According to our budget released today, we will pay down debt faster than Labour. (just don’t mention the extra $9.6 billion of budgeted taxes on kiwi households and businesses over the next three years.

National’s report card on health: Three more years of National would bring the same as the past nine – underfunded health services that are cracking under the strain.

Taxpayers’ Union figures show ACT is the only party that would cut government spending – all other parties are guilty of election bribing.

Reid Research Tāmaki Makaurau – Labour Party’s Peeni Henare (46%), Maori Party’s Shane Taurima (32.6%), Green Party’s Marama Davidson (21.4%).

Auckland fuel – who is to blame? 

Latest update as of 9am yesterday:

National Party $8.3b; Labour Party $23.0b; Green Party $14.9b; NZ First $27.5b; Maori Party $12.2b; ACT -$2.4b; TOP $13.7b. Full details here.

A full-page spread of the cost of potential coalitions featured in newspapers across the country. See here. 

CNN reports:

But in an interview Monday with NPR’s Terry Gross, Clinton raised that critique up a notch — not only questioning the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency but refusing to rule out the possibility of contesting the results if Russian collusion is proven by special counsel Bob Mueller.

Here’s the full text of the back-and-forth, courtesy of CNN’s Dan Merica:

Gross: I want to get back to the question, would you completely rule out questioning the legitimacy of this election if we learn that the Russian interference in the election is even deeper than we know now?

Clinton: No. I would not. I would say —

Richard Harman writes:

What has been revealing this election campaign has been how much English is now starting to look like his own man. 

He has spent nine years in the shadows behind John Key and since his own previous failed term as Leader he has tended to portray himself through a sort of awe shucks modesty.

That is going.

He’s proud of the way he has performed on the campaign, and he has surprised many of his own colleagues and supporters.

Nearly five weeks ago, at the start of the campaign, he was in Christchurch announcing Government funding for a new AMI stadium.

A number of Cabinet and party luminaries attended the announcement. His next stop was to be the Riccarton Mall, an idea that didn’t meet with much approval from the luminaries.

It was, said one, full of whingers who would give English a hard time.

They needn’t have worried. He dived into the mall, had endless selfies taken and engaged with children. He looked to be enjoying himself.

And over the weekend at a Rotorua amusement venue packed with families and children, we saw the same boyish enthusiasm which he seemed to get an equally enthusiastic response to.

I think Bill has been a great campaigner.  He has been energised by it, and hasn’t put a foot wrong.

One thing that is interesting is that he has been comfortable going to lots of places where few people will be National supporters, such as the Riccarton Mall. He’s gone to union dominated workplaces, to Labour strongholds such as Wainuiomata etc. He knows he will get challenged by some voters there, but he is happy to take real engagement.

This has been a contrast to the Labour campaign which seems to be mainly about Labour organised events or campus visits. Haven’t seen a lot of them in small towns or rural areas where there is a risk of challenge.

Newshub reports:

The Greens say they can meet all their policy promises and still run budget surpluses.

They’ve put all their election policies together in a single document and it’s been checked out by Infometrics, an independent economic consultant.

“Infometrics has found that the Green Party will run surpluses over the next three years, slightly smaller than those outlined in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU),” the party’s fiscal plan, released on Monday, says.

I’ve had a look through their fiscal plan. Yes it balance the books – by imposing around $9.6 billion of extra taxation on New Zealand households and businesses over the next three years.

As you can see most of the world is not back in surplus. They failed to get spending under control and their debt keeps growing. Some of them will never be able to balance their books again unless they print money.

New Zealand didn’t get back into surplus by luck. It was because we had a Government that had good judgement and guts. They managed to keep funding our valued public services, but keeping tight enough fiscal discipline overall to make it back into surplus.

Almost every single time National showed spending restraint, Labour attacked them for it.

Elections are about choices. I choose to trust a party that has shown an ability to make hard decisions for the greater good.

Stuff reports:

The president of the University of Canterbury’s (UC) queer students’ society says he was forced to resign after coming out as a National Party supporter.

Max Farra​, 20, stirred controversy when a Young Nats promotional social media post showing him pledging his support to the party was shared with QCanterbury members.

Many were concerned the post erroneously conveyed the group’s endorsement of the political party. The Young Nats refused QCanterbury’s requests to remove it.

A QCanterbury spokesperson said the club “wishes to avoid association with any political party and to remain unbiased”.

Who thinks that if he had facebooked his support for say Labour or the Greens, it would not be an issue?

Rather than wait for a special general meeting, he chose to have a “slightly more graceful exit”.

“It’s really disappointing,” he said. He had been president for three weeks and a society member since September 2016.

He said there had been a “really big call for me to resign” on a closed Facebook group.

“[They said] I was basically unfit for the job.

“This was completely unexpected, especially from someone like QCanterbury. The backlash was massive and I was not prepared for the intolerance and hate that followed.”

Rather ironic.

In a post on the Canterbury Westland Young Nats Facebook page, Farra is identified as QCanterbury’s leader.

“As an LGBT person, voting National is breaking a stereotype,” he is quoted as saying.

“I’m proud to be an out Nat because tolerance, free enterprise and a great economy means everyone can thrive.”

Sounds good to me.

Patrick Gower writes:

The desperation and fear in the Greens of not being returned to Parliament is clear with the release of a made-up ‘poll’ in Nelson.

The Greens have released the results of some phone canvassing which they’ve referred to as an “internal poll” that claims to show them ahead in Nelson.

As Gower says, the Greens must be panicking about possibly dipping below 5% and being out of Parliament.

It’s a set of numbers Green volunteers have gathered, with no way of checking them and media should be ashamed of reporting them as a “poll”.

It is not scientific, they have not released the raw data or methodology.

The Greens spin team have admitted this morning to me that it was in fact robo-calling rather than polling.

Robo-calling is that invasive and annoying method where an automated voice appears and there is no way of telling whether there is say, for instance, a child on the end of the line.

It is actually “fake news” from the Greens.

Again a desperate look.

A guest post by Michael Littlewood:

According to a report in the Herald on Friday (Labour backs off compulsory KiwiSaver accessible here), Labour is re-considering its KiwiSaver policy.  It wants to consult first before making it compulsory and auto-enrolment is now off the agenda though they still want to make it “universal”.  The subtlety of that distinction escapes me.  However, the whole issue would be looked at “…on a tripartite basis with business and unions…”.  Labour has also apparently “scaled back on plans to lift KiwiSaver [contribution] rates significantly.”  But Labour has yet to release a policy document on KiwiSaver – given the election is just six days away, there isn’t too much time left to do that.

I hope Labour’s policy document starts with some questions and looks for evidence as to what has happened with KiwiSaver so far.  In a recent report that Michael Chamberlain and I released on 27 July (www.alt-Review.com) we finished our section on KiwiSaver with a list of questions:

1. Is KiwiSaver working? We know that 2.8 million people have joined and that there is over $30 billion of savings, but is it working?  Subsidiary related questions include: are KiwiSaver members saving more for retirement than their non-KiwiSaver peers?  Are the total net financial assets of KiwiSaver members greater than the totals of non-KiwiSaver peers?  In other words, is so-called ‘behavioural economics’ working in the KiwiSaver environment?
2. Are New Zealanders saving enough for retirement whether or not they belong to KiwiSaver? If they are, that would undermine the case for ‘strengthening’ KiwiSaver.  If they are not that should direct what changes might be needed for KiwiSaver.
3. What effect has KiwiSaver had on housing ownership patterns and housing debt as between members and non-member peers?
4. What effect has KiwiSaver had on remuneration patterns as between employers with/without ‘total remuneration’ policies and as between employers with preferred KiwiSaver schemes and those without. What proportion of employers have a ‘total remuneration’ policy?  Has KiwiSaver affected that pattern?
5. What effect has KiwiSaver had on occupational superannuation schemes? What is the overall impact of KiwiSaver on workplace-related retirement saving schemes (including KiwiSaver)?
6. Who specifically benefits from the current tax subsidies to KiwiSaver (occupation types; remuneration bands; distribution by age, sex, work status etc.)?
7. What effect has KiwiSaver had on the financial services industry in the last ten years and who benefits? Should New Zealand be concerned about the aggregation of KiwiSaver savings in the hands of a small number of providers, mainly the major trading banks? Note: at 31 March 2016, the trading banks had 69% of all KiwiSaver members and 71% of total assets in all KiwiSaver schemes.

Questions 1 and 2 cannot be answered without a proper longitudinal study of household assets, liabilities and incomes – we talked about that in our report here.  We urge the government, whoever wins the election, to find out what’s happening at a household level before bowing to pressure from the owners of KiwiSaver schemes to increase contribution levels or even to make KiwiSaver compulsory.  It just may not be necessary.

The data is from the Reserve Bank. It shows average effective mortgage rates under Labour and National.

They’re now around 3% lower than they were under Labour. What sort of difference does that make?

The median house price is $540,000 so an 80% mortgage on that is $432,000.

If you have a 25 year mortgage, the difference between 5% and 8% is this:

• 5% = $582 a week
• 8% = $769 a week

So a family with a median mortgage is $187 a week better off.

And while Government policies are only one factor in interest rates, they definitely do contribute. The more inflationary the policies the higher interest rates go. The more spending there is, the higher interest rates go.

I’m amazed there has been almost zero media coverage of Labour’s radical industrial relations policy. It turns the clock back to the 1970s with de facto national awards and the like. A guest poster covered it here.

In summary Labour will do the following:

• Entire industries will be selected to have a national award imposed on them. The industry will have no ability to say no to it, and neither will any individual employer.
• “Minimum” standards will be set governing everything from pay rates to overtime to holidays to standard hours of work.
• A small employer in Invercargill will be forced to pay the same wages and conditions as a large multinational employer based in Auckland.
• Unions will be able to now initiate strikes in advance of an employer’s offer
• Employers will now have an obligation to conclude a collective agreement. That means that so long as the union holds firm, the employer will be forced to agree to their terms eventually.
• Unions will gain the right to enter any workplace in New Zealand to sign up members
• New employment agreements will have automatic union membership as part of them
• Non union members will be forced to pay fees to a union, if the union considers they get benefits from them
• Contractors will be made into employees
• Casual employment contracts will be made very difficult
• Youth rates will be abolished so it will be illegal to pay a 16 year old less than $33,000 a year!
• Even employers with just one staff member will be forced to have an elected health and safety rep
• Any employer that the unions don’t like will be banned from any Government contract work
• Require all Government contractors to pay 16 year olds over $40,000 a year

You can see why the unions are pouring so much money into Labour. And if they get a Labour Government you can be sure they will have even more money to spend on helping Labour stay in power.

Serious questions have to be asked as to why National were not prepared for Auckland fuel crisis – they have known of the risk for years.

Don’t blame us for Auckland fuel – it was a private company’s responsibility. Government agencies and Defence Force geared up to help.

Nick Smith: Dodgy ‘push poll’ by the Green Party in Nelson smacks of desperation.

Winston Peters hijacking the Fed Farmers protest in Morrinsville: Farmers won’t be better off under Labour OR National – if you don’t want to be ripped off, vote NZF.

The public need answers over Auckland fuel failure.

Why was Winston at the farmers protest against Labour/Greens, when he could put them into Government?

The RMA is the real culprit of the current fuel crisis.

Published polls corrupt the democratic process – our commissioned market research says 14.5% may vote for us.

Quick – get to the Morrinsville protest! Oh wait, we’re out of fuel.

Greens’ internal Nelson poll: Smith 29%, Labour’s Rachel Boyack 25%, Greens’ Matt Lawrey 23%, Undecided 23%

Latest update as of 9am today.

National Party $8.3b; Labour Party $23.0b; Green Party $14.9b; NZ First $27.5b; Maori Party $12.2b; ACT -$2.4b; TOP $13.7b. Full details here.

Maggie Barry released:

National’s strong economic plan will deliver an extra $680 a year per couple in New Zealand superannuation payments from 1 April next year, Seniors spokesperson Maggie Barry says.

NZ Superannuation is linked to the average after tax wage. Labour is going to reverse the tax cuts passed by Parliament. If they remain though, then that will push the married super payment level up by $680 a year.

New Zealand Superannuation for a couple has increased by more than $7000 a year under National – from $24,062 in 2008 to $31,216 in 2017. That is an increase of 29.7 per cent, more than twice the rate of inflation.

And this is again linked to the average after tax income, so that indicates that there has been considerable increase in real incomes.

Pretty amusing. Not as mean as the US version.

The Herald reports:

Hundreds of farmers have gathered in Ardern’s hometown of Morrinsville to protest against Labour and Greens’ proposed water and pollution charges.

The protest ended with NZ First leader Winston Peters being jeered at and drowned out by Myrtle the tractor as farmers demanded he say whether he would side with National or Labour.

About 600 turned up for the lively rally beside the giant ‘Mega Cow’ statue in Morrinsville – politicians were not allowed to speak but Peters hijacked the stage at the end as the rain started to tip down.

As he held court standing in the rain under the cow – warning them to be just as dubious of National as Labour when it came to water “because they’re just as bad as each other – the crowd started to jeer and heckle at him.

Afterwards Scott Smyth bailed him up about whether Peters would allow the proposed water taxes to go ahead if in coalition with Labour. Peters would not answer and other farmers pitched in demanding to know who he was going to go with.

Afterward Smyth said Peters was “buggering” his chances for Saturday’s election by not saying if he would demand Labour removed the water taxes from the table if he was in Government with them.

A wonderful backfire for Winston. He’s reminded everyone there and everyone watching that votin for him might be voting for a water tax and all the other extra taxes Labour plans for the rural sector.

Brian Edwards writes:

Well, in short, I think Armstrong is absolutely right. Given the relevance of taxation policy, directly or indirectly, to the lives of every man, woman and child in this country, it is simply outrageous to say, “Not telling! Not even a hint! You’ll just have to trust us till after the election. Long after!”

Well of course you could read their current policy. And that would be fine if the Leader of the Opposition could guarantee that it won’t change between now and the 2020 election. But she can’t/won’t do that either.

So here’s what this boils down to.

Jacinda wants you to make her Prime Minister of New Zealand this year. I’m assuming that she has some opinion in her head of our current tax system, whether it benefits or disadvantages most New Zealanders. For the answer to that question she refers us to Labour’s current tax policy which she says will not change without a mandate from New Zealanders at the next election in 2020. She’s saying, ‘Give me almost three years in office as Prime Minister before I even disclose my ideal tax regime. In the meantime here’s a taste.

Seems to me that’s a helluva lot to ask.

Brian is of course a life-long Labour member and activist, so for him to be this critical speaks volumes.

Eric Crampton from the NZ Initiative has done a series praising New Zealand as being so much more sane than other countries.  In this chapter he looks at tax and airport security:

Consider the Goods and Services Tax (GST). It is a beautiful value-added tax applied cleanly and comprehensively across the tax system. But nobody in New Zealand appreciates it. Because nobody in New Zealand appreciates it, everybody wants to carve out a tax exemption for their favourite thing: fruits, vegetables, healthy foods generally, and feminine hygiene products are recent examples.

Here is what happens if you do that.

Australia runs a messy GST riddled with exemptions. Somebody decided groceries should not be subject to GST, but some snack foods should be. So bread is not taxed while crackers are. In 2010, Justice Sundberg of the Federal Court in Melbourne had to decide whether an oven-baked Italian flat bread, a mini-ciabatta, counted as a bread or a cracker for tax purposes.

The importer of the bread flew in Giampiero Muntoni to testify in court that the mini ciabatta was a bread, not a cracker. And Muntoni is far from a layperson in such matters. As Australia’s Centre for Independent Studies reported, Muntoni “holds an EU certificate that entitles him to certify whether a product is a bread or a non-bread item for value added tax purposes in Italy.”

Think about that. Italy’s value-added tax needs expert certified bread deciders. A certified profession dedicated to determining whether something is bread. The only conceivable reason such a profession can or should exist is to satisfy the requirements of a broken tax system.

Winston wants “basic foods” to be exempt GST. Imagine how many thousands of experts we will need for the scores of court cases over what is or is not a basic food.

America’s patchwork of state-level sales taxes are even worse. Every state can apply its own unique taxes. This is not limited just to deciding the rate of taxes, but also the definitions of what is and is not taxable. Some states apply sales taxes to candy but not to other foods, and different states have different definitions of what counts as candy. Wisconsin’s Department of Revenue even issued a 1,437-word memo explaining which types of ice-cream cakes, or slices thereof, are taxable or untaxed.

The mess is just as bad at the federal level, where free tans at video-rental stores are taxable but not tans provided as part of a health club membership. A simple enough (albeit ludicrous) 10% tax on tanning services proved anything but.

The economic consequences of a system riddled with bread-deciders and jam-deciders and ice-cream deciders and tan-deciders can be staggering. Taxes become far less efficient not only because of the holes riddled throughout the system, but also the legal costs of producers trying to convince courts that their product is exempt rather than taxable.

We should value that we have such a comprehensive GST that avoids this madness.

Were New Zealand to exempt healthy foods from GST, we would well be on the slippery slope. It is one of those things that sounds really easy, but would be an utter disaster in practice.

What counts as healthy? Not only does the medical evidence keep changing, but there would also be a string of boundary cases needing adjudication. If beans are healthy, what about frozen beans? Beans in a can? Beans in a can with pork fat and sauce? How much pork fat and sauce before it is taxable? What if we use Jamie Oliver’s recipe and fly him in to say it’s good?

I think TOP have proposed dividing all food into three categories of good, neutral or bad and good has less GST, neutral the same and bad more GST. Jesus Christ, imagine it.

Even worse, think through the consequences of tax exemption.

Under the current beautiful broad-base, low-rate system, companies gather all their receipts for everything they purchased when making things and claim the GST on them. They then charge GST on the full value of their final product. Their net GST is on the value they added to their inputs along the way, since they netted out the GST from the inputs. Nice, clean and easy.

If some goods were exempt from GST, we would have problems. Imagine you were a food manufacturer making two products. One attracts GST and one does not. It is possible to charge GST on one product and not the other, but all the point-of-sale terminals would need to be reprogrammed – feasible but expensive. But how do you start thinking about claiming the GST on your inputs if you are selling an exempt product. You will need to justify how you apportion all your plant’s shared costs across the different product lines. And Internal Revenue would worry you were loading costs onto the taxable line to claim GST where you shouldn’t. The auditors would be kept busy.

This is a key point. If all of your sales are subject to GST at the one rate, then all of your inputs are also – very simple. Start having some stuff GST exempt and/or at a lower rate and you can no longer do that. You then need to apportion every fixed expense to every product line.

Newshub reports:

The Green Party wants a capital gains tax in the next term of Government and will put that on the table in coalition negotiations with Labour, leader James Shaw says.

He told TVNZ’s Q&A programme that was one of a number of key items the party wanted when he received Labour leader Jacinda Ardern’s first call if she had the opportunity to form a Government after next weekend’s election.

“In the same way that every coalition involves policies from both partners we’ve got to negotiate what a coalition agreement would look like but there are a couple of things that I think we would like to push them on – one is the area of a capital gains tax excluding the family home,” he said.

So a Labour-led Government may end up passing a Capital Gains Tax after all in their first term.

You really don’t know what sort of tax you’ll be paying under a Labour-Greens Government except that it will be more than it is now. And under National it will be less than it is now.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand First will change the Companies Act to give shareholders and cooperatives a ‘Say on Pay’ for directors and CEOs, which gives them a right to vote on corporate payouts.

Umm shareholders already vote on directors fees.

Peters has also vowed to ban “golden hellos” (executive recruitment bonuses), and limit “golden parachutes” (executive redundancy) to the same conditions workers have.

Winston wants to ban recruitment bonuses. I’m not a fan of golden parachutes, but having Winston tell companies that they can’t offer bonuses to recruit staff is daft.

Another proposal is to stop boards using “fit and proper person tests” to rule out potential executive candidates, which the party described as “loose and unreviewable.”

And he

A lot of this election campaign has been on how to spend the tax revenue the Government collects. Very little has been on how to have policies that support the businesses that provides the jobs and tax revenue for the Government.

Those who have never worked in the private sector tend to have little idea what it is like. They think it is easy. You get statements from the Labour leader declaring that yes they’ll tax water, but at a level to ensure farmers can stay profitable. That in itself shows a lack of understanding of business. Even business owners and directors can’t ensure profitability. You are subject to custimer demand, market prices, expenses, cashflow, financing.

I was once like many MPs, thinking I understood business. I had worked for a charity doing their finances so thought I understood profit, loss etc. But then I worked for a small struggling advertising agency and found out first hand how hard it is. It isn’t just about your paper profit. It is about managaing cashflow, creditors, the IRD etc. It is about the business owners sometimes paying themselves less than the receptionist, so the firm survives.

So anyway I thought it would be interesting to look at how many Labour front bench MPs have worked in the private sector. 87% of all jobs in New Zealand are in the private sector. Now some of those are non-profit jobs but I’d estimate around 75% of jobs would be in the for-profit sector.

So putting aside part-time and holiday jobs while studying, what is the occupational backgrounds of the likely front bench Labour Cabinet Ministers? How many of them have worked in the private sector (by which I mean employers that need to sell a good or service).

1. Jacinda Ardern – nil private sector experience. Worked in Parliament, UK Government and a US union. Did once demonstrate cookware at Farmers though.
2. Kelvin Davis – nil private sector experience. Worked as a teacher or for Ministry of Education.
3. Andrew Little – nil private sector experience. Worked in student politics then unions.
4. Grant Robertson – nil private sector experience. Worked in student politics then MFAT and Otago University
5. Phil Twyford – worked as a journalist for the Auckland Star and a promoter for Book Month so the first Labour MP to have some private sector experience. Otherwise worked for Oxfam, including as a lobbyist in DC for them.
6. Megan Woods – has been a copywriter for a private business, and did business development for a CRI.
7. Chris Hipkins – nil private sector experience – student politics, an Industry Training Organisation (Govt funded) and Parliament
8. Carmel Sepuloni – nil private sector experience – teaching, NGOs and university
9. David Clark – nil private sector experience – Treasury, church and Selwyn College

So the total private sector for profit work experience of the nine most senior Labour MPs is basically as a journalist on a community newspaer and a copywriter for a business. That’s it. Think about that. None of them have ever paid PAYE, or really been in a job where a failure to keep customers happy means you are out of a job.

Now compare that to the top nine for National.

1. Bill English – farming when young (but on family farm, not his own)
2. Paula Bennett – worked as a recruitment consultant
3. Steven Joyce – set up his own company when almost a teenager and turned it into Mediaworks
4. Gerry Brownlee – carpenter
5. Simon Bridges – lawyer
6. Amy Adams – farmer and lawyer
7. Jonathan Coleman – General Practitioner and business consultant
8. Chris FInlayson – lawyer
9. Michael Woodhouse – private hospitals CEO

It’s a stark difference.

The Labour front bench is almost entirely comprised of people who have never worked outside politics, or certainly not in the private sector. Now I’m in no way saying that private sector experience should be a litmus test for becoming an MP. Of course not. Many fine MPs who have not worked in the private sector.

But my point is that Labour is hugely imbalanced. It is almost starved of people with empathy for the private sector (where 75%+ of the jobs are). David Parker is probably the only MP they’ve got who has truly has skin in the game (several significant commercial ventures) and Damien O’Connor the only farmer.

Decisions in a Government are made by the top few Ministers. That would be Ardern, Robertson, Davis, Little and Hipkins. I don’t think any of them have bad intentions. I just think they don’t get it. They have no idea what it is really like to have to worry about having enough money to pay your staff, to pay your suppliers, to manage the bank repayments for the business loan etc. They just see the private sector as an unlimited source of money for them to spend.

A reminder of how extraordinary the job growth in New Zealand has been in recent years.

If we look at just the last three calendar years of National and Labour we see:

And this is not just exceptional job growth locally, but internationally. Here’s the percentage increase in jobs in major OECD countries in 2016:

1. NZ 5.7%
2. Germany 2.9%
3. Ireland 2.9%
4. US 1.8%
5. OECD 1.6%
6. Australia 1.6%
7. Sweden 1.5%
8. UK 1.4%
9. Canada 0.7%
10. France 0.6%
11. Finland 0.5%

Again policies impact jobs. Labour want working people to pay more in tax, have employers forced into national awards etc. If you value jobs, then you’re not going to do much better than this.