Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Grant Webster: Tourism Holdings Limited Chief Executive on Act proposing a 'Local Tourism Dividend' as an alternative to a bed tax

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Grant Webster: Tourism Holdings Limited Chief Executive on Act proposing a 'Local Tourism Dividend' as an alternative to a bed tax · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Act reckons it's got a better alternative to the bed tax.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: The bed tax that National is probably going to campaign
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and they've done working government. They've done a bit of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: a deal with Wayne Brown about one well. ACT wants
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: a one dollar local tourism dividend for every guest night
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: paid to councils from existing government revenue, so you're not
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: adding more taxes. The cost about forty million a year
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Auckland we get eight point two, Queenstown four point nine,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: or to do a two grant Webster Tourism holdings limits
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a chief executive with me this morning.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Grant, good morning, good morning.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: What do you think of this?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Look, first caveat there is you've got to get into
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: the numbers in a little bit more detail and understand it.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: But philosophically, personally, I think simple tax systems are great.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: The problem here is it's not going to serve the itch.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: It's just not big enough. So if it was five
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: ten times what they're talking about, that would address the issue.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: So my fear is that fine, let's do it's not
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: going to take the big tax issue off the.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Table because they need a lot more than what this
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and forty million years are dropping them in the ocean,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: isn't it. But he's absolutely But the reasoning behind what
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Seemol's getting at here is right. Isn't it that you
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: complicate things, you add taxes, you create more work, you
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: get more bureaucrats, you start administering things. You don't want
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: to add more layers to the system.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: So, again, from a very personal perspective, I agree with
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: you wholeheartedly. And the industry has been asking for some
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: kind of dividend from the enormous amount of GST that
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: it contributes for decades and it just hasn't arrived. So
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: the industry has said, well, come on, we've got to
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: fix this funding issue. Let's look at something like a
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: national level or a big tax or something in that
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: space which does impact us as an industry, just to
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: try and get the right result, as to say, the
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: right philosophy. But just too small.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Are we getting? You know, we've had a bunch of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: announcements recently about new toilets going in McKenzie, new toilets
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: going in Queenstown Lakes. Is there from that visitor Levy,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: is the money being spent in the right places and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: is there enough of it being done at the moment.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: There's a lot more that needs to be done. I mean,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I think when Queenstown raised the issues of the impact
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: of tourism on their broad infrastructure, I think that's right.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: And the industry does contribute such an amount through that
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: GST contribution, so we need more. Look what's being spent
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: is in good areas, it's good things. We've just got
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: to accelerate it.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: All good stuff. Grant Webster Tourism Holdings Limited, Chief Executive.
• 2:37
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• 2:40
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• 2:43
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