CJ, I see I can't spell occassionally either. While I like the policies of the Labour party (and probably the Greens), there are extreme sides to their behaviour in public that I don't like. So I don't line up waving banners, but I do believe in fair play.
The National Government has listened to their Science Advisor (he doesn't always get things right) and is picking their winners. Any big company that has spent a lot on R&D already, and has a big turnover, yes, they can have R&D grants from the taxpayer at the moment. So I think I agree with you, we should provide smaller amounts to multiple small enterprises, and watch the cream rise to the top.
Bruce Wills, National President of Federated Farmers, is starting to be more statesmanlike in his articles for the press. He has noted that since taking office, National has had to borrow about $10billion a year. Since the tax take got to $60billion p.a. under Labour and is trending back, partly due to National's policies, that's a big part of the problem. Ballooning to $70billion by 2014 before being under control (in theory), the debt will be well more than is owed by all of the country's farmers to the banks. The relatively safe bonds the government has used to fund this debt are in demand, along with the NZ dollar, leading to poorer returns for farmers.
http://www.ruralnewsgroup.co.nz/rura...es-to-confound
Against this, selling part of the state assets for a few billion as a one-off will not make much difference to the picture. But coax the 470,000 enterprises in NZ to boost their profits and so pay an average of a few thousand dollars of extra tax each year, along with the extra staff they'll need, also paying taxes and reducing the beneficiary overheads, and the problem could be quickly solved. I'm not an economist, but I suspect that level of extra income would only be derived from exports.
I hadn't thought of it this way before, but if 4 million NZers, plus tourists and overseas shareholders pay NZ tax of some kind (GST, Prov, fuel, alcohol and tobacco taxes, PAYE, company tax, etc) then we only pay an average of well under $15,000 each year. There's the potential to share the burden, right there.
The government must encourage business enterprises, and cutting back on the opportunity to sell goods to government departments at a useful profit in a race to the bottom, is not helping. If someone can rebut that, please do. Meanwhile the National Party says they're pro-business. No, they are not, unless it's a business or business group, big and organised enough to lobby.