-
Related
According to the latest One News Colmar Brunton poll voters believe the Finance Minister has room to move on tax cuts.
Michael Cullen has said that because of investment in other areas the 2006 budget had no scope for tax cuts.
"I'm not going to cut health and cut education and cut people's pensions in order to pay for a tax cut for people like me and you," Cullen said.
But those polled by One News are not buying the minister's excuse. Sixty-three percent say the government can afford tax cuts, while 31% say it can't.
Following the budget National leader Don Brash argued Australia's tax cuts will prove attractive to Kiwis who missed out, but the Colmar Brunton poll found otherwise.
Only 17% of those polled say Australia's cuts make it more likely they will consider moving there, while 77% said they would have no impact.
One of the areas that benefited from the budget was health and voters agree that it deserved a boost.
Forty-nine percent of those polled rated health as their top priority, tax cuts came in second (25%) well ahead of Working for Families (8%) , roading (8%) and the super fund (5%).
Asked about their overall reaction to the Budget, nearly one in four described it as negative while two thirds felt neutral or had not really thought about it and only 10% were positive.
The One News Colmar Brunton Poll surveyed 1200 voters and had a margin of error of 2.8%.
