Closed petition Tax Expenditure Transparency and Misleading Figures

Closed on 30 March 2015

The government has circulated a pie-chart showing the breakdown of tax spending. The largest portion of the chart is Welfare. Most understand 'Welfare' to mean spending on benefits, Welfare = Dole but this does not seem to be the case in this context

For the sake of transparency, we the undersigned request that the government produce and circulate a further communication detailing what is meant by the term 'Welfare' and detailing services covered by 'Welfare' spending with a breakdown of expenditure per element

We request that other segments of the chart which constitute a share greater than 5% of the whole be similarly treated and expanded

Without transparent definitions of terms the pie chart is meaningless at best and purposely misleading at worst, and could be seen as propaganda used to garner support for spending cuts which hit those most in need the hardest. If the government wish to be transparent it needs to ensure that the terms used are unambiguous