Obviously, it does suck for them that somebody leaked it first, because it means that they were so unprepared that they had to rush-job announce it in an email at 3:05 this morning.
And then Chippy had to cancel his morning radio interviews so that he didn't have to answer questions about this until he was ready - and then they had to get ready and call themselves a rush-job press conference where they all looked furious, and they stumbled over their words.
Honestly, you haven't seen such a sad line-up of people announcing something they're proud of.
This is the second policy announcement that Labour has managed to stuff up in just about a week's duration - which hardly looks convincing, does it?
But then it also sucks for them that this is the policy that they're taking to the election, because I don't care what the Beltway in Wellington tells us - I do not believe that a majority of New Zealanders want a capital gains tax.
No matter how many times Labour pitches it, no matter how many times they try to convince us that everyone else wants it, why don't you want it?
And you know I'm right when I say this, because look at how Labour's selling this today. Even they sound like they're not so sure that we want a CGT, because they've double-policed it.
Today, they've told us what they're going to spend the money on, which is three free GP visits a year for us - basically to try and sell it to us, in order to convince us that a capital gains tax is good for us.
And also, just look at how gleeful the National Party sound. They know that this made 2026 just a little bit more likely for them.
What I now want to know though - is who leaked this to the media?
Was it someone who was just really excited that they knew something, so they leaked it to the media and blew up their own party's big announcement - or was it someone who disagrees with Labour and wanted to blow up their own party's big announcement?
Either way, they've just made an unconvincing policy even less convincing today.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
6 comments:
Its not a proposed economic policy. It was a comms, marketing and PR exercise. It was written by comms & PR staff of the Labour Party. Its incoherent with no proper economic content. Ardern was a student of public relations. Luxon is similar, also basing everything he does on marketing & PR spin. When will NZ return to its roots as a nation that values content, authenticity & substance over form. Our culture and economy are being sacrificed on the altar of a comms, PR & marketing group of flakes run wild.
Have to agree with Robert on this, a PR stunt gone wrong. It is Labour so no surprises there.
However, the key point is, is that it?
Countries in debt up to its eyeballs. Companies and people leaving NZ at record rates due to economic stagnation and the people at the top come up with a half arsed CGT, again.
Where is the ambition?
New roads, new industries, real jobs, technical innovation.
Oh sorry, it’s moved to Australia 🇦🇺
Totally agree - spin. Everywhere , expertise is spurned or smothered........ results will prove this to be so. Will expertise ever return? Not sure.
But, but.. 3 FREE doctors visits a year.
There are many who support a CGT and wealth tax etc as they, even at a young age starting work, blame their lack of this or that on others, esp older people. So from their viewpoint it is stuff you, you have it, I don't , so I have nothing to lose by punishing you.
Chloe wants one. But…. the Green co-leader’s numbers don’t add up — again.
It’s becoming a reflex. Labour releases a cautious tax policy, and Chloe Swarbrick appears within the hour to declare it a cop out.
Chris Hipkins’ version of a capital gains tax (CGT) on property profits, excluding the family home, is a 28 per cent levy on gains from the sale of investment or commercial property. He fantasises it would begin in July 2027.
It exempts farms, KiwiSaver, shares, business assets, inheritances, cars, boats, art and furniture.
Treasury projects it will raise around $700 million a year, ringfenced for free GP visits. A modest, neatly contained reform designed to look active without scaring the suburbs.
To Swarbrick, it’s “watered-down” policy.
In her words: “The wealthiest pay half the effective tax rate of our nurses, teachers and firefighters.”
It’s a line repeated so often it now passes for truth in the mainstream media.
But it’s not. The claim stems from a 2023 Inland Revenue study of 311 high-wealth individuals — a hand-picked sample that included unrealised capital gains, meaning paper increases in property or shares that haven’t been sold. That’s not income; it’s not taxed anywhere in the OECD. Exclude those numbers and the supposed inequality collapses. The top one per cent already pay about 40 per cent of total income tax. The average PAYE earner’s effective rate is 22–24 per cent once transfers are included. In short, Chlöe’s maths relies on taxing money that doesn’t exist.
Her next flourish, like she’s shrieking into a megaphone at a Palestinian rally: “The richest family in this country makes more in their sleep than Labour’s CGT would raise.”
Catchy line, wrong premise. Even if New Zealand’s wealthiest households saw their assets rise five per cent a year, that’s an unrealised paper gain of roughly $10 billion — not cash, not income, and not taxable under any normal tax system. It’s populism disguised as arithmetic.
Then there’s the Greens’ “alternative budget”: a 2.5 per cent annual wealth tax on net assets above $2 million per person, or $4 million for couples. They claim it would raise $72.4 billion over four years — about $18 billion a year, a fifth of all government tax revenue. Treasury’s own behavioural modelling suggests actual returns would be roughly half that, once avoidance, migration and asset reclassification kicked in. The Greens treat this fantasy figure as settled fact.
Meanwhile, Labour’s finance team insists their CGT is a bottom line. “Non-negotiable,” said Ginny Andersen. “Barbara Edmonds will be Minister of Finance, and it’s this model we’ll be implementing.” In coalition language, that’s the end of the matter.
But Swarbrick insists, “A bottom line tends to mean that’s the starting point.”
In English, it doesn’t. That’s a rebrand of political impotence as leverage.
There’s a long time to go before the election, she warns.
True — and an even longer one before her sums make sense. Chloe’s dyscalculia isn’t medical, it’s political: the inability to distinguish between numbers that exist and numbers that sound good.
— PB
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