Australia’s Labor have blown their Budget.
It's hard to overstate the anger and pushback on their tax changes made now well over a week ago.
Budgets and their news cycle tend to come and go.
This was different. It was billed as generational. It was seen as transformational and it was seen as Albanese having to spend a decent chunk of political capital, given his tax treatment was based on a lie.
He said in the election campaign of last year that he would not touch tax. 12 months on, he went back on his word.
The twist being the blowback came, and it hasn’t stopped coming, and somewhere in the past few days the concern, followed fairly quickly by panic, started to set in at Government level.
The anger has not been driven by rich, white, old coalition blokes whose myriad of investments would end up being taxed more.
It's been driven by young Australians who buy shares to save for retirement. Young Australians who start businesses to set up a decent life for themselves and their families. People the Labor Government never saw coming.
What it shows, and it's an encouraging sign and one I suspect is as relevant here as it is there, is that a decent chunk of our population are not the moaners you hear on the news. They're not the NGO's bleating about their lot.
They're not the success haters that dominate the news cycle. Rather, they're middle-of-the-road Kiwis and Australians who are quite keen on working hard and getting ahead in life.
All they have ever asked for is, to use the vernacular, is "a fair suck of the sav".
You don’t tax success and that’s what Albanese has had a crack at.
Why take a risk in starting a business if all there is at the end of it is Jim Chalmers and his tax department looking to extract ever larger amounts of your hard earned?
That’s what Labour wants to do here. It's always about more tax. It's never about more success, or larger growth, or bigger pie.
Got an issue? Short of dough? Tax someone.
Well, middle Australia isn't interested and they have been out in force showing it.
Maybe Albanese knew that. Maybe that’s why he lied to get into power so he could do what he's done.
If that's true then Hipkins is in real trouble, because he hasn’t lied. He's told you it's coming.
And if we are like Australia, it's not going to go down well.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
This was different. It was billed as generational. It was seen as transformational and it was seen as Albanese having to spend a decent chunk of political capital, given his tax treatment was based on a lie.
He said in the election campaign of last year that he would not touch tax. 12 months on, he went back on his word.
The twist being the blowback came, and it hasn’t stopped coming, and somewhere in the past few days the concern, followed fairly quickly by panic, started to set in at Government level.
The anger has not been driven by rich, white, old coalition blokes whose myriad of investments would end up being taxed more.
It's been driven by young Australians who buy shares to save for retirement. Young Australians who start businesses to set up a decent life for themselves and their families. People the Labor Government never saw coming.
What it shows, and it's an encouraging sign and one I suspect is as relevant here as it is there, is that a decent chunk of our population are not the moaners you hear on the news. They're not the NGO's bleating about their lot.
They're not the success haters that dominate the news cycle. Rather, they're middle-of-the-road Kiwis and Australians who are quite keen on working hard and getting ahead in life.
All they have ever asked for is, to use the vernacular, is "a fair suck of the sav".
You don’t tax success and that’s what Albanese has had a crack at.
Why take a risk in starting a business if all there is at the end of it is Jim Chalmers and his tax department looking to extract ever larger amounts of your hard earned?
That’s what Labour wants to do here. It's always about more tax. It's never about more success, or larger growth, or bigger pie.
Got an issue? Short of dough? Tax someone.
Well, middle Australia isn't interested and they have been out in force showing it.
Maybe Albanese knew that. Maybe that’s why he lied to get into power so he could do what he's done.
If that's true then Hipkins is in real trouble, because he hasn’t lied. He's told you it's coming.
And if we are like Australia, it's not going to go down well.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
4 comments:
Well done Mike. Nailed it.
Mike, ffs buddy, stop helping these guys. They are so incompetent they will read your article and then realize that their numbers never work.
But having said that they also are not smart enough to change.
Here in the socialist welfare state of aoteroa its the same old same old. Labour inherit the Rockstar economy and destroy it, implement racist policies and rip the country apart in a few short years. These guys come back in and start mopping up the mess.
There is a very large parasitic attitude in this country where a large chunk think its their right to live off the hard working few.
Scrap welfare payments, its damaging to those on it, get them moving and contributing again.
Did I read somewhere that Labour are ahead in the polls? Hard to decide just where to flee to.
This piece comes across as an anti-CGT rant which is disappointing, particularly since Hosking relies on the old attack-line that it's unfair to tax "middle-of-the-road Kiwis" who apparently are "quite keen on working hard and getting ahead in life".
That is populist nonsense and ignores the core principle that to be effective, tax has to follow the money, however, and by whomever, it is earned. The more successful people become, the more income they earn, and the more they benefit from the safe environment maintained by the State. A safe environment paid for by taxes. And that is the context for the "decent life" they apparently aspire to set up. So, in my view, there's zero-ability to say they shouldn't pay their fair share of tax to reach that goal.
But here's the thing. In New Zealand, the principle of tax following the money is ignored by the deliberate exclusion of capital gains from the definition of taxable income. An exclusion that can be, and is, brutally exploited by the rich and famous who have the ability to hire clever tax lawyers and accountants to game the system.
The lack of a CGT not only leaves a big hole in the tax net, but adds insult to fiscal injury by giving the game-players a vast advantage over Hoskin's "middle-of-the road" Kiwis. The tax avoided by the rich and famous still has to be paid by somebody, and the data shows that is middle-New Zealand. So, as well as being lousy tax policy, it's simply not fair. And as the IRD used to proclaim, it's their job to be fair.
For once in his political life, it seems Hipkins has publicly accepted the economic necessity for a CGT. And that's a massive step forward. So don't rubbish the Australian CGT. Despite having to be tweaked from time to time, it's well constructed, and we can learn a lot of lessons from their experience.
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