This started on Mike's show, with Ginny Andersen on Politics Wednesday saying, "Nah, the Greens aren't going to be allowed to introduce their wealth tax, and nah, Te Pāti Māori isn't going to be allowed to introduce its land tax."
A few hours later, on Kerre Woodham's show, Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick replied: "Nah, we're going to be fighting tooth and nail for the wealth tax."
Now tell me, after hearing that, whether you're absolutely, absolutely, absolutely sure Labour won't say yes to the Greens if they're sitting in that coalition negotiation room after November 7, and Chlöe and Marama are sitting on the other side of the table, and everything else has been agreed, and the wealth tax is the only thing standing between Chris Hipkins becoming Prime Minister again or not.
And tell me he doesn't say, "Bugger it. All right, you can have your wealth tax," and then decide to deal with all of our outrage later.
I think we've seen too many of these concessions to be sucked in now.
Just look at the last set of coalition negotiations. Christopher Luxon made it very clear he would not support ACT's Treaty Principles Bill, yet in negotiations he gave ACT the debate and two-thirds of the journey through Parliament anyway, then dealt with the outrage later.
Or take National's plan to fund its tax cuts with a levy on foreign buyers purchasing homes here. Winston Peters wouldn't allow it. He wouldn't let foreign buyers back into the market, so Christopher Luxon went, "Okay, bugger it, fine, you can keep your ban," and dealt with the outrage later.
The major parties nowadays aren't big enough to dictate to the minor parties what will or won't happen after an election.
The Greens are polling at only around a third of Labour's size, yet they're going to have a lot of power. In fact, the power increasingly lies in the hands of the minor parties.
So I don't think Labour can say with complete confidence that a wealth tax or a land tax won't happen. And I don't think any of us should believe them when they do.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and radio broadcaster who hosts Newstalk ZB's weekday Drive-Time Show – where this article was sourced.
8 comments:
National is already looking at three new taxes. Why is HDPA writing about something that hasn’t been mentioned rather than something that has been announced? Weird.
Imagine it's the day after the election.. Luxon has phoned Chris Hipkins to concede defeat. Luxon announves he has accepted a job with a huge corporate in Europe. We see the line up of Hipkins, Chloe and Rawiri in front of the media saying how decolonisation will benefit all Nzers. Rawiri says a racist speech in Te Reo. Nz people feel increasingly uneasy and feel that something is very very wrong. Even without every tax coming in,, Nz,will be finished.
Silly me, I thought that the Greens were only concerned about eco matters, climate change - why do they need increased revenue, i.e. taxes, to achieve these goals ?
Or is " Green " easier to spell than Communist, or Socialism ?
Anon @7.01.
Because the former is honesty, the latter is not.
The article is about how you can not trust Labour.
Anon7.01: And - NZs ( sheeple) have become so dependent on govt (=taxpayer) money in so many ways , they do not grasp "policy" in any way. Totally beyond them. e.g. TOP tax policy is flawed - not noticed as they are still focused on the dream of a universal citizen income UCI = for life ! Very dangerous to live in a country with this sort of mentality for anyone who manages their hard-earned resources carefully.
I think you should have to pay how you vote. Im happy to be taxed more to build prisons, and get bad people off the street and into them. As long as the money is deployed competently
The lefties should therefore be willing to hand over their paypacket to the far left commies (labour, green, top, tpm) because thats what they are voting for. (But all lefties won't, its always someone else's problem to pay more, never the left.
You are also voting for division, more debt, racial discrimination, mass crime, gangs will rule again, failing infrastructure, high inflation, incompetent leadership, - just for starters.
Everyone will be worse off (just think back to arderns tenure) even her supporters turned on her.
Things are just starting to come right. It's been a hard slog, mopping up arderns et al mess, but we have turned the corner.
I think the coalition will survive, the opposition just are not credible.
This in a nutshell highlights the left. Not only do they not understand the mechanics of their very own tax schemes, when asked to explain, they are intentionally vague, seem baffled at the simplest questions and cant reason with any clarity, because they cant grasp the concept because they just don't have the skills, knowledge or ability to execute. The left parties have no leaders just highly radical ideological theorists.
Their model is never going to work because I don't think any one on the left has actually ever run anything of note. Yet a lot will be voting for these fools.
On the IRD tax return page 1 can specify the % of taxes going to fund X, Y, Z. So, taxpayers would see that 15% or whatever is funding health care, etc. Page 1 could list the top 50 tax expenditure categories.
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