Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Who really believes Labour won't give us more taxes?

Hands up - who believes Labour when they say none of their political mates will be allowed to introduce their taxes in a future Labour-led Government?

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.