How many Left voters felt when Jacinda ruled out any CGT ever.
The only reason Labour can get away with what they have done is because there is no alternative political vehicle to the left of them (the Greens are neoliberal lite) – until there is a new political party that challenges neoliberal economic policy the Left will twist in the wind.
I think though that when you are 48% in the polls, have bathed in international adoration and the Opposition is almost in leadership meltdown, there was never a better opportunity to spend some political capital by bringing in a watered down 15% CGT – that Labour refused to do so is political cowardice, not Machiavellian master strokes of political management
In the wake of the CGT betrayal I think a Political Party dedicated to fighting neoliberalism could get 5% but it would need to be led by someone Boomers respected while also appealing to Gen Xers & Millennials – we need our own Corbyn or Sanders.
One of the major problems with the current Government is because it was a last chance experiment that didn’t expect to win so they had no real plan to implement an agenda.
Look at how the unCivil Service sneer at the Politics of Kindness…
Limited showers, no meal prep: ‘Ruthless’ plans to cut disabled care revealed
Health bosses planned to limit showers and meals for the disabled, create long wait lists for specialist care, and refuse help for autistic children as part of a desperate cost-saving bid.
Documents obtained by the Herald on Sunday reveal the “ruthless” cuts disability funding agencies offered to make after a $100m sector overspend this year – suggestions so appalling a national rollout was eventually stopped.
However, advocates, providers and their disabled clients say the cuts – designed to save $10m by June, and $20 million each year after – are now simply happening by stealthinstead.
The only revelation for them was seeing the cost-cutting tactics they’ve long suspected were being employed by agencies written down for the first time.
…charming and this isn’t a one off, the homeless are being turned away in Auckland…
Homeless told there’s no emergency accommodation available
Work and Income staff are turning away homeless people in Auckland, telling them there is no emergency housing available, multiple sources say.
…Kiwibuild continues to be an ineffective right wing market solution to a problem caused by free market failure…
Half of all KiwiBuild homes already under construction before being brought into the programme
More than half of the KiwiBuild homes built since the flagship policy started were underway before they were brought into the programme.
…someone with the openly appalling opinions that Cr James Casson has regarding immigrants is allowed to work for Immigration NZ…
Cr James Casson’s job with Immigration NZ untenable: Former minister
The councillor who referred to refugees as “scum” will offer an apology to the Muslim community as calls come for him to be sacked.
Former immigration minister Tuariki Delamere said Hamilton City Councillor James Casson’s position with Immigration New Zealand (INZ) is untenable in the wake of his comments.
“If he’s referred to refugees as scum, then he should be dismissed from Immigration New Zealand immediately,” Delamere said.
…Child Poverty is up…
Number of children living in poor households jumps in 2018 year, latest figures show
The number of children living in poor households had been decreasing since 2015, but rose in the year to June 2018, latest figures from Statistics NZ show.
About 254,000 children were in low-income homes after housing costs were deducted, up 2.4 per cent from the previous year.
While fewer – 183,000 children – lived in low-income homes before housing costs were deducted, this was a 17.3 per cent jump on the previous year.
About 148,000 children were living in material hardship.
…220 children in state care were abused from a supposedly reformed agency who did everything to hide the level of abuse…
We finally know the true extent of abuse in state care. It is shocking
The figures released this month by Oranga Tamariki into the extent of child abuse in state care are shocking.
There’s no way you can look at these statistics – 220 children physically, sexually, and emotionally abused and neglected in a mere six month time period – and not be appalled.
These children are uplifted from their families, from their homes, to a place that’s meant to be safer. In many cases, it is not. In some cases, it is worse.
The fact it has taken so long for the state to finally come clean about how ill-treated some of our tamariki are – and in particular Māori, who are over-represented in both state care placement and abuse statistics – is shameful.
…and of course it’s Māori who are being punished the most…
Oranga Tamariki ‘smacks of racism’ – Dame Tariana Turia
Dame Tariana Turia, the former Minister for Whānau Ora, strongly disagrees, saying “the number of children being abused in care doesn’t warrant a seven” and rating them three out of 10.
She also criticised the organisation for advertising children on Trade Me, saying the practice – which has now been stopped – “smacks of racism”.
Auckland University social work lecturer Dr Ian Hyslop agreed, saying “the abuse of children in care is unacceptable” and the overall the outcomes are “certainly racist”.
…and tragically our suicide rate continues to climb…
New Zealand suicide rate highest since records began
The number of people who have taken their own lives in New Zealand is the highest since records began, with 668 dying by suicide in the past year.
It was the fourth year in a row that number has increased. It was also the highest number of suspected suicide deaths since the coroner’s annual provisional suicide statistics were first recorded in 2007-08.
…the need for a wholesale rebuild of the values of the entire public service and welfare state can only occur if the experiences and genuine well being of those being treated by those agencies are front and centre of the reforms.
A new anti-neoliberal Party focused on revisiting the State Services Act and reform them from neoliberal tools into actual services for the people would be a necessary part of any political revolution alongside radical climate change adaptation and universal provision of basic services in a liberal progressive society.
The explosion of rage at Labour’s betrayal can’t go anywhere because who else would they vote for?
If a Party with the right leader could step up there might be a contest of ideas in 2020.
Suggestions for the leaders and pioneers of an eco socialist party.
Lucy Lawless.
Kevin Hague
Gary McCormick
Bryan Bruce
Rachel Stewart
Mike Joy
You could have a party with God and Allah as joint leaders and they wouldn’t have a chance unless they promised big tax cuts.
(The TV debates would be good fun though with Hosking trying to show everyone that he is indeed the True One!)
You left out Hone Harawira.
His credentials are impeccable.
He looses his rag far too easily and said a year or so ago that we should execute Chinese drug dealers!
Stupid comment and droves left the party!
I know he is a good man but you just shuldn’t shoot your mouth off like this.
You’re so right! I even changed to the Maori roll just so I could vote for him in Te Tai Tokerau in 2020. I would also include Sue Bradford in that list, as she has lots of compassion for her fellow NZers who are shafted by the neoliberal monsters.
Hone is no fool and appears to see through the neoliberal bullshjit and colonial stamp of “mother england” that other worship.
You won’t see a “Sir Hone” ever.
Pick holes in what he has supposed to have said but who else has consistently stuck to an agenda for environment and people with such passion and personal sacrifice.
+1 to Hone Harawira, the reason the establishment were so scared of him was that he was very inclusive in his ideas, and could have created support not just from Maori and the poor but the middle class too sick of neoliberalism.
The mana party was the party that seemed to understand neoliberalism was the biggest danger to society and had the best policies to beat it, and that is why the establishment hated and feared the Mana party so much and why those pulling the puppets behind Labour were so keen to destroy him. Even the Greens seemed to hate and fear him which is pretty odd as they agreed on a lot of stuff in their policies!
Absolutely people of principle!
+1 JOHN W, SCHWEN
Also Mana party numbers doubled from the previous election and Mana had a lot more party votes than ACT and the Maori party in spite of the biggest smearing of MSM in the lead up to the election. He was robbed!
Gary McCormick for lifetime Pres and PM !!!
Oh what honesty New Zealanders would start to enjoy !!! , – What a delightful new era of simple truths and integrity !!!, – We could even learn to laugh at ourselves again !!!
We want Gary !!!
Spot on Martyn.
And a CGT would have fixed all that would it Martyn?
D J S
“And a CGT would have fixed all that would it Martyn?”
A projected $6 billion annually within the first ten years would go a hell of a long way, David.
Except, the plan was to make CGT ” fisxally neutral” by cutting tzxes elsewhere
Whuch in terms of increasing revenue to fund social srrvices would have proved ineffective
Yes, being fiscally neutral was touted but tax cuts only amounted to around two billion annually. Yet, the tax take was projected to produce six billion annually within the first ten years.
Increasing the top tax rate could have yielded as much.
With the revenue demands the Government faces, why have they yet to implement that?
Yes increasing local taxes and making it easier for multinationals to operate here and bring their practises to undercut the local businesses that are not as cut throat with labour, is really going to stop labour abuses amongst the worlds richest and powerful companies and the offshoring and on shoring of labour.
Working 9 to 9: Chinese tech workers push back against long hours
Staff at Alibaba, Huawei and other big firms are sharing evidence of unpaid compulsory overtime
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/15/china-tech-employees-push-back-against-long-hours-996-alibaba-huawei
But in NZ we celebrate China and other eastern countries, OZ, UK and USA as being countries to look up to with businesses practises and overseas money and we want to encourage here!
And this is what is is bringing!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12171147
But still the lefties, unions and politicians that genuinely want to get inequality can’t understand what that is bringing to NZ to create our low wage economy here and then seem to be unable to fathom how overloading NZ with how waged and non waged, is going to effect health and education and welfare entitlements going forward!
+1 David Stone
There is absolutely no respite for the poor with a CGT, the UK has it as well as a stamp duty and 17.5% VAT and in spite of having so many taxes for the middle class, there other decisions and cut backs on welfare have continued to rise.
In NZ case the money was earmarked for tax cuts for the working not beneficiaries and not expected to provide any extra for social spending on health etc. It was made to be tax neutral.
“There is absolutely no respite for the poor with a CGT…”
That in itself is a political choice. A CGT would increase the available funding to help the poor and boost social spending on health etc if a Government chose too.
yes but the government were not going to spend the money on that but to cut taxes was my understanding.
Yes, the proposed redistribution of the new tax take was lacking. Nevertheless, if they had gone through with a CGT, it would have made it harder for them to continue to claim they don’t have the funding for larger improvements as a CGT was projected to generate far more than the tax cuts proposed.
It was only projected to be tax neutral for the first 5 years.
@ THE CHAIRMAN I think taxes also should be fairer too on capital gains but the current dog of what they proposed was not even a capital gain the same for all on their profits because it was taxed on the income tax rate!
So it was designed to fail from the beginning and even if bought in, would not have taxed the people that the capital gains were trying to tax because it relied on income tax to calculate it!
I’m totally for a stamp duty taxed as soon as the title changes and gathered by the lawyers aka UK style which is very difficult to evade!
Also think it should be on ALL property including the family home with only first home owners buying a cheap house that should be exempt!
It was the blatant unfairness of different tax rates and complexity and stupidity that bothered me the most about the proposal – not actually having a capital gains tax!
Tax is a retributive tool and should be used as such.
But tax is not the only option.
The reserve bank can create money for Govt.
Private banks do it every day but for themselves.
We let that happen.
Yep I agree as Labour needs some pressure on the right wing faction within the Labour ranks like Galloway, Twyford, Woods, Nash, Curran and Parker as they all speak about money as the reason for scaling back any funding for regional development that benefits us all.
Politicians that hide behind the term “viable” are just making an excuses for not wanting to pay for urgent changes that we need here, after nine years of ‘attrition’ and cutting funding in all regions for their grandiose plans that sucked all public funding out of the provinces forcing them to keep selling our assets.
Let these MPs go, that practice their ‘neo-conservative’ sinking lid policies that we now see inside the labour ranks now, after nine years of national.
A load of garbage, Martyn, and you know it, too. Next comes the Trump/Brexit moment for No Zealand…. and tat comes after Winston retires.
I personally think that there will be a movement for a politically-right party to be created, not left.
National is Labour-Lite, and is being seen as weak and ineffectual, it is hard though with NZ’s MSM concentrating on Jacinda’s latest Womens Weekly spread, and what she did seven years ago.
Where was someone standing up for gun owners, after Labour (and National) basically bracketed every responsible gun owner with an evil Australian mad man?
76% of respondents said leave the Crusader name alone, not one political voice stood up for them, deeming the area too ‘sensitive’?
Why isn’t someone hammering Labour on their record of poverty (the reason Jacinda said she came into politics) while it has gotten worse under her watch?
We have a media that refuse to recognise that the deaths in Sri Lanka were Christian deaths, naming them Easter Worshippers, only weeks after the whole country came together for the Muslim community.
NZ is ripe for a conservative party, to get some traction, a la Brexit or dare I say it Trump. NZers know they’re being lied to, and I can see a real shake up on the cards, to the right, not the left.
Anyone remember Internet Mana?
One of the issues is that you hear a lot of very specific views for more taxes with a lot of anger, but often the same people reveal they never or seldom vote and a political party has to offer exactly what they believe in to the T to get their vote.
Parties that try to cater to those people tend to go down in the polls because they are not main stream (most people like fewer taxes not more) aka the Green Party and Internet party. If they had just gone with a general message to get rid of neoliberalism rather than focus on certain demographics (aka Internet party for youth) and Greens on tax laws where people are divided.
Neoliberalism doesn’t just hurt beneficiaries and the poor, it is the reason that the middle class in the western world is hollowing as their jobs are taken away with cheaper workers to replace them and their taxes not going on health and education for them and their community but being spread thinner to cater for more demand from overseas cheaper workers bought in, but less wages (and taxes) coming through the tax system by the cheaper wages not keeping up with the cost of living and user pays model of living.
There is also the massive environmental costs where the largest business polluters are not held accountable for their pollution and the government ignores the producers and targets the consumers only. AKA land fill waste and plastic was bought in by industry, created by industry and alternative ways to do packaging that are more environmental rejected by industry and now the consumers are supposed to be the ones to pay for a better way. This will never work because it is the industry who need to be targeted because they are the producers!
Then there are more social costs like mental health and health issues, housing etc for more and more people made to ‘compete’ with billions of people around the world in the global work market. Not just NZ, but all around the world the labour market is moving and even the poorer Chinese are effected and can’t bury their dead traditionally. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/05/cant-afford-to-die-china-embraces-eco-burials-as-plot-prices-outstrip-housing
User pays has been designed to target more consumption and neoliberalism loves larger populations of consumers, and of course there is the loopholes for taxation that the multinationals and richer folks can tap into, with no action from governments, because that might ‘scare the markets and overseas investment’.
Agreements like TPPA are designed to ensure there is no going back from governments as business profit is the most important drivers not social issues under the agreements.
If you want to address the social issues in NZ the commentators need to focus on the demand side which at present they feel unable to do as in NZ we have been brainwashed by Rogernomics to believe that Kiwis are stupid, lazy, drugged out hopeless losers and we need other Nationals to run our country and business for us and we can’t do it without external help.
Anyone external is better than Kiwis from low menial jobs like fruit picking or driving a truck to CEO’s where in spite of some very bad examples of foreign CEO’s running formerly world class businesses into the ground (Fonterra with Theo Spiering) the overwhelming idea of ‘the foreign’ worker is considered to be better and more hard working and better qualified than the Kiwis. This idea has been deliberately spread to aid the continuation of Rogernomics in NZ which is why all the parties now believe it.
These beliefs have also led to record profits for banks in NZ (one of the highest in the world) and NZ giving away assets like water to foreigners while fighting tooth and nail to avoid giving the same to Maori or Pakeha which under the treaty was supposed to be equal rights on all the natural assets.
In fact the races wars between Maori and Pakeha are perfect for neoliberalism as other Nations and international businesses are waved through to purchase the assets in particular Chinese business who probably can’t believe how stupid NZ rules are, to be giving away their country’s natural resources for decades for virtually nothing!
The earth only has 3% fresh water, and increasingly around the world that is polluted, but in NZ we just give it away to overseas companies even though we are in droughts, charge our residents for it, and amounts of water and quality is declining in NZ! Don’t worry about saving it for a rainy day (that with climate change might be less rainy). Likewise with sand, happy to marginalise the local residents and destroy the roads with trucks for ex Asbestos big business to make a $$$ with sand mining!
NZ is also very generous with our health and disability benefits to give free care to anybody with a 2 year work visa from day 1 https://www.health.govt.nz/new-zealand-health-system/eligibility-publicly-funded-health-services/guide-eligibility-publicly-funded-health-services/work-visa-holder-eligible-be-nz-two-years-or-more
while then reducing the care to the most disabled kiwis.. In NZ our health priority is business first, therefore happy to give it to anybody who picks fruit, works in a dairy, studies here on a fake degree to ‘help’ as well as give free health care to anybody else who wants to marry/be a relative of a permanent resident of a Kiwi. It’s one of the reasons we always do so well on the ‘business friendly’ surveys around the world! Yipee!
So no wonder with such generosity NZ is booming with people visiting here doing ‘business’ here, settling here, and getting a 2 year work visa here… there are as many tourists, working visas and new residents in NZ accessing free health care and housing and accomodation than people who actually have lived in NZ their whole lives but they have to ‘share or give away or sell’ the resources to other nationals as part of our governments ideas of productivity which are flat and in decline for the last 30 years of that experiment. https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/01/08/one-day-soon-we-are-going-to-have-to-have-a-serious-discussion-about-immigration-in-nz/
We also feel the need to care for the world’s superannuates with free health care and pensions even if they have paid zero or little taxes here and people can asses it by just marrying someone within 11 days of meeting online…http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1110/S00572/grey-power-warns-of-impact-of-high-immigration-rates.htm
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/315435/migrants'-parents-cost-nz-'tens-of-millions‘
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/376220/10k-11-days-and-one-failed-deportation
Unless leftie commentators get real about stopping the ‘demand’ side of neoliberalism and removing their Rogernomics brainwashing by thinking their is something horribly wrong with Kiwis and we can’t run our country without cheap labour and lazy immigration, then neoliberalism can never be combated.
However the brainwashing is so complete, that when Tarrent murdered 50 people the woke didn’t examine where the immigration might have gone wrong but determined it was the Kiwis micro aggressions of racism at fault.
Apparently allowing new residents to have no scrutiny while getting free Health care from the NZ taxpayers, living in a NZ rental for years, amassing his legal automatic weapons to slaughter other people who he felt he had a right to, under his entitlement of being a new resident in NZ was perfectly acceptable!
The process is simple, as has been show in the UK, let the country get more screwed up by neoliberalism and then significant opposition will naturally arise.
As much as I like Jacinda, I think she is the biggest impediment to removing neo-liberalism’s hold on the country. If we’d had another 3 years of National the opposition to the status quo would have been massive.
It also feels like Jacinda doesn’t really have control of the party – certainly in the way Helen Clarke did but also not in any meaningful way either
I agree almost smile and wave. Sure she did good stuff following the massacre but why oh why did we have to wait for this to happen before we do anything about the appalling abuse muslims have had to put up with. Closing the door once the horse has bolted.
It is her bloody advisers that have their eye on the next dam election it is pathetic, afraid of their own shadow.
Labour’s renunciation of a capital gains tax is consistent with its neoliberalism of the past 35 years. Here’s the tail of Wikipedia’s history of land tax in New Zealand:
“The economic reforming zeal of the Labour government elected in 1984 saw a move away from taxes on capital in all forms, and in 1990 the Land Tax Abolition Act (1990) was passed, ending New Zealand’s history of taxing land. There has been talk in the last half dozen years of revisiting the concept of a land tax, but nothing substantive has eventuated.”
^^^^
THE HEART OF THE MATTER?
This one may have hit upon something…
Thank you , JOHN TREZISE
If you consider that since Roger every successive government has failed to address fair tax payment by multinational corporates, why are we surprised that they have NOT gone down the CGT path? Only now when the cash is short does it come up.
Imagine the gigantic temper tantrum from opponents (driven by their media) if CGT had been implemented. The coalition had to have looked at the board and decided that certain pieces could be sacrificed to win the current game. Surely the left pawn will take right queen at some stage, the more games are played.
We need capital gains tax!
We need death duties, from say $2m or something like that.
We need much more graduated tax rates so the top lot can get back to paying 60%
and WE NEED to scrap GST a tax on the poorest!
There is no party in parliament that believes in anything but capitalism at its most rampant.
Thanks for this, Martyn. I am very glad (and maybe just a bit surprised) to know your stand on this, and agree with you. This is a dangerous and also a poorly drafted bill, and I have been involved in opposing it.
The oral and written submissions to Parliament overwhelmingly opposed it. On what grounds? Most objections were not religious, but rather based in looking at how similar legislation overseas has been expanded over time. Others are concerned in principal — we live in a society where a person’s value is measured by their so called “usefulness” [monetary contribution] and the comatose, terminally ill cancer patients, the desperately ill.. lets take it a bit further, as it is so likely we will, folks…the people with ALS, the mentally ill, the intellectually impaired … a bit further? … where next? … the chronically sick? the elderly? you or me in ten years time? And finally, I will say that even if some of the submissions are from people who are religious, we can’t just ignore their opinions.
Labour are National-lite. It is clear the Green are not who they purport to be: they gave in on the fish sanctuary (the environment) and on the CGT (equality) and the only issue they seem determined to get across the line is the issue that is being bankrolled and pushed by the money and ideology behind so many Green activist projects: Pierre Omidyar, the owner of PayPal and EBay: “hate speech”.
The greatest problem with forming a new left kind of party in New Zealand is the fact that many of the old ‘left’ guard come out of all their various fringe groups and organisations, and try to join in, and while doing so, their various leaders with certain egos will try to seize hold of such a party or movement, and drag it towards their ideas of ‘left’ policies.
That in itself would undermine and tear apart any such new party, no matter how sincere some new and fresh faced founders and leaders may be with their goals and policies to get us there.
You see some of the same faces again and again, it happened with unions being founded, activist groups being founded, and last with Mana and the Internet Party being founded and even joining forces.
Many voters get turned off just seeing and hearing such seasoned old ‘leaders’ pop up in a new party.
Something truly new and appealing is needed, not a vehicle that will be seized by the old faced ‘drivers’ of leftist policy.
The left has to grow up and realise Bakunin was right! All we have is one version or another of managers – as a political class. They can swap between being left or right with ease as they don’t actually do anything else except manage political theater for the elites.
Until people just start realising that a hierarchical system – is the problem.
That liberal economics, no matter what form it takes – is the problem.
That political theater, and propaganda – is the problem.
The we are doomed, and no leader nor any party can save us. We have to save ourselves.
There is no need to form a new party. The Social Credit Party is still going, and would fit the bill with the right leadership.
I think NZ will get a new party sooner rather than later.
China’s got an up and running Social Credit System and it’s arrived in Darwin, Australia. No doubt the System will travel southward as the new rail system is put in place on the “cleared by fire” east coast. I expect the dragon will cross the ditch and swallow up whatever it takes a fancy to.
Few ol’ MPs lolling around in the Beehive bar are probably tossing dice as to who gets which role under the dragon rule. I rather think these ol’ drones wont know what’s hit them when the snake rolls in.
Mikesh a State owned bank as the only source of borrowing achieves a better outcome.
Social Credit is associated with “funny money” in the eyes of the public because they don’t understand it and bankers make sure of that.
I think the public are coming around to the view that bank credit is “funny money”, and that Social Credit is proposing that the government, and only the government, should be able to do what the the banks are now doing.
Social Credit propose setting up a monetary authority which would have the sole right to create money. This I think would be similar to a state bank. North Dakota’s state bank operates with US dollars created by the Fed, but we do not really have a federal system.
The “Funny Money” jibe is thrown at anything that threatens the present private bank cartel in NZ
The Cartel creates credit every day to the tune of many billions per years.
They will fight any way we let then to retain and exploit this anachronism embedded in our system when we imported it from England with white settler elite.
The people of NZ have a right to create credit through the Reserve bank but Hullo, doing that is “funny money” ?
Private banks do it for their profit and that is not at all funny. It is criminal theft from Kiwis
I’m pretty sure Queen Elizabeth would miffed if she heard that money created under her authority was being referred to as “funny money”.
If you consider that since Roger every successive government has failed to address fair tax payment by multinational corporates, why are we surprised that they have NOT gone down the CGT path? Only now when the cash is short does it come up.
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