ACCORDING TO PEOPLE “in the know”, Labour is awash with more cash than its seen in a very long time. Apparently, Jacinda Ardern’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis didn’t just net her party an unprecedented number of votes, it brought in tons of funds. While this happy situation endures, Labour is said to be polling and focus-grouping like there’s no tomorrow. The PM doesn’t just have her finger on the pulse of the nation, she’s reading its ECGs.
This insight – if that is what it is – goes a long way towards explaining what a great many journalists and commentators have found immensely perplexing. Why, with an absolute majority in the House of Representatives, is this government so reluctant to use it for anything other than legislatively facilitating Maori wards, and (apparently) making it easier to convict men accused of rape? Why, with inequality increasing, and the housing crisis becoming more acute with every passing week, have Jacinda and her Cabinet stubbornly refused to direct anything more substantial than pious rhetoric at either issue?
Towards the end of last year, for example, the government found itself on the receiving end of a growing cacophony of calls for action on the housing front. Those calls came from across the political spectrum. On TVNZ One’s Q+A show, Laila Harré on the left, and Fran O’Sullivan on the right, were united in their demand for action. The push came from employers, unions, churches and NGOs. National and Act swelled the chorus. It was as near to a show of public political unanimity as New Zealand had seen in decades.
Twenty years ago, the political pressure generated by such a powerful display of public concern would have been irresistible. Indeed, liberal-democratic theory holds that no government can resist such pressure without registering a significant fall-off in popular support. Was Jacinda moved? Was Grant Robertson? Not one bit. The rhetoric of Labour leaders’ may have edged up slightly on the piety scale. Jacinda’s look of concern may have grown even more compelling. But, nothing was done.
What on earth had happened to the “politics of kindness”? Why was Labour being so bloody-minded – not to mention so bloody mean? Why, when everybody was saying “Yes please!”, was the Labour Government saying “No thank you!”
The answer, of course, is because “everybody” wasn’t saying it. Thanks to their polling agency and the participants in its focus-groups, the Labour leadership possesses a great deal more information about the Kiwis clamouring for action on the housing front than journalists and lobbyists.
Confronted with a simple “Are you concerned about the lack of affordable housing?”, most New Zealanders will respond in the affirmative. But, ask them whether they favour addressing the housing problem by means of a Capital Gains Tax, and their agreement will evaporate instantly, like spilt beer on the barbie.
Allow a randomly selected group of focus-group participants to range widely over the big issues of the day, and the comments and expressions captured by the organisers’ microphones and cameras will reveal just how divided our society has become. Between rich Kiwis and poor Kiwis; Boomers and Millennials; people of colour and the white majority: the chances are high these recordings will confirm that, in the New Zealand of 2021, unanimity is in very short supply.
Just how dispiriting this must be for Labour’s new MPs is readily imagined. Fresh from mixing with family and friends over the Christmas break they will roll up to their first big caucus meeting of the year brim-full of the opinions and criticisms they have been given. How hard it must be for them to discover that what they have been told in no way reflects what is actually happening out there in the electorate.
Among the sort of folk who know and like Labour MPs, the level of concern for the homeless, renters, and first home buyers, is unquestionably real and urgent. The same is probably true of the mostly young journalists writing and broadcasting about these issues. They, however, are not the only people with concerns; attitudes; and (most importantly) interests. What Labour’s new MPs think they know; and the knowledge which Labour’s pollsters have gleaned from the hard data of their surveys; are unlikely to be all that similar.
The New Zealand middle-class, like its counterparts in other western societies, will defend its advantages tenaciously. Sitting back and allowing the government to appropriate and redistribute its wealth – especially among those it dismisses as the “undeserving poor” – is not an option it is likely to greet with the slightest degree of enthusiasm.
Just how unenthusiastically such notions are received soon becomes very clear to those tasked with watching and listening to the reactions of focus-groups. These can be hair-raisingly racist and sexist – more than enough to demoralise even the most idealistic supporters of the Labour and Green parties. That such brutal prejudices against the poor and marginalised are often reiterated with even greater vehemence by upwardly-mobile members of the working-class, makes them no easier to hear!
Their vested interests and shared prejudices notwithstanding, these two groups nevertheless contributed enormously to Labour’s electoral success in 2020. Keeping them on-side is, therefore, this government’s No. 1 political priority. It explains the PM’s point-blank refusal to countenance anything other than a general flattening of New Zealand property prices. Certainly, no policy measure threatening to weaken the “wealth effect” produced by inflated house prices will be countenanced. The good-will of the fortunate 15 percent of voters who shifted from National to Labour at last year’s general election must, at all costs, be retained.
Less clear, is whether Labour’s willingness to embrace the “woke” agenda represents a similar reflection of the data emerging from its opinion surveys and focus-groups. In return for the government leaving their wealth intact, have the middle- and upwardly-mobile working-classes suddenly become willing to tolerate the Labour-Green agenda on race, gender and sexuality? Are we looking at yet another of the Faustian pacts entered into by the Baby Boom generation? Something along the lines of: “You let us enjoy our tax-free capital gains, and we’ll tolerate your cultural revolution.”
Or, is it, rather, a case of not asking the sort of questions that could lead to the cancellation of a pollster’s contract. Requiring progressive MPs earning in excess of $140,000 p.a. to accept a moratorium on tax hikes is one thing. Asking them to tolerate the racism, sexism and homophobia of the voters who placed them on the Treasury benches is another.
There are some answers a political party is better off not hearing.
I think you are right Chris. And there is so much disarray around the world, and so many speculative bubbles, Jacinda is probably frightened to do anything* -other than oversee border control- in case it rebounds on her.
Maybe she is not as uninformed and stupid as she appears in public, and maybe she actually knows the Greatest Bubble Of All Time has been blown by central banks here and overseas, and that the bubbles will burst soon, which she then thinks negates any need for proactive policies by the NZ government right now. In the meantime,rRearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic gives the passengers a sense of well-being, and the reassurance that all is well when it isn’t. Because you know it[s all gone completely crazy when Bitcoin surpasses 50,000 and people are guessing whether it will break through 100,000 or return to its actual value, which is, of course, zilch. Nothing. Zero.
It’s a FOMA (Fear Of Missing Out) world out there now. That includes the fear of missing out on a coronavirus vaccine jab. And when it comes to the financial markets, even the Roaring Twenties (when people borrowed money to buy shares) doesn’t compare with the FOMA of today.
‘GBOAT: Is This the Greatest Bubble of All Time?
February 16, 2021
The lifestyle you ordered in the euphoria will be out of stock in the panic.’
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb21/GBOAT2-21.html
As for
‘There are some answers a political party is better off not hearing.’
Is the financial system a Ponzi scheme. YES
Are financial markets in hyper-overvaluation come-massive-speculation territory? YES
Is the global environment collapsing? YES
Is the world grossly overpopulated? YES
Are we in the midst of the Sixth Great Extinction Event? YES
Has extraction of conventional oil peaked? YES
Can the world run on ‘renewables’? NO
Do current economic-political arrangements have a future? NO
* She has agreed to removal of the last NZ forces from Afghanistan, the longest war in modern history, after 20 years of futility.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/17/new-zealand-to-pull-last-troops-out-of-afghanistan
As long as they keep printing money AFKTT , I don’t quite see how the bubble is going to burst. At least not in the same way as before QE. If as soon as a slide sets in more money is printed to fill the shortfall and fed into the market under pressure I think the inevitable disfunction will look more like an extreem form of hyper-inflation.
Eventually it is going to “trickle down” to the price of things in the real economy apart from rent which is already being effected .
Already the cost of living is rising faster than benefits, but that only effects the poor. The rich might not be disadvantaged by any natural development while QE continues .
Bitcoin might be as sound a currency as any other . There’s a finite mineable quantity of it. Unlike any other.
In previous periods of depression money and credit have been restricted. Flooding the economy with cash and credit is a relatively new idea. I don’t think we can know how it is going to end. Partly because it will depend on what the powers that be do to try to manage it.
D J S
You’re clearly an alarmist of the greatest sort, the entire AGW premise is the greatest scam ever perpetuated upon mankind you have swallowed the propaganda whole.
Facts: past 10,000 years were actually hotter for 60% of the time compared to today, previous 500 million years averaged CO2 levels are 800PPM, temperatures aren’t rising by any appreciable amount, sea level rises slow and steady since the 1500’s etc etc. But hey Greta knows….
AGW is your dystopian future dressed in drag
Love the parody!
I Think a CGT at this stage would need to be set at a catastrophic rte to have any effect on the rising house prices. If it were set at the same rate across farms and business premises it would collapse the economy.
What is driving the house price inflation is QE. Money created all over the world as a continuing emergency device in the hope of recovering from a banking crisis that occurred in 2007/8 and has never resolved. Hence ever more money is floating around seeking a secure “home”. And in the hands of most recipients , and especially in the books of the banks, there is no safer “home” than a house.
The labour party is not addressing the escalating house price because it cannot do so without stepping out of line with the whole world’s agreed approach to finance , banking and the money supply.
If it could it would. And the boomers who all have children and grandchildren they care about at least as much as they care about themselves, would be quite happy to see the inflation stop.
IMHO
D J S
“If it could it would”… I agree JA is not addressing the big concerns because that is against the rules. But they should do it anyway. Better to give an example to other countries about treating people fairly. We can feed all our people. Our military are unlikely to stage a coup. So the only risk is invasion like Norway in the tv show “occupied”. That is extremely unlikely and is worth the risk. It will take extreme measures by the govt but it is better than fiddling. Then we could begin to address the environment issues. Addressing inequality and the environment with a reasonable level of success in NZ could provide a “nuclearfree moment” and provide inspiration to other countries.
Agreed. And we may be the only country in the world that could get away with it. And once the ice is broken everyone will follow because the finance system is manifestly dysfunctional ; it is the Emperor without clothes , and it wont be fixed internationally. Every country will have to take back control of their own finance and banking system.
D J S
The economic reality is that doing anything that causes house prices to tank (or even just decelerate!) will bring about economic Armageddon. Our entire economic system is predicated on relentless debt expansion – housing, consumer, government.
And in the virus crisis, this debt expansion has gone to levels that are not even humanly comprehensible.
This is not Capitalism, it is Creditism.
No government LEFT or RIGHT is going to screw with the housing ponzi scheme, it is political suicide.
All ANY OF THEM will do is some theatrical tinkering, a bit of redistribution via welfare maybe to dull the pain for the have nots while they binge watch netflix and get high.
There is always an answer.
If a government said that one year from now, any property not the main residence would be subject to a CGT when sold – and the CG would be assessed on the price originally paid plus inflation, then a very large number of properties would be sold in that year.
If homes in that year could only be sold to first home buyers – first home buyers would do very well.
So whats the point of any of these political parties. This is simply defeatist bullshit.
Yeah, the whole thing about Ponzi schemes is that they blow up eventually sooner or later. Check this out re a dump on a 471 sq m section with no planning permissions for subdivision and no off street parking selling for 2.3 million: https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/run-down-villa-with-no-off-street-parking-sells-for-223m-38961.
Now, what kind of tulip was that again, Mynheer?
Lack of vision and lack of intelligence with any foresight to understand how that 15% she is vested in “looking after” will erode by the next election. But who else is there to vote for?
Jacinda is like one of those people who win 10 million on the Lottery but continue working at a checkout, living in their old semi detached house and upgrade their car to a 2.0 litre Hyundai. So much wasted potential. Why bother taking up a position that could be used by a person who would actually do something with their opportunity. We might as well just have a mannequin as PM. Total fraud. Total failure. Total waste of space.
Agreed, she is a waste of space.
Labour and Greens could start by stopping the mass sell off of our fresh water to be exploited. All around the world aquifers, lakes and rivers that used to be plentiful are drying up. It is CRAZY to be allowing consents for 35 years for water (for very little cost) and natural resources like sand, that are in decline while neighbours are in droughts. Government could repel the ‘first in, first served, approach under urgency like many other rules they create, but can’t be bothered it seems Government don’t think water (or iwi) is important.
Stop the sale of Otakiri Springs to foreign bottling giant Nongfu
https://our.actionstation.org.nz/petitions/stop-the-sale-of-otakiri-springs-to-chinese-bottling-giant-nongfu?bucket=&fbclid=IwAR1JMhKvNVAIcw0TCkiGVIIHByikiTmuZHaSz_dCPg3jGruoC7PlRFR9r2k
Streams in Hawke’s Bay have dried up after being deep enough to swim just one week ago, stoking fears of another drought.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/435391/extreme-drought-fears-in-hawke-s-bay-after-streams-dramatically-dry-up?fbclid=IwAR0Z6UzFYXdcLJqvbU6IqSxNjdAdHxxC_XnuzTIqKEawxG0TlYmK6Lgtq58
Lake Poopó: why Bolivia’s second largest lake disappeared – and how to bring it back
https://theconversation.com/lake-poopo-why-bolivias-second-largest-lake-disappeared-and-how-to-bring-it-back-152776?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=bylinefacebookbutton&fbclid=IwAR0oWf8vwCu47rTUCx1aIQkY8mMY7oD6bsN8klkI0RXTd6LFfHyJMsqOUcM
Climate change is hitting the Colorado River ‘incredibly fast and incredibly hard’
https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona-environment/2021/01/01/colorado-rivers-headwaters-climate-change-drives-efforts-adapt/6461183002/?fbclid=IwAR2y5HMHQvjQzX4S1A6xFVWsrZqdHBU3WD1Y_FEcnHuKr8RzArEAe2K0YoM
Jacinda’s Govt’ cares a lot more about re-election than it does about the homeless and poverty in general.
This is at the core of all the inaction. Labour is just as treasonous as National was and actually worse because of all the Jacinda promises while campaigning for a 2nd term.
New Zealand is full, if you want to come here, citizen or not, you must prove you have somewhere permanent to live before you get an entry permit. The call for a CGT, can someone explain how that is going to increase the housing stock, or decrease the demand
CGT would bring in a large amount of revenue to a cash strapped government . In turn this money could be used to build houses and there maybe surplus to increase benefits. By inclination I am a National voter and do not normally favour increase in taxes but this virus has tilled the playing field and the government needs to take a look at a change of policy
You are better to target a stamp duty that is hard to evade and based on the actual value of the house and asset share – this helps limit luxury builds.
AKA if you have a 1% stamp duty on a 30 million dollar transaction the tax is $300,000 but on a $300,000 house the tax is only $3000.
Stamp duty tax is cheap to collect as it’s instant because the lawyers collect the tax when they transfer the title so it’s hard to evade, unlike income tax where the rich don’t pay it via company structures or in NZ 40% of people get more tax back than they pay. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/81429047/small-number-of-taxpayers-bear-the-brunt-of-new-zealand-tax-bill or if you are a ‘charity’ https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/96742698/how-some-new-zealand-business-make-billions-and-pay-no-tax or a business ( not it seems NZ doesn’t want to collect this data , company tax data is not transparent) unlike in OZ https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/news-federal-budget/2019/12/12/companies-no-tax-australia/)
CGT is not a fair tax.
Labour can afford to be progressive on woke issues as they don’t affect people’s pockets. Same as the Democrats in the United States
The terrible contradiction of democracy is that the interests of the majority dictate government policy to the detriment, if necessary, of the minority. Home ownership in NZ is declining but sits at around 60% so any elected government that wants to get re-elected will have to serve those interests almost exclusively.
We should also remember the short history of universal suffrage – it is only recently that people who didn’t own property could even part take in the democratic process so it is perhaps not that surprising that our entire economic platform remains focused on asset owners.
In fact since 2008 governments across the Western world have done everything in their power to protect asset owners – property and stocks, in particular, have experienced almost risk free growth for over a decade. Central banks and policy makers have bent over backwards in defiance of formerly cherished free market principles to guarantee ever increasing values and returns to those with skin in the game.
Sometimes our clever politicians MUST put their personal survival and egos to one side and do what is right.
My estimation of our previously caring PM is dropping like a stone because she has been so obviously focused on reelection and therefore herself and not on the plight of those many growing amount of her citizens that are suffering whist she poll watches.
Home ownership stands at around 64% and that’s a voting majority.
It’s that simple
Yep, and each team has a rusted on 25% vote share, which leaves 14% of homeowners choosing the team every 3 years.
Waste of time even voting
The rich greedy investors who rented out unliveable homes at top rates for years can now sell up and make massive tax free capital gains. They do not even have to upgrade their rotten houses to meet the healthy homes requirement. They just flick them off to poor over extended first home buyers desperate for a home. These parasites cannot help but make money on top of money…. winning forever. Jacinda has crippled the poor and young with extensive debt and shoddy homes just to make the rich so much richer. Seriously…what has NZ become? Why has Jacinda decided her top priority is making National supporters much richer?
You’ve missed the point old mate.
1. Labour will work on housing affordability through other measures
2. These things are not overnighters/nor radical/nor unpopular
3. Scrapping the RMA is a massive move-although little will change, it is likely to focus on making subdivision easier-more sections/faster process.
4. Perhaps more investment into infrastructure will be required of Local Govt. Three waters investment perhaps funded in part by Central Govt.
4. CODC already actively consulting on housing infill-it would appear Auckland is filling up with very nice multi story apartments too.
5. Rental housing standards have improved-massive disincentive for having a rental property along with harder to kick people out. The cost to paint a house with scaffolding may be up to 30K. My new roof quote was 70K. You cant really rent out a dive now. Any maintenance cost is huge.
6. Kitset homes are going gangbusters-great low cost / low maintenance homes.
7. Tiny homes are going gangbusters-free and easy lifestyle
8. Lifestyle village heaven here.
They obviously havn’t sold the strategy very well if you don’t get it.
I don’t think a lot of investors realise how poor our old housing stock is and the cost to upgrage/repair it. Having worked on a few they are just utter rubbish-not fit for purpose.
New technology and green strategy is our salvation-off grid/septic systems
Although I’m not a big fan she may smarter than you think?
-end of rant-
“think”………..that involves grey matter, Country boy often uses it here, maybe a few other sincere commentators. The rest are the organised cuts hoping for political death down the line.
How can you make sense of nonsense? Because that’s all politics seems these days. Trivial nonsense on what pronouns and period products are free to use. And people losing fluffy toys. Go figure.
“Speak Science To Power”
https://outrageandoptimism.libsyn.com/39-science-leadership-action-with-rainn-wilson-dr-gail-whiteman-and-david-perry
You,re all wrong. The land values will never allow for affordable houses to be built or existing houses to be affordable in the future unless there is a majoe global financial crisis. The price of land increased substantially from 2012 and now is about 60-70% of house values. My street has $2.5m houses with a land value of $1.6m. No land-owner or land-banker is going to sell their lands at bargin prices. No RMA changes or taxes will change the equation. The mass building of social housing would help.
One way is for iwi/hapu to make their Maori lands available to build their whanau houses to get whanau into a house. An opportunity for Maori to go back home. Get tenders from the Chinese to bring kit-set housing over in containers and 2000 workers to assemble them. Kiwi builder have plenty of work building expensive houses, commercial work and renovations.
There are areas of Papa kainga housing in many many places.
But no – keep the Chinese out of it. We have NZ companies who can do up to spec kitset housing. We have or can train NZ workers to build them. We do not need the Chinese and I find the very suggestion offensive
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