Political Roundup: Can David Parker push Labour back onto a more progressive path?

By
The Daily Blog
-
46
1660

Cabinet Minister David Parker recently told the Spinoff he’s reading “The Triumph of Injustice – how the wealthy avoid paying tax and how to fix it”, by Berkeley economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez. The book complains that leftwing politicians throughout the world have forsaken their historic duty to innovate on taxation and force wealthy vested interests to pay their fair share. The authors say governments of both left and right have capitulated unnecessarily to the interests of the wealthy in setting policies on tax and spending.

Parker shares this ethos and it’s undoubtedly a big part of his decision to revolt against his leader. First, Parker ignored constitutional conventions and spoke out against the Prime Minister’s decision last month to rule out implementing any capital gains or wealth taxes. And this week he resigned as Minister of Revenue, saying it was “untenable” for him to continue in the role given Hipkins’ stance on tax.

Clearly, Parker is highly aggrieved at Hipkins’ decision to rule out a substantially more progressive taxation regime, especially when there is such strong public openness to it. In May, a Newshub survey showed 53 per cent of voters wanted a wealth tax implemented. And last week, a 1News poll showed 52 per cent supported a capital gains tax on rental property.

David Parker has become the progressive voice of Labour

Parker has thrown a real spanner in the works for Chris Hipkins at a crucial time in Labour’s re-election campaign. Such dissent from a Cabinet Minister is highly unusual. It’s also refreshing that it’s over a matter of principle and policy, rather than personality, performance, or ambition.

There will be some Labour MPs and supporters annoyed with Parker for adding to Labour’s woes, especially when the Government is already looking chaotic. He’s essentially declared a “vote of no confidence” in his own party’s tax policy. This is not the staunch loyalty and unity that Labour has come to expect over the last decade, whereby policy differences are suppressed or kept in-house.

But even though Parker is being criticised this week by commentators for throwing a “tantrum” in resigning his Revenue portfolio, this charge won’t really stick, as he just doesn’t have that reputation. His protest is one of principle, not wounded pride or vanity, and it’s one that will be shared within the wider party.

In taking such a strong stance on progressive taxation, and so openly opposing Hipkins as being too cautious and conservative, Parker has become something of a beacon for those in Labour and the wider political left who are discontented over this Government’s failure to deliver on traditional Labour concerns.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Is there a future for Parker in Labour?

Parker’s outspokenness may be a sign that he’s had enough, and is looking to leave politics before long. Being on the party list means he can opt out of Parliament at any time. After the election, he may decide it’s time to retire, especially if Labour loses power. In fact, Parker has long been rumoured to be considering his retirement from politics, so it might just be that the time has finally come.

A private decision to leave might explain why Parker has decided to put up and not just shut up, and publicly distance himself from Labour’s decisions on tax for the sake of his reputation.

It’s also possible that Parker has chosen to try to pressure Labour towards a more progressive position on taxation, and this is the start of a bigger campaign. If so, he would be playing the long game. Parker is now established as the most progressive voice in Labour, which could see him move up the caucus ladder when Hipkins eventually moves on – especially if Labour is defeated at the election in October.

And Hipkins might have inadvertently invited opponents to want to replace him with a more progressive politician when he made his “captain’s call” to rule out any sort of real tax reform for as long as he holds the role. Given that they had an absolute majority in the last three years they can’t blame anyone else. And should they lose the election, the analysis from within Labour will certainly be that they were too centrist and didn’t do enough.

Parker would be a strong contender for the leadership sometime in the next term of Parliament. That is if he wants it and hasn’t simply had enough. There are signs that he would be keen – he ran for the top job in 2014, with Nanaia Mahuta as a running mate, but lost out to David Cunliffe.

This week he reiterated that he’s up for a fight, explaining his decision to stand down as Minister for Revenue, saying, “I’m an agent for change – for progressive change. I’ve been that way all of my political life and I’ve still got lots of energy as shown by the scraps that I’ve got into in the last couple of weeks on transport.”

Of course, when the time comes to replace Hipkins, the party will face the temptation to look for a younger and “fresher” leader. Until very recently, the likes of Kiri Allan and Michael Wood were seen as the future, but those options have disappeared. And the party might do well looking to someone with more proven experience.

Parker could fit that bill – he’s been in Parliament for 21 years and served in the Helen Clark administration as Attorney-General and Minister of Transport. He’s seen as an incredibly solid, reliable politician, with a very deep-thinking policy mind.

By contrast, the rest of the Cabinet often seems anti-intellectual and bereft of any ideas or deep thinking, which means that are too often captured by whatever new agendas the government departments have pushed on them. Arguably that’s why the blunt approaches of centralisation and co-governance have so easily become the dominant parts of Labour’s two terms in power.

Labour needs Parker’s progressive intellectual politics

Regardless of whether Parker ever gets near the leadership again, it’s clear he has much to offer in pushing the party in a more progressive direction. Certainly, Labour could benefit from a proper policy reset and revival – which Hipkins hasn’t been able to achieve.

The new leader managed to throw lots of old policy on the bonfire, and he successfully re-branded Labour as being more about sausages and “bread and butter” issues, but Hipkins hasn’t yet been able to reinject any substantial positive new policies or ethos. Parker’s dissent this week indicates that frustration from progressives in Labour is growing, and there are some very significant policy differences going on in the ruling party of government.

For the health of the party, and for the good of the wider political left, hopefully Parker will continue to be a maverick, positioning himself as an advocate of boldness and progressive change.

Parker recently selected Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” as the book “Everyone should read”. He explained that “As a politician who believes in social mobility and egalitarian outcomes, this book inspired me to seek the revenue portfolio”.

That Parker has now had to give away that portfolio says something unfortunate about the party and Government he is part of. And if the last week also signals that Parker is on his way out of politics, that too would be a shame. After all, in a time when parliamentary politics is about scandal, and the Government has lost so many ministers over issues of personal behaviour, it would be sad to lose a Minister who is passionate about delivering policies to fix the problems of wealthy vested interests and inequality.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

46 COMMENTS

  2. “David Parker has become the progressive voice of Labour”

    I never would have thought I would read that sentence 10 years ago.

  3. Parker seems a capable man who has streaks (although not frequent enough) of actual moral fiber – his speaking up over Rotorua council racial policy of denying one person one vote as against the bill of rights (but not when ecan did same) for example.
    This tax stance is principled and he is likely the guy Labour will try and build back around when they lose the upcoming election, if they choose to go more back to their roots.

  4. It’s not a vote of no confidence in the party’s tax policy….It’s a vote of no confidence in the party leader….The New Zealand Labour Party is falling apart day by day now….The experiment is over. The Maori caucus showed us how co-governance will work, or won’t work is more like it, and incompetence by the rest of the rabble has left the party in ruins….The sad part is that this lot of underachiever’s actually can remove money from the wallet’s of hard working kiwi battlers ….this is not the walking dead, it’s the sleep walking dead…..If the Governor General had any brains , an immediate halt to this nonsense would be called, and an early election would be planned before more damage is done….

  5. I still recall during the height of Jacinda fandom, Ms Ardern told one magazine that she had a Thomas Piketty book on the shelf but had not quite got around to finishing it. And that is the problem for NZ Labour, they are intellectually shallow, and since Rog’ and Preb’s purge in the 80s, basically bereft of genuine leftists. They have been neo Blairists since.

    Monetarism is so contradictory and counterproductive for the party to continue to support in 2023 as Climate Disaster intensifies. Hello…“Trickle Down” never worked as capitalist entities such as the IMF and World Bank finally admitted. The other point of course is NZ Labour always allowed the “Parliamentary Wing” i.e. Caucus, to lord it over the rank and file party membership. Another reason why the likes of Mr Chipkins feel quite confident in undemocratic “Captains calls”.

    As the Batman movie line went…“this towns so bent–who ya gonna rat to?…

      • Well it hurts to say it, but yes millsy, they made hundreds of incremental reforms that few would know or care about. Including the NZ First driven Provincial Growth Fund that had genuine positive effects in small communities few in the rest of the country would know about up here in the Far North.

        Have not forgotten Helen Clark’s “Jobs Jolt” which was virtually a stay in place order to beneficiaries–if they moved to a provincial area from a town or city they would be cut off the unemployment benefit.

  6. David Parker is a symbol of why we shouldn’t have list MP’s. They get into power without anybody in the public voting for them and their fringe ideologies.

    Between Chippy giving his mum a role to create the new education curriculum that replaces science with Maori mythology and Mahuta with her husbands awarded multiple government contracts, Meng Foon resigning after failing to declare payments of $2 million he took for emergency housing while director of an investment company.

    Seems like nepotism and extreme policy seem to be side by side!

  7. NZ is now so compromised in everything, including nepotism and egoists who seem to be extremely lazy everywhere that they even have the transparency group appoint lobby groups to advise them!

    ‘Astonishment’ at lobbyists advising Transparency International on ethics and rules of their own industry
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/494351/astonishment-at-lobbyists-advising-transparency-international-on-ethics-and-rules-of-their-own-industry

    “My initial reaction is astonishment that TINZ would rely on a team of 4-5 lobbyists to lead its response on such a crucial issue,” Newman wrote in an email to TINZ on 30 May.

    “Consulting them is fine but putting them in charge is altogether different – a bit like the police recruiting gang members to determine new rules on pursuit of fleeing drivers.”

    He declined to join the group and told TINZ that, “as an organisation you have been caught in a culture of complacency and captured by the very system you are charged with overseeing.”

    Laziness, stupidity and the same government appointed people who have no morals or knowledge in charge of everything, is one of NZ’s biggest problems!

  8. Unfortunately Parties in NZ are picked by the Media and every time a Party tries to implement a fairer tax system the NZ media and Opposition Parties who are funded by the Mega wealthy instill fear and mistrust. You can’t change anything in NZ if you are voted out.

  9. Expect David Parker to be one of many who will eventually leave the Labour Party because of the leader’s stance on taxation. Except that in David’s case it won’t be solely because of that, he is almost due to retire after an incredibly good innings

  10. Back to pre-Lange? Nope. The best thing that Slave Labour can do now is die and let an actual Left emerge. Slave Labour is a Right-wing neo-liberal party.

  11. David Parker is either setting the scene to exit politics or to be Leader of the Labour Party post election.

  12. “… this Government’s failure to deliver on traditional Labour concerns.”
    Jesus! How far do we need to go back to find our old traditional Labour? Roger douglas fucked labour with miltons neo-liberalism 39 years ago. Then big, tall, handsome roger went off to create ACT which was just shy of the Volksmaschinenpistole’s enforced fascism. So why has it taken so long to get to this point? Could it be that there’s nothing left to steal from our farmers who were our primary-industry source of funds but now it’s a false economy of borrowed money leveraged against the very lands we stand upon. I write that because if you mortgaged your home and land to one of the four foreign owned banks then you must know, they owe you nothing while you owe then the house you live in and the land it sits on and they can dictate how you do what you do and how much you’ll get paid for to do it and for how long you must do it to pay off your dreaded mortgages. Translation:” Mort-gage dates back to the late 14th century, with the Latin root word “mort” meaning death and “gage” meaning pledge.”
    Where was david parker when people were being hypnotised into taking out un-payable death pledges ? Reclining in his flash car on a ministerial salary is where he was so why should anyone trust the blush cheeked fucker?
    Labour? Roger fucked labour by stealth then jimbo The Stump bolger deregulated unions and fucked it further and now we have mono-economy dairy farms, 14 multi-billionaires, 3118 multi-millionaires with in excess of $50 million each and four now foreign owned money laundering, thieving scum banksters stealing $180.00 a second 24/7/365 from a scant few 5.2 million in net profits and 480 people living in their cars with their kids and soon, the New World Invasion is about to take place. We’re in a position where we must do as we’re told because here comes 50 million climate crisis escapees our rich and our politicians sold us to.
    We must remember, with any traitor, with any invasion, they have the upper hand because it’s they who’ve already done the forward planning. The only thing left that we can do is to resist. “Beer and a video tonight then.”
    We’re like poor old sheep to the slaughter. “ We were happy in a fenced in field then we got frightened by savage other animals who would usually eat us, we got frightened into a strange cage that spirited us to smaller fields but without grass and, my God I need a pee. Ahhh, that’s better. Now, where the fuck are we! I can smell blood! A biped’s rough-handling me! Where’s my friends!? Where’s my kids! I want go home! Oh God! I just shit myself! Where am I ? There’s that smell of blood again! Why has the hideous biped just grabbed me! What’s that thing he’s holding! Hey! What the fuck’s going o…………………………………………..”

    • My attention span has gone since the pandemic — a boring library book I think. Break up your paras, Countryboy, otherwise it looks like reading through Das Kapital. I love reading through utube comments. Don’t much like Left blog comments since they are all over the place and a lot of ignorants and Righties, if the two are different. Keep kick-fighting (I’m sure you had brothers).

  13. It must surely be blindingly obvious that this could only occur from the Opposition Benches.
    For this election, it is Hipkins who essentially sets the tax policy, and that is the policy Labour has to carry into government in the event the left wins government. Recall also that Hipkins has ruled out capital gains or wealth taxes, so it is not as if they can be imposed by the Greens or Te Pati Māori.

    • Well it is actually quite possible that Mr Hipkins could be lined up in the event of a potential narrow win in the MMP sense, with a potentially viable Parliament with Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori–whatever the formal arrangement. “Captains Calls” are undemocratic and opportunist, but in line with NZ Labour’s long time enforcement of supremacy of the Parliamentary Wing and Caucus over rank and file party members.

  14. More committees, more expenses, more litigation. More taxpayer money wasted on the NZ Gravy Train!

    “Toitū te Waiora, jointly chaired by David Waters and Matthew Tukaki, is one of six Workforce Development Councils set up by the Government this term to bolster vocational training and education.”

    “Clarke’s publicly-funded card had been used to pay for alcohol and lobster in Sydney, numerous post-midnight taxi trips and that the $72,862 in total spent by Clarke over 11 months was more than twice as much the five other Workforce Development Council chief executives combined.”

    “Figures obtained under the Official Information Act (OIA) reveal the employment dispute resulted in Toitū te Waiora incurring $194,647 in “professional services costs” and $128,266 in “discretionary leave” costs.

    TTW said $117,950 had been paid out to settle employment disputes with four staff since October 2021, including Clarke, but declined to specify how much of this sum had been paid to its former chief executive.

    TTW is a small and very new organisation, having existed for less than two years. With only 31 staff listed in its annual report, the figures suggest around 10 per cent of staff have experienced employment grievances requiring financial settlements to be paid out.”

    ‘Staggering’ cost of public sector CEO departure
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/staggering-cost-of-public-sector-ceo-departure/M4KRHVGMUFD7HG65G6TWYUMHMQ/

    If they have an entitlement tax, appalling recruitment tax or stupidity tax instead of a wealth tax, NZ would be rolling in $$$$$$

  15. Perhaps Parkers policy and Labour preparing to take GST off food was too much. However, given that GST will be removed, and everyone needs food, this is a sure vote winner. Now let’s wait and see what dirty politics policies National will unfold. I’d expect with National’s loss Luxon’s political career will end in October and Willis to continue as leader as she is a career politician with no real life skills.

    • When the tax comes off and prices hardly fall and supermarkets profit increases it will be a vote loser .
      Hipkins will need to explain how Robinson can say taking gst of food is too hard in May but can be done now .What has changed. Labour suggested the policy in 2011 but then dropped it.
      National does nort have to look for dirt Labour are digging it up in spades and as one term members get angry with their new leader Labour will be the one unfolding

    • “a career politician with no real life skills.”
      Fuck did you just hit the keyboard and not think what you were typing haahaa….let’s list the Labour MPs and Cabinet ministers who are ‘career politicians’?…. Even better, how many have received a salary that was NOT tax payer funded!?
      You can start with the leader, the PM…oops, he’s on the list along with 90% of the party.

      • The PM has more intelligence in his toe nail than you will ever have I’m so far right I’m blind. But as a troll you’re naked and at the ready on you’re keyboard hahaha

  16. Also take into account Key LIED about raising GST so at least Chippy can fall back on that when he changes his mind on Parkers tax policy. When in Rome and all that…

  17. Sooo, Parker wants to tax the evil wealthy to get more $ and alleviate poverty etc.
    Lets look at their record – record tax take, yes, but money pissed down the drain:
    – 1.9 billion in mental health and nothing to show for it
    – >200 million for Polytech reorg, and more spending on the way, but nothing to show for it
    – hundreds of million on curriculum refresh, but didn’t bother to sync it with NCEA assessment, and still nothing to solve declining academic standards
    – over a billion on 3/5 waters and nothing to show for it
    – million on anti violence and homelessness, but all they have delivered is strategy documents and kids still in cars (more than under National)
    And they want more tax?

  19. The problem which Chris talked about a while ago , is the international agreements that protect the ability of wealthy individuals , or overseas companies to offshore their place of registration to a low tax jurisdiction /tax haven. This means that any alteration in the taxation levels effects the incentive of those on sufficiently high levels of income or wealth to either move their business base location in or out of the country . So the creation of a new tax of the wealthy , whether such a tax exists in other counties or not, or an increase in income tax will simply move a proportion of wealthy taxpayers overseas and result in a nil or negative overall tax take. This is why GST had to be introduced at the same time as the neoliberal globalist agreements on international business arrangements were established. Taxation can only be increased on te poor and middle income earners.
    If Parker is going to introduce tax reforms that increase tax on the wealthy he must start by isolating our economy accordingly.
    Someone has probably explained this to Chippy.
    D J S

  22. Nope, again you are wrong…this is like shooting fish in a barrell…sooo easy.
    Key made the rise in GST of 2.5% to be tax neutral by reducing income tax by 2.5%
    Now where is it ‘he lied’?
    He did not raise taxes, it was balanced neutral…one up, one down same rate.

    • Idiot, what part of the lie, ” I will not raise GST” don’t you get I’m so far right? Forget neutral remember the lie. Shockey Donkey was no friend to the public of NZ

  23. Cabinet Minister David Parker recently told the Spinoff he’s reading “The Triumph of Injustice – how the wealthy avoid paying tax and how to fix it”

    I am presuming David supported Hipkins to lead the party after Arden ran out of fuel in the tank.

    LINO have had in their recent history ample opportunity to write policy and campaign on what Parker is now all of a sudden publicly advocating ……when LINO can no longer ignore the huge disparities in tax policy which was the intention of the heinous freedom of the market reforms enthusiastically supported by numerous groups of beneficiaries ..National , ACT , LINO and Winston Shane First and their voting constituency.

    But as one correspondent on here pointed out the free trade agreements we were so desperate to sign away our sovereignty and democracy for all in the cause to make the wealthy so much wealthier had ramifications in the fine print if we suddenly woke up and realised we had signed away our ability to
    when it suited political considerations to move on the inequality and naked theft that has now after so many reviews and reports is now seen for what it is …economic theft from the exploited middle and underclass mainly the working poor.

    If real Labour principles had meant anything Robertson , Parker and if there are any non compromised LINO MP’s they would have walked away from Hipkins and the other neo liberal hangers on and made a principled stand. That would have shown real political courage and a realisation of why the joined LINO in the first place to stand strong and fight the enemy that has been there all along …..unregulated capitalism that is bleeding their LINO constituency dry.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.