Tax cuts: Luxon needs to take long view, revisit plan – Fran O’Sullivan
When Sir John Key and Christopher Luxon recently breakfasted, he would have urged his political protege to take caution preparing the May 30 Budget.
Key strongly believes a new prime minister should think about delivering a political change programme by taking a three-term view, not a three-year view.
They should assume – if successful – a prime minister or their party will have nine years to deliver a considered change programme rather than trying to cram all their spending cuts and policy changes into three years (and going too hard in the first year), risking plunging the country into so much discontent their programme has to be abandoned and they don’t get re-elected.
It is vital to secure trust in that first year in office.
You can smell the fear from the right.
They’ve over egged their hatred towards Māori, beneficiaries, workers, renters and the environment to sate the sense of culture war vengeance their redneck voters become sexually excited over, but it’s turning the centre away in disgust.
The most recent internal polling suggests Labour and National are just 5 points apart now and with the really toxic policy cruelty yet to be announced, the fear that the Right have goose stepped well beyond Kiwis boundaries.
That’s not to say there isn’t a new highly toxic and radioactive support vote for NZ First’s Qanon conspiracy swamp and ACTs cross burning, they certainly is.
Thanks to social media hate algorithms, we have factions of voters living demented realities and they are lost to us forever, so expect ACT and NZ First to go up in the polls, but where the real sea change will be is the soft middle National voter who are disgusted and appalled by ACT and NZ First’s hard right agenda.
The intensity of the backlash is also surprising National, the level of derision and open hostility towards this Government is driving a desire to tone down the polarisation because once the Left are united in their anger, National is in trouble.
The problem is deep. Luxon is out of his depth and is being played week in and week out by ACT and NZ First while the total lack of anything resembling a vision and policy platform has been glossed over by Industry and lobbyist election talking points which will look openly venal once the policy is written.
If you think you are angry now, wait until you see what National attempt to make law for their donors.
That Key has had to reach out to Luxon and attempt to talk him down from the $19.1billion tax cut/tax break and public service redundancies highlights how concerned National Party Mandarins are.
The majority of National voters voted National in the hope their house price would go up 10%, they sure as fuck weren’t voting for culture war revenge fantasies masquerading as social policy!
When the vast majority of Kiwis see the pittance they are getting in tax cuts, the extremeness of this Government’s agenda will violently backlash.
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Massive inequality, mass migration and when people find out that non-citizens having voting rights and NACT cannot be voted out… violence when, not if.
When some pākehā and other Tau Iwi start uniting with Māori in direct action against this Govt. the ruling class will start to brick it all right. Some middle class people might get it too when the axe falls on thousands of public servants.
The Groundswell/MAGA NZ division nutters will remain pests in the provinces, but I and others have stood up to them and won before on various community issues in the Far North–which strangely enough has one of the highest ratios of Māori people in the country.
Do authoritarian fantasies like Atlas Dave’s repress people further or provoke organisation and fightback?–we are about to find out over the next year or two.
Scrap Te Tari Pūreke for more than $200 million in savings for the taxpayer
hell no.
Tax multi-nationals to a halfway decent extent, and gain the taxpayer $500 million (at least)!!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/top-multinationals-pay-almost-no-tax-in-new-zealand/MABUXPEGHISZWPEDKC3EWA7M6I/
A level playing field is not what ACT’s donors want. As their actions since being in power repeatedly demonstrate.
Te Tari Pūreke | Firearms Safety Authority New Zealand. Supporting responsible firearms use to keep New Zealand safe. Firearms licence. Find out how to apply or reapply for a New Zealand firearms licence. You need a firearms licence to possess and use non-prohibited firearms, ammunition and
Are you a gang member or just want to be able to stock up in case them Maaris and lefties come for you in the night.
Fucken sick comment uncle tom we don’t have to come for people in the night we are happy to do a day visit like the old quacks use to do.
… and the registry for even greater savings.
The children’s school lunches takeaway shocked the whole country. Cruelly walloping disabled persons and their carers smacked of eugenic and was certainly not in the best interests of sadly challenged children. Condoning terrorising dolphins was predictable, and the methodology for reducing housing waiting lists, repeating unzipped Paula.
Christmas partying in pyjamas at Premier House before slithering back into a place which he owned mortgage free but nevertheless expected the taxpayer to stump up for, was simply the kind of person he is. Proposing gang members wear make-up, was as hopelessly unrealistic as proposing tax cuts with fiscal holes popping up at the same rate as Wellington pot holes. Blaming the previous government for all their blunders is same old, same old.
I totally disagree with the premise that a government should try for 9 years rather than upset the electorate and be voted out in 3. If you look at the Clark, Key and Ardren governments, all were shy of making real structural change. As a result not much got done.
I would rather see a government make change (either left or right) rather be stuck in this decision paralysis- because that is helping nobody.
This is exactly it – Clark to Key to Adern was 24 years of insipid incremental change where nothing serious was done and has left NZ with shit infrastructure, a collapsing healthcare system, a broken tertiary education sector and so on.
Whether left of right, they’re the same pack of useless clowns
Perhaps it’s time to try actually doing something and making change? After all, we’ve had 24 years of being fed the same shit and nothing to show for it.
Totally agree with you.
As someone has said to me ‘Labour were afraid of their own shadow’ transformational change when honestly they could have actually done this, if they had done it in their first 100 days we would have seen the results before the 2023 election and that would have been a real sign to the country.
the fact that Hipkins is still ‘in charge’ says a great deal.
They all kowtow to business.
The Greens (now they have one very good co-leader) and Te Pati Maori are the future, I doubt they vote any differently, but it would be interesting to see.
Agreed.
Korea has a nice rule for presidents – one and done. One term, no more. Do what matters to you, then make room for fresh talent.
Looking at the tired fools in our parliament, 20 or thirty years of non-performance behind them, expecting the public to call them ‘honourable’, and a knighthood for sweet effay, I understand why Caligula made his horse a senator.
Yes, you are correct Martyn, I personally thought John Key was very clever, say what you will about him, whether you liked him or not, I actually liked him although I detested the National Party he was Leader of, Key who started out as a novice, became a accomplished Political Leader who was cognisant of the Public mood & was adaptable & malleable while Luxon is a inflexible, rigid novice with no Political instincts & Street smarts & is tone deaf, his sense of entitlement is telling, one example is his claiming Taxpayers money for his freehold Wellington flat a mistake of a Rookie & he’s just become a lackey of Winston Peters & David Seymour? John Key would never have made the rookie mistakes Luxon has made, Key had good Political instincts & Street smarts who makes Luxon look like a hamfisted imbecile? Key had the good sense to steal Labour Policy & make it his own, especially Labour policies that were popular with the Public like Working for Families & Kiwisaver but he would water them down & he would put out Trial balloons on the NZ Public to gauge their popularity & would enact Policy based on whether it was popular & if Policy wasn’t popular but he still wanted it passed, he would plan to do this by bringing about incremental changes over a three term period because it gave people the time to get their heads around it & accept the changes gradually, bringing the Public along with him? Contrast that to Luxon who is like a Bull in a China shop smashing the fuck outta everything, he’s a Ram raider getting rid of all any Labour’s Policy, even good Policy, Key would have never done that & doing it all in a orgy of gutting of the like that’s never been seen in this Country based purely out of malice, spite & Right wing Neoliberal Ideology, not the common sense approach of Key who kept the good Labour Policies but ditched the bad ones but fuckwit Luxon is ramming through Legislation under urgency & creating carnage, resentment & animosity from the Public who voted for change but not this head spinning change, Key must be shaking his Head at this stupidity by not giving the Public time to accept those changes, Luxon’s a dumb fuck compared to Key & at least Key had a likability factor about him while Luxon has none!
A leader is only as strong as this team around him what does this say about Luxons’ party.
all 3rd raters, endemic in the US club most of them couldn’t think their way out of a wet paper bag
Seems like the “snake oiled salesman” sold you Antforce62. That’s what his legacy was.
It might be in National’s interests to take a three term view to their political strategy. But for ACT and NZ First, they just need to survive 2026 and if National slows down their ambitions the they will become another form of opposition to National. ACT and NZ First have absolutely 0 incentive to take a long term view of their policies.
Thats good kiwiana cause neither of them (act or nzf) will be there long term Winstone will be 80 something and he is already looking wonky without him there will be no NZF as his mate shameless jones can’t even win an electorate.
Key purposely picked a weak minded puppet in Luxon that he knew could be easily operated, (ah hem.. I mean mentored) in whatever direction he wished.
Someone also heavily invested and self interested in seeing the housing ponzi continued.
The problem with weak minded puppets is that they can also be swayed by outsiders in other directions.
As to Key slowing down change. Luxon has to contend with Dolphin Sushi Seymour and The Vamp van Velden who have their donors and lobbyists feet firmly planted on the accelerator as he tries to pump the breaks.
John Key can’t fucken hold Luxons hand as he runs the country. He’s unelected. Just tell him he’s shit and buck up his ideas.
John Key holds his own hand, except when he’s tugging on waitresses’ pony tails or counting out his money. Any suggestion of Key having fear is intrinsically daft, for it implies that he’s human.
Like the last couple of days in the House, yesterday was a classic, the finance minister demanding respect for former runaway member Key, as this house should respect former Ministers, as she, the maggie clone, derides those in opposition who dare challenges her fiscal acumen, and does give tax relief, at the expense of the heads of the people on her chopping block. Then we have the new shape of Key, svelt and automaton with not a string in sight.
When the vast majority of Kiwis see the pittance they are getting in tax cuts, the extremeness of this Government’s agenda will violently backlash.
Please let it be so.
Prebble says in his Herald column today:
Luxon needs to be himself, a businessman. He did not run Air New Zealand on spend, borrow, and hope. He must not run New Zealand on spend, borrow, and hope.
He has conveniently forgotten that the Government had to bail out the airline that Lixon led into bankruptcy