The Targeted CGT that 9 out of 10 won’t pay in return for 3 free Dr visits plus more cash into public health was a smart and sensible policy to pull soft NZF and National vote.
But if we want to actually fund the social and community infrastructure in a meaningful way that also provides funds for climate change adaptation while subsidising the cost of living we need targeted taxes.
We need a Financial Transaction Tax, a oligopoly/duopoly wind fall profit tax, vice tax, a sugar tax and a wealth tax.
Chippy has already ruled out a wealth tax…
Capital gains tax: Labour’s Chris Hipkins shuts door on Green Party doubts over tax bottom line
…and he can say that on this side of the election until the cows come home and make him a sausage roll, but on the other side of the election, everything is up for negotiation.
This is why the current self mutilation inside the Māori Party is so damaging to everyone.
A Green/te Pati Māori united negotiating front with the force of nature that is John Tamihere could have forced a modified wealth tax onto the table.
Not the Greens version (it is too low and would ping too many people), I propose that the Greens in a negotiating alliance with te Parti Māori make as their bottom line the adoption of Labour’s own wealth tax.
The one that targets individuals with net wealth over $5million, the very wealthiest New Zealanders to provide everyone with the first $10 000 tax free.
The 46,000 individuals who have prospered because of society will be asked to pay 1.5% in tax on that wealth.
That would provide every kiwi with their first $10 000 tax free.
That’s $1050 to everyone per year.
For many Kiwis holding on, that is a real difference.
It particularly helps pensions, beneficiaries, students and the low paid.
Financial Transaction Tax, a oligopoly/duopoly wind fall profit tax, vice tax and a sugar tax would go to fund free public transport, Ministry of Green Works, weight loss drugs and free dental.
That way Chippy isn’t being confronted by the Greens wealth tax, he is being confronted by his own Party’s wealth tax.
The election is just the beginning of the fight for a new Government that must produce results and material change to people’s lives.
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The major party in a coalition gets to dictate fundamental economic and tax policy. So if Hipkins says “no” to a wealth tax, or any other tax, it isn’t happening. It is not as if the Greens or Te Pati Maori can go elsewhere.
They will have to get their wins in areas other than tax policy.
That would not suit tye members of their parties. As a National supporter it was hard to take what we had to do to get NZF on side but I am grown up enough to except you cannot always get your way but that does not seem to be the case with Greens or TPM(if they survive )
Going forward NZ needs to provide every employed person with a level playing field, of course commensurate with their credentials and expertise. We can no longer keep pandering to the very wealthy so they become even wealthier. I was horrified at the obscene final remuneration package recently paid out to Fulton Hogan’s ex md of $5.3m. How can anyone condone this greed in a small country like NZ, especially when so many are working every God-given hour just to make ends meet? We are not all born equal and neither do we all get the same chances in life whatever some think. Time for common sense to prevail. So Left if you want to be relevant, make a difference, and fairly serve all the people, you will need to have the funds to do it so make sure you do. And TMP stop shooting yourself in the foot! Whatever we do we cannot allow this current inept, corrupt, out of control mob to get in again. There is a middle, happy balance, find it and use it.
Tamihere is the power broker, will his opponents in Maori support him ?
There can be no political success for Maori without John Tamihere.
I think Labour would be quite pleased to resume the seats it once held prior to TPM. If the Coalition continue to slide into the yawning abyss of mediocrity that constitutes their peak performance there’s no reason why they shouldn’t – though an absolute majority will raise expectations among their traditional supporters not easily wriggled out of.
The prospect of JT having Hipkins’ nuts in a vise will terrify every voter who isn’t already voting Green or TOM.
Could call the disagreement virtual ritual scarification distorted by modernism. It surely is a time for pan-tribalism, and Maori pulling together in this tug-of-war. The whole country is now receiving the malign strikes of moneyism and ambition, which has long been defined as colonialism. Local custom and culture of Aotearoa have in the past been held in disdain by pakeha. But the tattoo, the moko, the patterns and carving continued as meaningful, historic, artistic, and with power of talismans..
This about Maasai in Africa is relevant .
What is scarification in the Maasai tribe?
Scarification is a traditional practice in which small cuts are made on the skin to create permanent scars. Among the Maasai, this may be done for aesthetic, cultural, or symbolic reasons. For example, scars may signify milestones such as reaching adulthood or having completed an initiation ritual.16 Jan 2025
Instagram https://www.instagram.com › reel
Now in 2025, the louche upper-classes, and the obsessive wealth and asset-accumulator termites, are boring into the country, Maori have felt and borne that for a century, things were slow to improve, but were. That stopped in 1984, David Lange tried to make changes but the rigid passions of the acquisitive and pretentious of the pakeha community were stronger, and PM Jacinda suffered similarly.
Now we’re trying to cope after the signing of swingeing trade treaties aimed at keeping the land-owning and upperclass nabobs secure in their class positions; to hell with the rest of the country being an actual nation, they are trying to turn us into just a trading post. See how history since the 1600s has shaped this type of behaviour eg the Dutch example, and note that it fell apart with corruption in the end, but only after 200 years.
So wealth Gorgons (male or female) must be prevented from subsuming NZAO: but people have to become aware of considerations and take action in a timely fashion. Small differences can make a huge difference, a few words in a body corporate document for a building can mean control retained and not assumed by some detached entity for instance. So easily are the slips and slides of legality which can be turned against the ordinary person. Contra proferentem needs to rule at all times.
Countries as part of an empire trading entity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company
Having been established in 1602 to profit from the Malukan spice trade, the VOC [Dutch East India Company] established a capital in the port city of Jayakarta in 1619 and changed its name to Batavia, now Jakarta. Over the next two centuries, the company acquired additional ports as trading bases and safeguarded their interests by taking over surrounding territory.[13] It remained an important trading concern and paid annual dividends that averaged to about 18% of the capital for almost 200 years.[14] Weighed down by smuggling, corruption and growing administrative costs in the late 18th century, the company went bankrupt and was formally dissolved in 1799. Its possessions and debt were taken over by the government of the Dutch Batavian Republic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire : Wikipedia moves from Empire to Colonialism with a column listing Basic forms of Government – further to Power Structure under Empire with varying terms. We were a Dominion and could have become a Dependent territory. From the listing where are we now? Perhaps someone could explain if we have a set position or are just a handball to be tossed between private equities, pension funds, etc.
Wikipedia is also helpful in looking at different types of colonies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism#Types_of_colonialism
Colonialism monopolizes power by understanding conquered land and people to be inferior, based on beliefs of entitlement and superiority, justified with beliefs of having a civilizing mission to cultivate land and life, historically often rooted in the belief of a Christian mission. These beliefs and the actual colonization establish a so-called coloniality, which keeps the colonized socio-economically othered and subaltern through modern biopolitics of sexuality, gender, race, disability and class, among others, resulting in intersectional violence and discrimination…