The NZ Political Left, Tax Justice Aotearoa and the question of tax

CTU welcomes Tax Justice Aotearoa policy statement

The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi has welcomed today’s Tax Policy Statement from Tax Justice Aotearoa, calling it a timely and important contribution to what must be an honest national conversation about taxation heading into an election year.

The CTU says Aotearoa’s tax system is fundamentally out of balance. Every dollar of labour income is taxed, and almost every purchase of a good or service is taxed – yet gains from capital remain largely untaxed.

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“This imbalance is both inequitable and economically counterproductive,” says CTU President Sandra Grey. “The paper makes a compelling case that the current system is not fit for purpose.

“We do need to find sustainable ways to pay for the essential public goods and services that we all rely upon. Our public health, education, and welfare systems all need to be financed through a taxation system that places the costs of that financing fairly. This paper argues convincingly that we haven’t got that balance right.

“We also want to make sure that we have the most efficient taxation system possible, and the paper argues for essential investment in Inland Revenue. Political parties that are promising to cut taxes and tax administration need to comprehensively show how they would be paying for this change,” says Grey.

The CTU’s call for a capital gains tax

As part of its Aotearoa Reimagined policy platform – developed over the past year through engagement with workers, community leaders, and policy experts – the CTU has called for a comprehensive capital gains tax on all assets except the family home.

“Rebalancing the tax system is essential to funding the transformative change New Zealand needs, and to ensuring that the wealthy pay their fair share,” says Grey.

“A well-designed capital gains tax would level the playing field between wage earners and those who derive their income primarily from investment and speculation.”

NZCTU

 

The danger of woke middle class identity politics replacing class left analysis is that the politics devolve into a micro aggression deplatforming campaign that alienates rather than builds solidarity against free market capitalism.

The true demarcation of power in a. democratic capitalist state is the 1% richest + their 9% enablers Vs the 90% rest of us.

Identity Politics simply cements into place a caste system of intersectionism alongside a terminal tribal affiliation to your skin colour, gender or identity.

There needs to be far more common ground and shared values.

We need to remove the yoke of taxation from the 90% and reset it to the 10% richest.

The minefield of social justice and it’s never ending pure temple deplatforming of everything that triggers it will only drive people further from the Left in an intense economic downturn because you can’t eat virtue signalling aesthetics.

If you think the worst inflation in 30 years is bad now, wait until the full inflation impact of Trump’s illegal war on Iran hits.

The wealth inequality New Zealand crisis isn’t creeping in — it’s already here. While the ultra-rich hoard unimaginable wealth, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis are struggling to eat. This isn’t bad luck. It’s design.

The Oligarchy Mordor is in the New Zealand Shire…

Giga-yachts, golden visas and the Gilded Age: The startling escalation of Kiwi wealth

It’s dubbed the new Gilded Age, a modern-day era of extraordinary wealth in which giga-yachts replace superyachts and the uber-rich search for even more startling ways to spend their money.

Stuff

…compare their obscene wealth to this reality…

This is what the new Gilded Age looks like in New Zealand

‘Can’t see it getting better’: The region where almost half of residents are struggling to put food on the table

The region now has the highest rate of food insecurity in the country, with a recent report showing 40% of households are struggling to afford enough to eat.

Stuff

…there are 170,000 kids in material hardship, 600,000 Kiwis rely on food banks each month and our public services have been hollowed out to allow neoliberal free market capitalism to dominate all.

Billionaires operate in a society that enables their wealth.

Don’t believe me?

Listen to a billionaire then, Steve Jobs…

“I didn’t invent the language or mathematics I used. I make little of my own food, none of my own clothes. Everything I do depends on other members of our species and the shoulders that we stand on.

 

…Billionaires stand upon the shoulders of a society and draw their wealth and power from that society with minimal obligations placed upon them. They have benefitted from an educated civil society but want to pay sweet fuck all for its upkeep!

Bernie Sanders 2025 Edition ofFight Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here makes the point that the Billionaire Class, Big Polluters and Corporations have transformed under Trump into a naked plutocracy:

• Three of the richest individuals (e.g., Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg) hold more combined wealth than the bottom half of the U.S. population — roughly 170 million people.
• Multiple reports cited by Sanders and in broader discourse show the global richest 1 % increased their wealth by $33.9 trillion since 2015 — a figure used to illustrate oligarchic wealth trends.
• The top 1% of U.S. households gained 101x more wealth than the median household over decades, translating to wealth per top 1 % household roughly $8.35 million vs ~$83,000 average household assets (Oxfam data referenced in discussions Sanders highlights)
• Around 150 billionaire families spent nearly $2 billion on the 2024 U.S. elections, which Sanders describes as evidence of oligarchic influence over American politics.
• Billionaires are a tiny fraction of the population — about 0.0005% of Americans — yet played a disproportionately large role in political spending in recent elections.
• Oxfam and similar sources note that billionaire wealth jumped over 16% in 2025, bringing total billionaire wealth to $18.3 trillion — the highest ever recorded — and exacerbating inequality.
• About 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, a statistic Sanders regularly uses to illustrate Americans’ economic insecurity.
• Tens of millions of Americans lack adequate health insurance — e.g., 85 million uninsured or underinsured — compared with soaring billionaire wealth.
• Sanders and his allies often cite homelessness figures like ~800,000 homeless people in the U.S. as part of the inequality narrative.

The book specifically calls Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — a $1 trillion tax-cut package — the largest transfer of wealth upward in living memory, concentrating benefit among the wealthy and exacerbating inequality.

In NZ the Mordor of Oligarchy has infected our Shire as well!

Look at how that money is donated politically:

• Party donations concentrated at top incomes:
  In recent elections, ~60% of total political donations came from businesses and individuals earning in the top tax brackets, while lower-income donors account for a small share.

• Lobbying prevalence:
  Corporate and industry groups (banks, property developers, dairying sector) are among the most active lobbyists in Wellington, shaping tax, housing, and planning policy.

The Big Polluters, the Billionaire Class, the Corporates and the speculators own New Zealand politically!

This isn’t capitalism — it’s capture

If we want to build the social and physical infrastructure we need to radically adapt to the realities of catastrophic climate change, we need to tax the rich!

 

There are 14 billionaires in New Zealand plus 3,118 ultra-high net worth individuals, let’s start with them, then move onto the banks, then the property speculators, the climate change polluters and big industry.

You should be angry, New Zealand capitalism is a rigged trick for the rich and powerful. The real demarcation line of power in a western democracy is the 1% + their 9% enablers vs the 90% rest of us!

Do not allow their smears of ‘Envy’ dilute the righteous rage you should all be feeling!

There’s no point making workers pay more to rebuild our resilience, tax the rich!

• Sugar Tax
• Inheritance Tax
• Wealth Tax
• Financial Transactions Tax
• New top tax rate on people earning over $300,000 per year.
• Capital Gains Tax
• Windfall profit taxes
• First $10,000 tax free

Lift the tax yoke from the workers and the people and place it on the mega wealthy and have them pay their fair share for once!

New universal provision of services:

Short term the Government has to be focused on deflationary spending, mid term economically we need radical climate change adaptation, long term they need to start navigating  a post growth economy.

The best way to push those values is via the Public Service Culture and processes.

For essential state service workers like teachers, like police, like Drs, like nurses, like ambulance and Firefighter services, we can match the rising inflation in wages, but the focus needs to be on expanding capacity, expanding State responsibility and expanding quality of work experience.

It is insane that our Ambulance Service is privatised, and the State should nationalise it immediately. As first responders, their obligations and responsibilities will only climb as society continues to rock from the shockwaves of Covid.

Professional Firefighters must be expanded to acknowledge the danger we are under from climate change and fire seasons.

Rather than compete with inflationary wage rises, focus on better conditions. 11 weeks paid holiday each year, 4 day weeks plus housing projects where subsidised rentals are available for houses.

We also need to start bonding Teachers, Drs and nurses with free education in exchange for  bonded work around NZ.

We shouldn’t be looking to slash public servants, we need more!

The Right’s never ending march to amputate and slice down the State is so that the people don’t get used to a well functioning public service and so will politically agree to starve it of funds via tax cuts.

Global free market capitalism is dead, hyper regionalism is here. We need a bigger State with actual capacity rather than the threadbare barely regulated joke that it currently is.

We shouldn’t agree to cutting public services, we should fund their capacity and infrastructure rebuild while making the working conditions for those there a better quality!

Where should we get that money? Windfall taxes on the corporations and banks!

We need better conditions for those workers and the values of working 4 day weeks, extra holidays and housing solutions are aimed at making better working conditions as opposed to never ending inflationary wage pressures.

We need a sustainable bureaucracy rather than 7 figure technocrats who see their own fiefdoms and glass palaces as the measure of public policy achievements.

The last chance for Left progressive policy is a list of bottom line first 100 day laws in the 2023 election to force Labour into being more Zohran Mamdani than cautious Grant and Jacinda.

Here’s what a Labour/Green/Maori Party Government should be committed to passing in the first 100 days of the 2026 election…

1: Feed every kid in NZ a free nutritious and healthy breakfast and lunch at every school using local product and school gardens with parents paid to come in and help. The slow incrementalism touted by favourite public sector for dragger apologist Max Rashbrooke isn’t good enough because the lower middle classes are feeling the same pinch thanks to mortgage rises and universal school lunches and breakfasts would help them as well. 

2: 50 000 State Homes for life built using the best environmental and social architecture standards using the public works act to seize land and immediately start building satellite towns using upgraded public transport hubs plus Renter Rights – (rent freezes, end accomodation payments, long term tenancy arrangements) 

3: Free public transport plus vast infrastructure upgrade for climate crisis.

4: 30% stake holder in a new Government backed supermarket operation run to provide lower food prices for kiwism better prices for supplies and better conditions for workers.

5: GST off fresh fruit and vegetables and essentials like tampons, toilet paper, condoms, oral health plus a sugar tax.

6: Free Dental services for everyone through public health.

7: Taxation focused on corporations and banks  like financial transaction tax, a sugar tax and first $10 000 tax free.

8: Offer nurses, teachers and Drs free education and living allowances in return for bonded time in our health and eduction systems. 

9: Properly funded public broadcasting with TVNZ advert free and merged with RNZ alongside properly funded journalism through NZ on Air with more money for the Arts and Science. If you can’t have good public journalism, the right wing media will destroy these other 9 advances. 

…Kiwis have to see a progressive Government ACTUALLY doing shit in the first 100 days or they won’t believe any change is coming and when you consider the economic maelstrom we are entering, the most vulnerable amongst us will be screaming for real change.

If we on the Left don’t offer voters real solutions to their material problems and instead prefer to micro aggression police the latest middle class virtue signals of hate speech, cancelling Comedians and screaming everyone is racist, we are fucked politically in 2023.

We need more real economic solutions on the Left and far less pronoun policing.

We need to be kinder to individuals and crueller to Corporations.

In 2010, the 388 richest individuals owned more wealth than half of the entire human population on Earth

 

The Big Tech Tzars have manipulated our collective fear, ego, anger and insecurities through social media in a way that has led to the largest psychological civil war ever launched against one another.

We are but meat bags secreting hormones addicted to dopamine rewards for fat, sugar, salt and sex in a cultural landscape of individualism über alles where we sing sweet secret lies to ourselves to make sense of a world around us that is frightening and in constant entropy.

Meanwhile, the planet burns and every aspect of our existence is monetarised for big data to sell us more stuff we can’t afford. We are alienated and anesthetised by a consumer culture that keeps us neurotic and disconnected. Our work, our existence, every move we make are all built to suck money to a minority class that sits above us while under neoliberalism, globalisation, financialisation, and automation, our existence as individuals has only become more disposable.

Climate Change will make this tipping point a revolution.

They will tell you this is envy. It’s not. It’s survival.

Because if we don’t rebalance this now, climate change won’t just break the planet — it will break whatever illusion of fairness we still pretend this system has.