Finally, NZ Labour come out with a Capital Gains Tax (limited and circumspect in scope) - no doubt to reduce the inevitable doomsday screeching from the political right and large chunks of the media.
Look it is a start, and a tax that makes eminent economic and social sense. It also has a smart and much needed linkage to healthcare access (3 free GP visits per year).
It can be progressively expanded in the future to capture shares and other financial investments (excl KiwiSaver). This will help fund other healthcare investment (eg free dental for low income groups for essential procedures etc).
#NZLabour
Maybe it's time for #NZLabour to be renamed to match the politics they push? It would be more honest to call them the Liberal party. Then it would be clear to the electorate that they don't represent the interests of organised labour, which they haven't for the last 4 decades.
Maybe then trade unionists would be honest with themselves that aligning themselves with a centre-right Liberal party doesn't make sense, and if they want to be aligned to a labour party, they need to organise one.
Latest Polling.
So the flagging National Party would be kept in power by virtue of NZF (and ACT).
The Greens vote is currently too low to propel a Labour-led coalition. Labour & the Greens leadership need to work together to build their combined strength in the electorate over the next 12 months.
I've seen people pushing for Chloe Swarbrick to be Minister of Finance in a left coalition. No and No. It's time this vital portfolio is held by someone with actual finance-economic experience. The best role IMO for someone like Swarbrick is a broad, generalist multi-portfolio position like Deputy PM. And give one of the big social portfolios (health, social development etc) to Marama Davidson. #nzpol #nzgreens #nzlabour
Hipkins is still humming the same tune he was singing a year ago, the 'no new ideas about tax policy' march;
Why the f%$k not Chippy? Both TPM and the Greens had wealth tax cards on the table in the last election, and *grew* their vote from 2020. Labour didn't, and haemorrhaged support.
Taxing wealth accumulation is financially sensible, ethically justified, and popular. Find a f%&king spine Labour, commit to a policy!
"So of course spineless jellyfish Chris Hipkins doesn't want to. Oh, he agrees the punishment is "too extreme", but he says Labour is "pretty unlikely" to filibuster the debate. So, he's going to take the leverage the Speaker handed him to force the government to compromise and adopt a more appropriate penalty, and he's going to do... nothing."
@norightturnnz, 2025
https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2025/05/which-side-are-you-on-labour.html
(1/2)
Ok we now have a huge rallying cause - that impacts the single largest voting bloc in the country - for kicking this horrendous gvt out of office after one term.
Their decision to derail pay equity for women is profoundly iniquitous and, at its core, misogynistic. And crumb maidens like Willis & Van der Velden are going to implement it.
Women need to send a massive FU at the ballot box in 2026.
This is a heartland issue for #nzlabour and the trade union movement.
#equalpay #payequity #NZpol
Hey Hipkins;
"[Opposition parties] have to remain apart from the government to position themselves as a credible alternative, and adopting the government’s positions usually ends with them being outflanked."
#ZebLarson, 2025
(1/2)
"People say that depending on where you put the threshold for where the wealth tax should start to apply, they believe that people will take their wealth offshore. Which means for me, practically, means they'll take jobs offshore, or they'll wind up businesses here."
#BarbaraEdmonds, #NZLabour finance spokesperson, 2024
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/30-with-guyon-espiner?share=a2e309c8-38d9-4597-b028-855766e58d9f
It sounds like she's against it, but note the "people say"; she's not endorsing this wrongheaded nonsense, just reporting it politely.
(1/?)
"There's no point, basically, paying off your mortgage if your kids are hungry and sick.
So yes, we need to move to surplus, but not at a point where you cut back public services so bad, that's it's difficult for people to ... [for example] get the care they need in our health system ..."
#BarbaraEdmonds, #NZLabour finance spokesperson, 2024
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/30-with-guyon-espiner?share=a2e309c8-38d9-4597-b028-855766e58d9f
"If I'm really frank, for me [capitalism is] a growth in society in which wealth is accumulated in particular at the top, and less so at the bottom, and it depends on the theory of that wealth being redistributed through ... trickle-down ... It's also a way that our society - probably quite recently - has swung more towards."
#BarbaraEdmonds, #NZLabour finance spokesperson, 2024
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/30-with-guyon-espiner?share=a2e309c8-38d9-4597-b028-855766e58d9f
Video here:
“It doesn’t matter what we’re going to bring as the alternative to the public: if we don’t communicate it well, and we don’t bring them along on that journey as to why we’ve made that decision we’re going to, we’re going to lose.”
#BarbaraEdmonds, Finance Spokesperson, #NZLabour
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/11/29/barbara-edmonds-on-guiding-labours-tax-journey/
Labour's leadership still don't get it, do they. They lost in 2023 mainly because Hipkins ruled out new taxes on wealth. Convince us? Look at the polls! We've been trying to convince them!
Labour seems to have awoken from a 12 month slumber with Chris Hipkins pledging that if Labour win the next election, they're committed to a “full rebuild” of Dunedin’s hospital. It took them a while but it's great news.
Hipkins has also ruled out NZ joining Aukus. Who would want to be tied to Trump's military positions? That's another plus.
And he committed to a rail-enabled ferry to connect the North & South islands.
Keep it coming, Chippy.
@Thesassywolf @zl2tod @BobLefridge @phil_stevens
The ship drifting after losing power until running aground and sinking sounded like Hipkins was describing the #NZLabour Party.
I really don't know why #NZLabour leader Chippy is visiting the UK to meet with #UKLabour unless it's to knock some sense into them. I certainly hope he doesn't support their appalling complicity in #warcrimes and #genocide or continuing the #Tory austerity.
I know it's far too early for this to mean much but it's nice to know I'm not alone in my feelings about this government
#nzpol
Poll: #NZLabour could return to power if election held today
https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/04/29/poll-labour-could-return-to-power-if-election-held-today/
Finally and very late to the game, Hipkins recognises the absurdity and inequity of NZ’s current tax system and countenances a broad tax on capital gains.
I’m not a fan of a wealth tax (while it ticks the “we’re being seen to be equitable” box), it won’t raise really significant ongoing revenue - whereas a broad-based CGT would. #tax #cgt #nzlabour
Every-other-day there's a story about some massive shortfall the govt. needs to pay for.
The problem was never that #NZLabour were profligate. It's the opposite, 40ish years of #neoliberal policy has left us with massive debt (in reality, if not on paper).
The answer isn't to do neoliberalism harder.
#nzpol #NactionalFirst
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