Why not celebrate the political life of Michael Cullen than with the memorial Cullen Capital Gains Tax?
Or if Jacinda will point to her promising not to do that as the reason we can’t, how about the memorial Cullen Rebalancing Tax (an inheritance tax on everything except the family home) or even the Cullen Financial Transactions Tax.
Cullen showed more courage to change tax in death than this Labour Government have in life, it would be a fitting tribute that a major new tax be named after him.
The challenge for Labour is the challenge they always face in power, regulating capitalism and redistributing wealth.
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…um, let’s see… because the Red and Blue teams are right-wing neo-liberal vehicles of the propertied and transnational classes?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/125689179/senior-housing-crisis-on-the-horizon
Why not Honour the Left and your nation with a Renters’ Party, Bomber?
While only state intervention by mass building of houses (because only the state has that ability) will truly solve this housing catastrophe, a capital gains tax is another tool to discourage those human forms of the Covid virus otherwise known as investors.
But who cares about Jacinda’s promise, her word has not exactly been gold standard has it? She’s failed miserably in housing thus far, mental health, light rail to anywhere by 2021, let alone Mt Roskill and child poverty, to name but a few. So why not, but for good reason, break this one as well?
Yes I know Jacinda will buy time with this latest Covid outbreak to continue to do exactly nothing with housing but Prime Minister, you simply must turn your mind to this other disease too and do something meaningful.
I certainly would applaud it.
Martyn
I just don’t see how this CGT will get us more houses built? As with all revenue, and especially with this govt, that money will just disappear. Poof! Once that housing problem is fixed then let’s have that CGT.
If people haven’t worked out that the family home, where any foreign student, worker or rich person in the world can buy property for ‘their family home in NZ and live in NZ for years, have children, bring relatives to NZ and refuse to leave, something is wrong.
Now we then have more criminals and high needs people being rushed back to NZ as they spent time here. AKA in the middle of Covid the Isis Bride and her kids then get special treatment to come back to NZ. Another state house gone no doubt.
Then there are the super rich coming to NZ when it suits, Thiel, Page, Remember you don’t have to be a NZ permanent resident or NZ citizens to buy your family home or any property here, just write your cheque and start building your McMansion, you can also try to bring in your own peasant workforce from overseas to be housed in NZ – aka James Cameron.
So the government bring in capital gains tax, where do renters live then, more NZ kids growing up in hotels, while foreign nationals kids can buy and build luxury abodes in NZ, doesn’t seem very fair, but I guess the benefits of neoliberalism is that it supports the richest foreign nationals, while making the dwindling middle class pay for the poor’s dwindling quality of life in emergency motel and community accomodation owned by the rich foreign nationals…..
Is there ever going to be any blogs in this phenomena or are we too woke to look at reality?
Had to laugh at some MSM article about property which misses out the last 10 years where business now takes over the rental housing stock while increasing the NZ population to a ‘team of 5 million’ and now at greater costs, kids grow up in 1 room motels and 501 and Isis brides kids come back to NZ, foreign student families and low waged workers to be housed here… conveniently not explored!
Exclude the family home and its doomed to fail. Better a low, wide and annual tax like that proposed by TOP
I totally agree. It is an oscenity that minimum wage workers are having taxes taken from every dollar earnt which leaves them short to pay their landlord who can earn 100’s of thousands of dollars in CG and not pay tax that they can afford to pay. I think that was the reason for the rich pricks comment.
The introduction of a Cullen Financial Transaction tax and the abolition of GST would be awesome.
YEP! That’s the one!!!! Big money earner right there.
As I have said before, Jacinda, Grant and their government are not prepared to get off the stool and start fighting for what they believe in. So instead they stay seated and let there opponents control the narrative and win the fight. I believe in CGTs and wealth taxes, so does Grant and Jacinda. But they simply don’t have the fortitude to back up their beliefs. For them getting re-elected for another term to deliver the same old stuff is more important than real structural and legislative change for the betterment of all.
I don’t think they really believed in it though …more like members of the party that they feel they must pay lip-service to and make token gestures for …then they throw up their hands with weasel words “we tried” & the time isn’t right” They don’t have the “courage of their convictions” …coz they don’t have any real convictions. I’m done with Labour and the woke-ist anaemical Greens. Winnie was right! I’m voting NZF next time.
We could future proof the Cullen Fund from the next National government by replacing taxpayer funding of contributions.
A 1% employee and 1% employer levy would do it. If we do not National will end contributions and cite lack of a budget surplus as Bill English did.
The time period would be c2023-2032 (we’ll stop inputs around then as it was designed to smooth the baby boomer bulge impact on super payment cost).
This would also free up $2B pa for other things – health and state housing.
Think of all those extra millions Labour could give to the gangs. Or they could probably afford a half a bike bridge.
The mind boggles.
NZ politics has become two right wing parties with one pretending to be left wing, pretending to take reviews seriously and act accordingly and the end result always seems to be some paltry watered down BS that doesnt solve anything. Labour stopped being a working mans party decades ago.
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