The Herald reports:

Hundreds of farmers have gathered in Ardern’s hometown of Morrinsville to protest against Labour and Greens’ proposed water and pollution charges.

The protest ended with NZ First leader Winston Peters being jeered at and drowned out by Myrtle the tractor as farmers demanded he say whether he would side with National or Labour.

About 600 turned up for the lively rally beside the giant ‘Mega Cow’ statue in Morrinsville – politicians were not allowed to speak but Peters hijacked the stage at the end as the rain started to tip down.

As he held court standing in the rain under the cow – warning them to be just as dubious of National as Labour when it came to water “because they’re just as bad as each other – the crowd started to jeer and heckle at him.

Afterwards Scott Smyth bailed him up about whether Peters would allow the proposed water taxes to go ahead if in coalition with Labour. Peters would not answer and other farmers pitched in demanding to know who he was going to go with.

Afterward Smyth said Peters was “buggering” his chances for Saturday’s election by not saying if he would demand Labour removed the water taxes from the table if he was in Government with them.

A wonderful backfire for Winston. He’s reminded everyone there and everyone watching that votin for him might be voting for a water tax and all the other extra taxes Labour plans for the rural sector.

Brian Edwards writes:

Well, in short, I think Armstrong is absolutely right. Given the relevance of taxation policy, directly or indirectly, to the lives of every man, woman and child in this country, it is simply outrageous to say, “Not telling! Not even a hint! You’ll just have to trust us till after the election. Long after!”

Well of course you could read their current policy. And that would be fine if the Leader of the Opposition could guarantee that it won’t change between now and the 2020 election. But she can’t/won’t do that either.

So here’s what this boils down to.

Jacinda wants you to make her Prime Minister of New Zealand this year. I’m assuming that she has some opinion in her head of our current tax system, whether it benefits or disadvantages most New Zealanders. For the answer to that question she refers us to Labour’s current tax policy which she says will not change without a mandate from New Zealanders at the next election in 2020. She’s saying, ‘Give me almost three years in office as Prime Minister before I even disclose my ideal tax regime. In the meantime here’s a taste.

Seems to me that’s a helluva lot to ask.

Brian is of course a life-long Labour member and activist, so for him to be this critical speaks volumes.

Eric Crampton from the NZ Initiative has done a series praising New Zealand as being so much more sane than other countries.  In this chapter he looks at tax and airport security:

Consider the Goods and Services Tax (GST). It is a beautiful value-added tax applied cleanly and comprehensively across the tax system. But nobody in New Zealand appreciates it. Because nobody in New Zealand appreciates it, everybody wants to carve out a tax exemption for their favourite thing: fruits, vegetables, healthy foods generally, and feminine hygiene products are recent examples.

Here is what happens if you do that.

Australia runs a messy GST riddled with exemptions. Somebody decided groceries should not be subject to GST, but some snack foods should be. So bread is not taxed while crackers are. In 2010, Justice Sundberg of the Federal Court in Melbourne had to decide whether an oven-baked Italian flat bread, a mini-ciabatta, counted as a bread or a cracker for tax purposes.

The importer of the bread flew in Giampiero Muntoni to testify in court that the mini ciabatta was a bread, not a cracker. And Muntoni is far from a layperson in such matters. As Australia’s Centre for Independent Studies reported, Muntoni “holds an EU certificate that entitles him to certify whether a product is a bread or a non-bread item for value added tax purposes in Italy.”

Think about that. Italy’s value-added tax needs expert certified bread deciders. A certified profession dedicated to determining whether something is bread. The only conceivable reason such a profession can or should exist is to satisfy the requirements of a broken tax system.

Winston wants “basic foods” to be exempt GST. Imagine how many thousands of experts we will need for the scores of court cases over what is or is not a basic food.

America’s patchwork of state-level sales taxes are even worse. Every state can apply its own unique taxes. This is not limited just to deciding the rate of taxes, but also the definitions of what is and is not taxable. Some states apply sales taxes to candy but not to other foods, and different states have different definitions of what counts as candy. Wisconsin’s Department of Revenue even issued a 1,437-word memo explaining which types of ice-cream cakes, or slices thereof, are taxable or untaxed.

The mess is just as bad at the federal level, where free tans at video-rental stores are taxable but not tans provided as part of a health club membership. A simple enough (albeit ludicrous) 10% tax on tanning services proved anything but.

The economic consequences of a system riddled with bread-deciders and jam-deciders and ice-cream deciders and tan-deciders can be staggering. Taxes become far less efficient not only because of the holes riddled throughout the system, but also the legal costs of producers trying to convince courts that their product is exempt rather than taxable.

We should value that we have such a comprehensive GST that avoids this madness.

Were New Zealand to exempt healthy foods from GST, we would well be on the slippery slope. It is one of those things that sounds really easy, but would be an utter disaster in practice.

What counts as healthy? Not only does the medical evidence keep changing, but there would also be a string of boundary cases needing adjudication. If beans are healthy, what about frozen beans? Beans in a can? Beans in a can with pork fat and sauce? How much pork fat and sauce before it is taxable? What if we use Jamie Oliver’s recipe and fly him in to say it’s good?

I think TOP have proposed dividing all food into three categories of good, neutral or bad and good has less GST, neutral the same and bad more GST. Jesus Christ, imagine it.

Even worse, think through the consequences of tax exemption.

Under the current beautiful broad-base, low-rate system, companies gather all their receipts for everything they purchased when making things and claim the GST on them. They then charge GST on the full value of their final product. Their net GST is on the value they added to their inputs along the way, since they netted out the GST from the inputs. Nice, clean and easy.

If some goods were exempt from GST, we would have problems. Imagine you were a food manufacturer making two products. One attracts GST and one does not. It is possible to charge GST on one product and not the other, but all the point-of-sale terminals would need to be reprogrammed – feasible but expensive. But how do you start thinking about claiming the GST on your inputs if you are selling an exempt product. You will need to justify how you apportion all your plant’s shared costs across the different product lines. And Internal Revenue would worry you were loading costs onto the taxable line to claim GST where you shouldn’t. The auditors would be kept busy.

This is a key point. If all of your sales are subject to GST at the one rate, then all of your inputs are also – very simple. Start having some stuff GST exempt and/or at a lower rate and you can no longer do that. You then need to apportion every fixed expense to every product line.

Newshub reports:

The Green Party wants a capital gains tax in the next term of Government and will put that on the table in coalition negotiations with Labour, leader James Shaw says.

He told TVNZ’s Q&A programme that was one of a number of key items the party wanted when he received Labour leader Jacinda Ardern’s first call if she had the opportunity to form a Government after next weekend’s election.

“In the same way that every coalition involves policies from both partners we’ve got to negotiate what a coalition agreement would look like but there are a couple of things that I think we would like to push them on – one is the area of a capital gains tax excluding the family home,” he said.

So a Labour-led Government may end up passing a Capital Gains Tax after all in their first term.

You really don’t know what sort of tax you’ll be paying under a Labour-Greens Government except that it will be more than it is now. And under National it will be less than it is now.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand First will change the Companies Act to give shareholders and cooperatives a ‘Say on Pay’ for directors and CEOs, which gives them a right to vote on corporate payouts.

Umm shareholders already vote on directors fees.

Peters has also vowed to ban “golden hellos” (executive recruitment bonuses), and limit “golden parachutes” (executive redundancy) to the same conditions workers have.

Winston wants to ban recruitment bonuses. I’m not a fan of golden parachutes, but having Winston tell companies that they can’t offer bonuses to recruit staff is daft.

Another proposal is to stop boards using “fit and proper person tests” to rule out potential executive candidates, which the party described as “loose and unreviewable.”

And he

A lot of this election campaign has been on how to spend the tax revenue the Government collects. Very little has been on how to have policies that support the businesses that provides the jobs and tax revenue for the Government.

Those who have never worked in the private sector tend to have little idea what it is like. They think it is easy. You get statements from the Labour leader declaring that yes they’ll tax water, but at a level to ensure farmers can stay profitable. That in itself shows a lack of understanding of business. Even business owners and directors can’t ensure profitability. You are subject to custimer demand, market prices, expenses, cashflow, financing.

I was once like many MPs, thinking I understood business. I had worked for a charity doing their finances so thought I understood profit, loss etc. But then I worked for a small struggling advertising agency and found out first hand how hard it is. It isn’t just about your paper profit. It is about managaing cashflow, creditors, the IRD etc. It is about the business owners sometimes paying themselves less than the receptionist, so the firm survives.

So anyway I thought it would be interesting to look at how many Labour front bench MPs have worked in the private sector. 87% of all jobs in New Zealand are in the private sector. Now some of those are non-profit jobs but I’d estimate around 75% of jobs would be in the for-profit sector.

So putting aside part-time and holiday jobs while studying, what is the occupational backgrounds of the likely front bench Labour Cabinet Ministers? How many of them have worked in the private sector (by which I mean employers that need to sell a good or service).

1. Jacinda Ardern – nil private sector experience. Worked in Parliament, UK Government and a US union. Did once demonstrate cookware at Farmers though.
2. Kelvin Davis – nil private sector experience. Worked as a teacher or for Ministry of Education.
3. Andrew Little – nil private sector experience. Worked in student politics then unions.
4. Grant Robertson – nil private sector experience. Worked in student politics then MFAT and Otago University
5. Phil Twyford – worked as a journalist for the Auckland Star and a promoter for Book Month so the first Labour MP to have some private sector experience. Otherwise worked for Oxfam, including as a lobbyist in DC for them.
6. Megan Woods – has been a copywriter for a private business, and did business development for a CRI.
7. Chris Hipkins – nil private sector experience – student politics, an Industry Training Organisation (Govt funded) and Parliament
8. Carmel Sepuloni – nil private sector experience – teaching, NGOs and university
9. David Clark – nil private sector experience – Treasury, church and Selwyn College

So the total private sector for profit work experience of the nine most senior Labour MPs is basically as a journalist on a community newspaer and a copywriter for a business. That’s it. Think about that. None of them have ever paid PAYE, or really been in a job where a failure to keep customers happy means you are out of a job.

Now compare that to the top nine for National.

1. Bill English – farming when young (but on family farm, not his own)
2. Paula Bennett – worked as a recruitment consultant
3. Steven Joyce – set up his own company when almost a teenager and turned it into Mediaworks
4. Gerry Brownlee – carpenter
5. Simon Bridges – lawyer
6. Amy Adams – farmer and lawyer
7. Jonathan Coleman – General Practitioner and business consultant
8. Chris FInlayson – lawyer
9. Michael Woodhouse – private hospitals CEO

It’s a stark difference.

The Labour front bench is almost entirely comprised of people who have never worked outside politics, or certainly not in the private sector. Now I’m in no way saying that private sector experience should be a litmus test for becoming an MP. Of course not. Many fine MPs who have not worked in the private sector.

But my point is that Labour is hugely imbalanced. It is almost starved of people with empathy for the private sector (where 75%+ of the jobs are). David Parker is probably the only MP they’ve got who has truly has skin in the game (several significant commercial ventures) and Damien O’Connor the only farmer.

Decisions in a Government are made by the top few Ministers. That would be Ardern, Robertson, Davis, Little and Hipkins. I don’t think any of them have bad intentions. I just think they don’t get it. They have no idea what it is really like to have to worry about having enough money to pay your staff, to pay your suppliers, to manage the bank repayments for the business loan etc. They just see the private sector as an unlimited source of money for them to spend.

A reminder of how extraordinary the job growth in New Zealand has been in recent years.

If we look at just the last three calendar years of National and Labour we see:

And this is not just exceptional job growth locally, but internationally. Here’s the percentage increase in jobs in major OECD countries in 2016:

1. NZ 5.7%
2. Germany 2.9%
3. Ireland 2.9%
4. US 1.8%
5. OECD 1.6%
6. Australia 1.6%
7. Sweden 1.5%
8. UK 1.4%
9. Canada 0.7%
10. France 0.6%
11. Finland 0.5%

Again policies impact jobs. Labour want working people to pay more in tax, have employers forced into national awards etc. If you value jobs, then you’re not going to do much better than this.

A guest post by Garth McVicar of the Sensible Sentencing Trust:

Considerable angst has been expressed by some, mostly progressive organisations and political parties, at New Zealand’s prison population exceeding 10,000 earlier in the year – as though 10,000 were some special number that shall not be exceeded. It is a nice round number, but the symbolism is lost on us as we’re pretty sure New Zealand judges are not imprisoning people lightly.

It will not surprise anyone that the Sensible Sentencing Trust stands for the rights of victims, and justice being served for the harm they have suffered. Often, but not always, that means prison is the just outcome for the offending, and we support its generous use for serious and repeat offenders. For low level and first-time offenders, generally not so much.

We have always been confident New Zealand was not imprisoning low level and first time offenders – the many cases we deal with that should have resulted in imprisonment but, outrageously, did not, confirms that on a daily basis. But we thought it would be instructive to find out for sure.

We filed an OIA to Corrections asking, amongst other things, how many persons were imprisoned or on remand by lead offence – such as ‘aggravated robbery’ or ‘murder’. Those familiar with the sentencing process will know it is the ‘lead offence’ which largely determines the length of sentence imposed. The data was supplied by Corrections in a raw format so we had to do some compilation, sorting and analysis. The results are astounding, not only confirming what we already suspected, but
are in fact more damning than even we could have imagined.

On average, the persons imprisoned or held on remand in New Zealand have 46 prior convictions on their record. And that excludes any they have in the Youth Court.

Think about that for a minute. Forty-six occasions where the prisoner offended, a complaint was made to police, evidence was collected, the offender was caught or identified, the decision to prosecute was made, the offender was convicted and finally the offender was sentenced – mostly not to imprisonment. Think about all the offences not convicted, where evidence was not sufficient to prosecute, where the victim chose not to lay a complaint, where police chose not to prosecute.
Those 10,000 prisoners are, by and large, 10,000 individual crime waves. No wonder the injustice system never publishes an offender’s criminal history. The excuse given is ‘privacy’. The real reason is embarrassment – to the system.

We accept that a proportion of those convictions will be for lower-level matters such as driving, breaches of court orders and perhaps drug offending, but nonetheless those 10,000 men and (increasingly) women together share about 460,000 convictions between them, and who knows how large a trail of destruction and victims in their wake. New Zealand judges are not known for their
tough on crime attitude – as much as we’d wish they were. So do those 10,000 men and women, that some in our society seem so intent on making excuses for, deserve to be in prison? The answer is obvious. In many cases they should have been imprisoned for earlier offences.

Which brings us to another question. When Labour Deputy Leader, Kelvin Davis, says he wants to reduce the prison population by 30% as he did in April this year, just who does he want to let out of prison?

The murderers, who serve less than 12 years on average of the ‘Life’ sentence?

The burglars and home invaders, who are rarely caught and serve a fraction of the 10 year maximum for their repeated predatory invasion of people’s homes?

The aggravated robbers gutlessly targeting shopkeepers and others trying to make an honest living?

Because once those serious offenders, and others such as sexual and violent offenders are accounted for, they make up fully 71% of the prison and remand population. That leaves 29% committing other offences – 1% less than Kelvin Davis wants to let out. So what kind of offenders make up the 29% who some might argue are not so serious and should be let out?

Around 12% are imprisoned on drugs and drug-related convictions – almost exclusively manufacturing, dealing and importing. Perhaps a dozen or so people are imprisoned for ‘possession’ of drugs. So the quantities must have been huge. We don’t imprison people for smoking cannabis in New Zealand – despite what Jacinda Ardern might think – as she indicated in the Three Leaders Debate last Monday.

Another 5% are imprisoned on driving offences – mainly drink driving (for the umpteenth time) or driving while disqualified (again, for the umpteenth time). Not the crime of the century, but seriously risking the lives of other road users and pedestrians, and no doubt these individuals have finally run out of excuses in the Judge’s eyes, or the Judge has finally run out of patience.

The 12% balance of the prison population is ‘rats and mice’ in statistical terms –3% and 1% here and there for various offences such as fraud, weapons, breaches, arson, neglect or ill-treatment of a person, contempt and handling the proceeds of crime. There are just no big numbers to work with, and we suspect that those imprisoned on such matters will have some very serious priors which
contributed to the Judge choosing imprisonment on this occasion. The Sentencing Act actually requires a Judge impose the ‘least restrictive’ sentence, so the prior offending must be damning in those cases.

We would be much more supportive if Mr Davis said he wanted to reduce by 30% the serious and violent offending along with sexual offending, burglaries and the shameful level of family violence in New Zealand. That would be a laudable goal. But he doesn’t say he specifically wants to reduce offending – just the number of people imprisoned. And that is a critical distinction. It means fewer people imprisoned for the same level of offending. He could choose, like Sensible Sentencing Trust does, to seek reduced offending, fewer victims and improved justice for victims.

Why would Mr Davis, and presumably the Labour Party generally, seek not reduced offending, but reduced imprisonment? We appreciate that prison is expensive, and a great deal of taxpayer funding goes into building and running our prisons. But it is money well spent, and justice doesn’t come cheap.

Questions have been raised recently about whether there is a hole in Labour’s budget plans. We don’t know – we ‘re not accountants. But could letting 30% of prisoners out early be one of the ways Labour intends to save money to fund future increases to other services? We don’t know -Labour’s website is silent on their plans for Corrections. Why is that? It’s a major item of expenditure and public concern. If Labour is to lead our next Government, the public of New Zealand have a right to transparency on their plans to reduce the prison population. Because every
one of the 10,000 currently imprisoned has thoroughly earned the judge’s decision to protect us from them.

Garth McVicar
Founder, Sensible Sentencing Trust

It will be interesting to know who are the 3,000 prisoners that Labour thinks should be let out of jail, despite an average of 46 prior convictions. I guess we’ll find out if they’re in Government!

The cumulative cost of Labour’s policies on exporters is looking to be quite huge. Here’s my ballpark estimates:

• ETS on Agriculture – $830 million/year
• Capital Gains Tax on farms – $1.3 billion/year (scheduled for 2021)
• Land Tax – $1.05 billion year (1% on $105 billion of agricultural land)
• Water Tax – $200 million/year
• Renege on TPP – $2.7 billion/year

So we’re a small trading nation that relies on exports to grow our economy and provide jobs and fund public services.

And over time Labour’s policies will lead to a revenue loss of around $6 billion a year for the export sector. Why would you want that? It’s akin to economic vandalism. We should be helping our export sector, not punishing them.

Stuff reports:

Many New Zealanders may be unaware the maker of their favourite breakfast cereal is owned by a church.

The breakfast staple Weetbix is owned and made by Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company, which was established by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1898 to promote and produce plant-based health foods.

On its website the company said this was based on the church’s belief that plant-based diets are designated by God for the health of the human race.

But because it is a church, Sanitarium have never paid income tax.

Under New Zealand law, churches are exempt from income tax because they have a charitable purpose – they promote religion.

I don’t think the promotion of religion should be a charitable purpose, anymore than the promotion of politics should be. They are both just about promoting viewpoints.

If a religion does charitable works (soup kitchens etc) then that work should be charitable and tax deductible. But merely promoting their version of belief in a supreme being should not be.

While Sanitarium is a commercial business, it’s sole shareholder is The New Zealand Conference Association, which is a registered charitable trust.

Britain amended this charitable tax loophole in the 1920s and ACT party leader David Seymour wants New Zealand to catch up and do the same.

“I don’t know what their [Sanitarium’s] purpose is. They would argue they do charitable stuff to the same value as what they would have paid in tax,” Seymour said.

I’m sure they argue it, but I’d rather have their tax revenue.

In the year to 30 June 2016, Ngāi Tahu Holdings Corporation Limited made a net profit of $210 million, but only distributed $44m to the trust.

A Ngāi Tahu spokeswoman said the remaining profit was reinvested into Ngāi Tahu Holdings Corporation.

“Our distribution model is similar to many of the larger community trusts in New Zealand and internationally renowned Yale and Harvard Endowment Funds, so we compare well with nationally and internationally recognised intergenerational funds,” she said.

Seymour said the charitable tax loophole gives Ngāi Tahu’s Go Bus business a competitive advantage to bid for the Auckland Transport bus contract.

“People should be able to get a tax exemption for donating to charity, but when you’ve got those companies that are kind of like charity, kind of like a business, then it would make sense to split them,” Seymour said.

The commercial side of the charity can then donate to its charitable side, he said, and claim the tax credit of 33.33 per cent that applies to all charitable donations of at least $5.

That is a good way to do it.

Duncan Garner writes:

 Being a political party leader requires having a sharp and highly tuned radar. Judgment is crucial. …

That’s why I simply can’t believe Labour took so long to realise its tax policy was its biggest weakness – the party was walking around with a big target marked TAX on its forehead. “Hit me now,” said the T-shirt. A far cry from “Let’s Do This”.

This week that slogan became, arrgh: Let’s not do this.

Why would anyone with half a brain and even the smallest dose of political nous tell voters that a controversial housing and land tax would be developed in secret and behind closed doors, and it just might be introduced as law without any kind of public mandate or vote.

Yep and it was the Captain’s Call. So what does that tell us about judgement?

But Captain Jacinda forgot to ask the next question. In an attempt to look bold, strong and different the captain fluffed it. The Captain’s Call become the Captain’s Fall. In her first big call, she failed.

Jacinda became Taxinda, and she’s just learned a harsh lesson: Don’t believe the hype, heat and stardust, look at risk. And get rid of it.

Ardern may have got in early enough to limit the damage. But it still raises serious questions about her judgment. Robertson doesn’t come out smelling of Botanic Garden roses either.

It was arrogance in demanding the public of New Zealand give them a blank cheque on tax policy.

A guest post from a reader:

They say that in election campaigns you should keep families out of it, especially children.

Obviously both the NZEI and RNZ Checkpoint did not get the memo.

In an extraordinarily uncritical piece on Friday September 15, Checkpoint ran a piece detailing how primary school children in Porirua and Wainuiomata were encouraging their parents to enrol and vote.

The reporter, John Gerritson, even acknowledged the role the NZEI was playing in this piece of political treachery by saying the children were taking home “resources” provided by the union.

This soft piece on union and Labour Party promotion began with some vox pops from children. They were of primary school age. They’d been asked why it was important to enrol to vote. The first three or four answers, out of the mouths of babes, said that it was because you ”could vote for change.”

My goodness. I wonder who’d told them that ?

Not one of them said anything like “so you can vote to keep the country on a sound economic footing” or “so you can vote to keep unemployment at low levels.”

We are constantly told that children of all ages need to be taught civics as part of the school curriculum. I couldn’t agree more. They should be taught about democracy, about how it’s important to vote and about how all sides of a political argument should be explored before a vote is cast.

They should not be indoctrinated with resources supplied by a teachers’ union which is supporting the Labour Party.

The principal of one of the schools featured then had the temerity to say that it was important to get children to encourage their parents to enrol and vote ! What’s more they were holding parent evenings where parents could enrol on the night. Then they were opening an early voting booth next week so parents could cast their vote.

Am I being too cynical, but do you think the teacher/union member addressing the parents might have suggested a vote for Labour was the best way forward for the country ?

Dear me. If a parent does not know their duty and responsibility to enrol and vote by the time they have children of school age, then you wonder just what kind of education they had. At any rate, it is not the role of a primary school to be telling parents what to do politically.

Incidentally, Whaleoil has posted on this before and shown some of the brochures that children have been given to take home with them. The display of the political party symbols has Labour top left  i.e. in the most prominent position.

So this piece went on, unabated on RNZ for about 4 minutes. Not once, did the journalist think about offering a critical or inquisitive line asking whether it was the NZEI’s business to be enrolling voters through vulnerable children.

And at the end, all John Campbell could say was “lovely, thank you John Gerritson, lovely piece.”

No wonder the Labour Party want their RNZ comrades to run a TV station for them too. Just think of the propaganda Campbell et al could spout on their behalf.

A great guest post. It is outraegous that NZEI are using children to get their propoganda to parents.

An amazing score line against the Springboks, especially considering recent games. There was plenty of speculation that the All Blacks may lose.

Eight tries against the Springboks is almost unheard of. I think it is their worst ever loss. The top winning margins between the two teams are:

1. 55 points to All Blacks, Albany, 2017
2. 42 points to All Blacks, Durban 2016
3. 36 points to All Blacks, Pretoria, 2003
4. 33 points to All Blacks, Wellington 2011
5. 28 points to All Blacks, Christchurch 2016
6. 28 points to All Blacks, Dunedin 1999
7. 20 points to All Blacks, Auckland 1997

Some people have said dealing with the IRD can be like having a prostate exam. Now in one of his most bizarre policies, Winston wants it compulsory.

The Herald reports:

“Prostate cancer is a psychological condition more than anything else – mainly of men who need a good kick up you-know-where,” Peters told the gathering.

“Frankly, if I had my way I would have further compulsory requirements for every male in this country, so it goes something like this – your taxation is that, but you are not getting it back until I see you with an annualised check or a two-yearly check.

Is this really who we want deciding who gets to form a Government? Someone who thinks a tax refund should be linked to a prostate exam?

Why only require it of men. Will women have to have a cervical smear in order to get a tax refund also?

Another day another roading announcement in the regions, this time Rotorua – National will accelerate plans to four-lane the road between the city and the airport.

National’s East-West link could be the most expensive stretch of road in the world at $327 million per kilometre.

National’s last minute ditch to get the Trans Pacific Partnership 11 agreement across the line just a day before the general election smacks of desperation.

Reporter who questioned Winston’s health starting a filthy rumour, and dirty campaign (see here).

We can work with NZF, but a referendum on Maori seats is off the table.

Horizon Research poll shows we can have more than 1 MP after the election.

Horizon Research: National 38.5% Labour 38.2% NZF 9.8% Greens 7.7% TOP 2.3% ACT 1.4% – Winston is kingmaker

Roy Morgan: National 40% Labour 39.5% Greens 9% NZF 6% TOP and Maori 2% – potential Lab/Green/Maori coalition.

Two polls which still have the major parties neck and neck.

Latest update as of 9am Tuesday:

National Party $8.17b; Labour Party $22.91b; Green Party $13.28b; NZ First $27.53b; Maori Party $12.17b; ACT -$2.43b; TOP $13.69b. Full details here.

Final Bribe-O-Meter update coming Monday.

Reuters reports:

A majority of Americans support military action against North Korea if economic and diplomatic efforts fail, according to a Gallup poll released on Friday amid rising tension over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program and recent missile launches.

The survey of 1,022 U.S. adults last week found that 58 percent said they would favor military action against North Korea if the United States cannot accomplish its goals by more peaceful means first.

If a conflict does eventuate between Japan, the US, South Korea and North Korea, it is likely to send the global economy into a recession. I suspect the NZ economy would follow. All those parties’ spending plans based on surpluses may find the world has changed.

John Armstrong writes:

Like the sands through the hourglass – it has taken just four short weeks for Jacinda Ardern’s “campaign of our lives” to become more akin to the The Days of Our Lives.

Labour’s Wonder Woman has found herself cast in a long-running soap opera – but not as a super hero. …

The tax was the early product of Ardern’s Brave New World – a world where she intends demonstrating Labour can make the hard decisions.

It took precious little time for Labour to back off the idea as fast as decency allowed. “Let’s do this” became “Let’s not do that”.

Let’s tax this – but later!

Of particular note has been her declaration that she will not shy away from tackling the “big generational issues”.

When it comes to such issues, they do not come any bigger or more vexed than the fairness of the country’s tax system and the affordability of current state-funded pension entitlements. With regard to the latter, she has gone Awol.

She has adopted John Key’s pledge to resign as prime minister were the age of eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation to be raised under her watch. Likewise were there to be any reduction in current entitlements enjoyed by those who qualify for the state pension.

For someone portraying themselves as giving voice to younger voters, such a stance is an absolute cop-out. It is little short of betrayal.

What is strange about Ardern’s pledge is that there was absolutely no pressure for her to do so. Key’s equally bad pledge was made because Labour had made it clear they would run a fear campaign on superannuation, and his “I’ll resign” pledge was a necessary evil to prevent that.

But there was absolutely no pressure on Ardern to do the same. National had said it would slowly raise the retirement age. All Ardern had to say is that they planned no changes in the next term, kicking it for touch. But instead she stuffed up and said she’ll resign rather than ever let the age of superannuation increase. And as Armstrong says, this is a betrayl of future generations who will have to have taxes massively increased on them to fund keeping the age at 65.

NBR reports:

Labour has left the door open to its tax plans being fiscally neutral, with its finance spokesman Grant Robertson saying this outcome is “quite likely” if Labour wants to rebalance the tax system.

This comes as a Taxpayers’ Union petition calling on Labour to make any new taxes fiscally neutral gains traction.

This is excellent news. If Labour don’t use their proposed Tax Working Group as a way to soak New Zealanders out of more tax, but simply to broaden the base – that is commendable

After Labour’s shift, the Taxpayers’ Union started a petition calling on Labour to make any new taxes fiscally neutral – when taxes and government spending are neutral (also referred to as revenue neutrality).

The lobby group’s executive director, Jordan Williams, says the petition has already received 5000 signatures.

“New Zealand’s government books are in a healthy shape, with enormous surpluses projected forward. What Labour needs to do to inoculate any criticism around its tax plans is say they will be fiscally neutral.”

He is calling on Labour to reduce income tax and GST to compensate households for the new taxes – “the problem with our economy definitely isn’t that households aren’t being taxed enough.”

Addressing media yesterday, Mr Robertson was keeping the door open to that possibility.

He says fiscal neutrality will “certainly” be one of the areas the tax working group will be looking at.

“It is quite clear that, if we are rebalancing the tax system, a revenue neutral outcome is one of the outcomes that is quite likely.”

Having Grant say a revenue neutral option is quite likely is highly encouraging. And this is one of the reasons I co-founded the NZTU. Without a lobby group out there pushing the message that we don’t need to increase the tax burden on New Zealanders, then politicians would not be getting asked about this.

I actually favour a capital gains tax and a land tax, so long as income and company taxes are reduced to compensate (and they have minimal exemptions).

Matthew Hooton writes at NBR:

In 2008, Republican Party operatives discovered when preparing vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin for her debate with Democrat Joe Biden that “she doesn’t know anything”. In 2017, New Zealand Labour may have similarly landed itself with a prime ministerial candidate without the basic background knowledge to be a credible candidate for high office.

Is this a fair comparison? I don’t think it is. I think Arden is more substantive than Palin.

Ms Ardern’s most obvious weakness is tax policy. …

What has really damaged Ms Ardern is that it has become clear she has never given tax policy any thought even in the broadest brushstrokes.

  Initially, she ring-fenced increasing GST and income tax from the TWG’s work, except for promising to reverse the $1000-a-year cuts to income tax that National legislated for next year.  When asked by the Australian Financial Review, Ms Ardern later extended her commitment to company tax.

  On the proposed capital gains tax (CGT), Ms Ardern ruled out including the “family home” – whatever that means in contemporary New Zealand – but was unable to answer whether the “family home” exemption would also extend to a land tax, seemingly not understanding the difference between the two. After a painful few hours, Labour moved to rule out all taxes on the “family home”, but that raises all sorts of questions about where the “family home” ends and the shop, farm or other business begins – or when a big urban backyard stops being a place for kids to run around and becomes land-banking. Maori might argue with some legitimacy that their marae is in some sense more the “family home” than where the whanau happens to live now.

  The surprising thing is not that these can be difficult questions – exactly the sort of thing a TWG might be best to resolve – but that Ms Ardern seems never to have contemplated that they might even arise.

Everyday she had to make up more tax policy on the hoof.

Tax could perhaps just be dismissed as not Ms Ardern’s thing, but there is a wider pattern of flakery.

  The still-likely next prime minister has declared climate change “my generation’s nuclear-free moment” but her actual policy appears to extend no further than implementing the Emissions Trading Scheme as legislated and setting up a new Climate Commission.

  Ms Ardern has said her “entire reason for being in politics is to rid this country of child poverty” but in nine years in parliament she has proposed not a single meaningful initiative to do so, other than launching a Child Poverty Reduction and Eradication Bill which would have established a new Child Poverty Reduction Board.

The bill is here in case you don’t believe Matthew. It solves child poverty by setting up a board. Just as you solve climate change with a commission and solve tax with a working group.

None of this suggests the prime minister-assumptive is the policy wonk she claims. The inadequacy of Labour’s policy positions is more indicative of a person whose experience is limited to moving from school, to a Bachelor in Communications Studies at the University of Waikato, to being a parliamentary staffer, and then a list MP.

And the Morrinsville Fish & Chip shop.

After six weeks, even the daily left-wing media has now woken up to the fact Ms Ardern is indeed a flake. But the polls have already been open for five days as part of the Electoral Commission’s effort to attract the left-leaning “missing million” to vote, including by dropping in to gang headquarters.

  In fact, by the time you read this, more than 200,000 people will already have cast their votes. By the time the final leaders’ debate is held on Wednesday night, the number may be over one million. It will hardly matter how badly Ms Ardern performs that night – with the help of the Electoral Commission, she may already have wrapped this one up.

I already know of people who have advance voted and now want to change their vote!

Stuff reports:

National will direct Landcorp to offer farms to young farmers because “there is no clear public good coming from Crown ownership and little financial return to taxpayers”.

Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy said the young farmers would have to “work the land” for five to 10 years, after which they could lease the farms before buying them.

It was envisaged about 100 young farming families would benefit from the programme.

A great policy. It is nuts that a Government company owns over 100 farms up and down New Zealand.

“Not all of Landcorp’s around 140 farms will be sold. Many are subject to Treaty claims and others have a right-of-first-refusal for Iwi – and these rights will of course be respected. Some of Landcorp’s larger farms will be divided into smaller units more appropriate for first-time owners,” Guy said.

Federated Farmers president Katie Milne said it was an “exciting prospect” for young farmers.

Yep great to be creating opportunities for young farmers, rather than trying to tax them to death.