Jacinda Ardern said on Larry Williams that the family home will not be subject to CGT when you die, if the inheritors live there.

Now think about that. Most people die about age 80. So Jacinda is saying that if you live at home with your 80 year old parents, then the family home escapes CGT. Otherwise it will have CGT applied as a de facto estate tax.

Most elderly people stay in their final home for 20 – 25 years. Say they purchased it for $300,000 and now worth $900,000. Apply a 33% CGT to the $600,000 “gain” and that’s a $200,000 tax bill for the estate.

National will invest up to $6 million from the Regional Growth Programme to make the Whanganui Regional Velodrome redevelopment project a reality.

National will support the preservation of New Zealand’s historic buildings with a $30 million investment in quake-strengthening work.

A Labour Government will inject nearly $3 million into the Te Hiku Sports Hub project (only the one media release from Labour today).

With our New Generation Supergold Card, we will provide every member, on average, $800 to a $1000 additional per year, tax free including free health and eye checkups.

The Green Party needs strong representation in the next parliament to strengthen Labour’s arm and protect our environment by ruling TPP-11 out.

This election is now a drag race fuelled with taxpayer money. Only ACT will cut government spending.

John Key has sold his Parnell mansion for an estimated $20million to a Chinese buyer.

One News Colmar Brunton: Labour 43.0% (nc)National 39.0% (-2.0%) Green 5.0% (nc) NZ First 9.0% (+1.0%) Maori 2.0% (+1.0%) ACT 0.1% (NC) Opportunities 1.9% (+0.9%).

Listener Bauer: Labour 37% National 34% NZ First 7% Greens 6% “Don’t know” 10%.

Newsroom SSI: Labour 45% National 30% NZ First 11% Greens 6% TOP 2% Māori Party 2% Act 1%. The #MotherOfAllPolls to match the #MotherOfAllScandals?

As at 9am 5 September (next update due Monday): Nats: $7.62b Lab: $22.82b NZFirst:  $25.97b  Greens: $9.94b  Maori: $12.17b  ACT: $-2.43b  TOP: $10.69b  (all figures limited to costs within next Parliamentary term). Full details here.

Some interesting data in the latest OIA stats. 93% were answered on time, compared to 88% previously. So a good trend. The agencies with the most OIAs were:

1. Police 11,257
2. EQC 6.924
3. Corrections 3,425
4. Fire Service 2,127
5. MBIE 1,724
6. Defence 1,112
7. Customs 1,076
8. Health 957
9. Justice 861
10. MPI 782

Wonder why so many for the Fire Service?

The best responders (% answered on time) of those who had over 100 OIAs were:

1. Waikato DHB 100%
2. Waitemata DHB 99.5%
3. Northland DHB 99.3%
4. Health & DIsability Commissioner 99.1%
5. CAA 98.8%
6. EQC 98.7%
7. Customs 98.6%
8. IRD 98.5%
9. Com Com 98.4%
10. Defence/SFO 98.3%

The worst responders were:

1. South Cant DHB 63%
2. Hawkes Bay DHB 64%
3. West Coast DHB 66%
4. Canterbury DHB 70%
5. TPK 70%
6. Min for Environment 75%
7. BOP DHB 78%
8. Tairawhiti DHB 79%
9. Cap Coast DHB 79%
10. Callaghan Innovation 81%

Stuff reports:

Anglicans have voted to restore the Christ Church Cathedral. …

The deal included a $10 million Christchurch City Council (CCC) pledge, a Great Christchurch Buildings Trust (GCBT) pledge of $13.7m, a $10m Crown cash contribution and a $15m government loan that would not have to be paid back if certain conditions were met. The pledges, along with the church’s insurance proceeds of nearly $42m, amounted to just over $90m of the estimated $104m restoration cost.

So the funding looks to be:

• Insurance $42 million
• Taxpayers $25 million
• Ratepayers $10 million
• GCBT $14 million
• Anglician Church $13 million

Not wild over $25 million from taxpayers towards it, but at least there is now a decision and development can happen in the region around teh Cathedral based on some certainity.

David Crossman announced:

With the GE just around the corner, I thought you might be interested in my new political novel, A Sovereign Nation.

 I’m promoting it as a FREE Ebook download for a limited time. Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0756RTG1R

 I’ve set my political story in the future: fast forward two election cycles to 2023:

 Wellington, New Zealand, 2023. Tensions are escalating in the South Pacific and the latest global financial crisis has brought New Zealand to its knees. From his Bee Hive office on the ninth floor, Prime Minister Michael Armstrong plays a dangerous game of cat and mouse…

While a work of fiction, I would point out that it is highly likely there will be a global recession in the next three to five years. Recent history is:

• Mid 70s – global recession from oil prices
• 1987 – Black Monday sharemarket crash
• 1997 – Asian Financial Crisis
• 2008 – Global Financial Crisis

So around every ten years there is a global shock. Those assuming surpluses are guaranteed will get a nasty shock.

The Herald reports:

Ardern said New Zealand needed to show leadership on the issue.

She said emissions could be brought down without harming agriculture’s contribution to the economy.

How? I guess a working group will tell us the answer in a few years time.

Federated Farmers said the policy would cost the livestock sector at least $83 million in year one, rising to more than $830 million each year when fully implemented.

“Putting NZ agriculture under the ETS, combined with other potential new taxes (water, land, capital gains, wealth and assets) has the potential to cause a lot of cost and upheaval in provincial New Zealand,” the farm lobby group says.

There is a case for agriculture to eventually come into the ETS but the cumulative impact of Labour’s policies will be crushing for rural NZ. Farms get hit especially by both capital gains taxes and land taxes, plus add on the water tax and you get billions of dollars being sucked out of rural NZ to help fund Labour’s spending.

Radio NZ reports:

In Rangiora on Wednesday, several hundred people turned out to hear Mr Peters speak.

One group of loyal supporters said they backed Mr Peters because they were fed up with immigrants and believed he would stop them.

“You’ve just got to go to the supermarkets and you see it, they’re different – they don’t look like us,” said one.

Is he saying they don’t look Maori? Or that they don’t look white?

“They’re taking control of our country, this is the thing, and they’re foreigners – very foreign, it’s not as if they’re English speaking people,” another added.

“And you can’t understand a damn word they’re saying,” a third said. “It makes me sick the way things are going. Why can’t we just be us like we used to be?”

Back to the 1970s!

“I voted for Donald Trump, I love Donald Trump and Winston Peters is like him to me – so he’s got my vote.”

And Peters in Government will be just as sucessful as Trump in Government!

National is committed to building the infrastructure and transport system New Zealand needs to ensure our ongoing economic prosperity is secured

The Labour Party is continuing its full-frontal attack on regional New Zealand with its announcement today that farming would join the Emissions Trading Scheme

Labour will set a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and take the necessary steps to achieve it.

Ardern’s first call will be to the Greens post-election.

The Green Party will make electricity more affordable with winter energy payments for more than 500,000 lower-income households

Labour’s union shill Chris Hipkins bullies small schools.

We’re not going to tonight’s TVNZ debate.

Debates are so establishment anyway.

We are prepared to go into Opposition rather than join a Government with NZ First (but we will be at tonight’s debate).

Last night’s One News Colmar Brunton poll.

One News Colmar Brunton: Labour 43.0% (nc)National 39.0% (-2.0%) Green 5.0% (nc) NZ First 9.0% (+1.0%) Maori 2.0% (+1.0%) ACT 0.1% (NC) Opportunities 1.9% (+0.9%).

Translated to seats: Labour 53, National 48, NZ First 11, Green 6, ACT 1, Maori 2, Total 121.

Listener Bauer: Labour 37% National 34% NZ First 7% Greens 6% “Don’t know” 10%.

Newsroom SSI: Labour 45% National 30% NZ First 11% Greens 6% TOP 2% Māori Party 2% Act 1%. The #MotherOfAllPolls to match the #MotherOfAllScandals?

As at 9am 5 September: Nats: $7.62b Lab: $22.82b NZFirst:  $25.97b  Greens: $9.94b  Maori: $12.17b  ACT: $-2.43b  TOP: $10.69b  (all figures limited to costs within next Parliamentary term). Full details here.

The Herald reports:

Microsoft, Datacom – and the Auckland Theatre Company – have signed up as partners for New Zealand’s newest charter school.

The new City Senior School for 300 students near Auckland’s Victoria Park will share space with a “Launching Pad” for new business start-ups that will work with students on joint projects.

It is one of four new partnership schools announced today by Education Under-Secretary and Act Party leader David Seymour. The others are in Gisborne, Christchurch and Mangere, where an existing charter school run by Labour candidate Willie Jackson’s wife Tania Rangiheuea will open a new high school.

However all four schools will not open until 2019 and could be torpedoed if Labour wins this month’s election. Labour education spokesman Chris Hipkins said Labour would not go ahead with opening any new charter schools.

 

“The Government should not be entering into new charter school announcements when they know full well that it is a heated and contentious debate during the election campaign,” he said.

City Senior School Ltd and its parent Launching Pad Charitable Trust have been set up by Hobsonville Point Secondary School deputy principal Claire Amos and Brett O’Riley, who was until recently head of the Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development agency (Ateed).

O’Riley’s wife Robyne Walker is also a director.

It is the first charter school to be approved under new criteria allowing schools to specialise in science, technology, engineering, arts and maths (STEAM) subjects. All 15 other charter schools set up or announced to date have been approved under the initial criteria requiring them to serve Maori, Pacific and low-income students.

The school will take students only in Years 11 to 13, starting with 100 Year 11 students in 2019 and adding Year 12 in 2020 and Year 13 in 2021.

Amos said students would work on projects with established technology companies and new start-ups.

That sounds great. What a pity that Labour doesn’t want innovative schools like this.

The Herald reports:

Former National and Act Party leader Don Brash says Winston Peters is the best chance of “ending National’s race-based policies”.

Brash is a spokesman for a lobby group, Hobson’s Pledge Trust, that wants to end what it calls “Maori separatism” by abolishing the Maori seats and remove all references in law and policy to Treaty “partnership” and “principles”.

With just weeks until the election he has written an article for Elocal magazine, titled, “Use your vote to end National’s race-based policies”. …

On New Zealand First, Brash tells readers it is the party that has consistently called for a “colour-blind” state, and Peters this year announced policy to hold a binding referendum on whether the Maori seats should continue.

He questions whether Peters can be trusted, given he didn’t use his bargaining power to move New Zealand to a “colour-blind society” in 1996 or 2005.

“Nobody knows for certain how Mr Peters will use his bargaining power … [but] on balance, I think NZ First is the best chance we’ve got of moving New Zealand to a society where ancestry is absolutely irrelevant to our legal rights,” Brash wrote.

So Don is saying that Winston has never ever acted on his rhetoric before but he thinks this time he might. Wow. Sort of desperate.

He told the Herald that comment did not amount to a specific endorsement.

“We mention the fact that both Act and New Zealand First are saying things that are consistent with what Hobson’s Pledge has been arguing for.”

Brash said he was aware that under the Electoral Act his group could not specifically tell New Zealanders to vote for a party or candidate, without their approval.

Actually they can, they just can’t spend money on advertisements saying it.

The Herald reports:

A National Party candidate says she’s had enough of being bullied for using disabled car parks – from people who don’t realise she is entitled to park there.

Critics have even taken to dobbing in Katrina Bungard to National Party leader Bill English when they see her sign-written car bearing her name and photo parked in disabled parks.

Bungard, who lost a leg to cancer at age 11, holds a disabled parking permit and is entitled to use the parks.

The National candidate for Manurewa says she’s been regularly reprimanded since her car was sign written with her face and National Party logo in May this year. But she has a clearly visible disability permit displayed in her windscreen as she is an amputee.

 “I feel a bit bullied,” she said.

The Howick Local Board member had her left leg amputated above the knee when she was 11 because of bone cancer, and uses an artificial limb.

Those people who have tried to get Bungard in trouble should be deeply embarrassed. You should always check for a permit before making a judgement.

The latest One News poll is at Curia. It shows Labour leading National by 4%.

The time and size weighted average of the public polls (in the sidebar) has it closer with National on 51 seats, Labour 50 seats, NZ First 10 and Greens 7.

On the poll average National would get 11 List MPs (down to Jian Yang), Labour 23 List MPs (down to Anna Lorck), NZ First 9 List MPs (down to Mahesh Bindra) and Greens 7 List MPs (down to Chloe Swarbrick).

Adopted NZ First’s ‘Forestry Service’ policy (which Labour got rid of in the 80s).

Ardern committed to keeping company tax at 28%.

Ardern under attack by Prebble and disability advocacy group. Clark Gayford (partner) and Jeremy Corbyn (comrade) came to her defence.

Plans announced for pay equity: onus on employers who will have to be more transparent.

Shaw says he hopes to bring party above the 5% in tomorrow’s minor parties’ debate.

Joyce copped more flack on RNZ about Labour budget – unable to name anyone who supports $11.76b figure.

Announced new $57m mental health facility for Christchurch hospital.

Pleeeease, Your Honour!

Candidate under investigation for offering virtual credits in exchange for votes nothing but a ‘smear campaign’.

One News Colmar Brunton out at 6pm.

NZ Herald: Capital gains tax: 35% agree; 26% oppose; 32 neutral; 8% ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

As at 9am 5 September: Nats: $7.62b Lab: $22.82b NZFirst:  $25.97b  Greens: $9.94b  Maori: $12.17b  (excludes WeChat credits)  ACT: $-2.43b  TOP: $10.69b  (all figures limited to costs within next Parliamentary term).

Alan Duff writes:

When a politician says he represents the poor, he is not telling the truth. He means his role is to extract as much money from government as he possibly can to keep the poor’s vote.

Yep. And they use a measure of poverty that guarantees there are always people in poverty meaning you always need to tax and spend more.

This type of politician has taken the easy route, by creating the image of a heroic Robin Hood figure. Far easier to create a public profile with thunderous speeches against government, not forgetting rich exploiters of the poor, than it is to face the other way: towards the people he claims to so care about.

If he truly cared he’d start with the poor first. Not in getting them subsidised state housing, higher welfare benefits, a swathe more entitlements. But in persuading a change of outlook, their diet reassessed since it is killing them, teaching restraint in all areas, from food to social interactions.

If government are to be engaged, then ask for teachers of household budgeting. Harangue the wealthy Maori tribal trusts for money to pay qualified people to teach financial literacy.

 

Ah, but not our hero, he’s not having his daily morning ride into main street on his big black horse spoiled. Government – and rich fat cats – you are heartless racists. There. Done. Another thousand vote ticks.

Sounds like a few politicians we are seeing at the moment.

Radio NZ reports:

Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern has ruled out introducing any tax which would hit either the family home or the land it sits on, saying that’s “completely off the table”.

It’s not that simple.

What if the family home sits on farm land?

What if the family home is a lifestyle block?

Labour’s former CGT policy would have applied to rural land, which a family home is on.

It is not as simple as saying a land tax would not apply to land a family home sits on.

She’s now gone further, saying she’d instruct the working group to stay away from any policies which would affect the home or the land on which it is built.

“My message will be very clear to them – do not bring me any recommendation that includes the family home or the land that a family home sits on.”

Ms Ardern said the tax working group could still consider the possibility of a land tax, but not one which would hit the land underneath a family’s house.

Which means a land tax would be useless and apply mainly to rural land. Another great whack at the productive sector.

A land tax is actually a good idea, so long as it applies to all land, and was used to reduce income taxes. But Labour keep making up policy on the hoof.

Earlier today, Ms Ardern said Labour’s target was not the family home.

But when pressed by reporters, she suggested that guarantee only covered the building itself and not the land.

“Yes, that’s the complication of those various iterations,” she said.

“That’s why I’m saying to the tax working group – ‘I want the family home to be off the table, please work through the options that remain available to address home ownership and to address affordability and to make sure our taxation system is fair’.”

Ms Ardern was then asked again if she was leaving open the possibility of taxing the land on which the home sat.

“I’m saying that I don’t want there to be taxation applying to a family home,” she said. “The rest is for the working group to work through.”

Clear as mud.

The Herald reports:

Whangarei District Councillor Jayne Golightly has resigned after learning she was not a New Zealand citizen.

The resignation, less than a year into her tenure, will mean a by-election in the Denby ward she represented, but Golightly said she has since applied for NZ citizenship and, if it’s through in time, she will contest the by-election.

She should be ashamed she is costing ratepayers what could be $100,000 in a by-election.

Golightly said Election Services told her on Friday she was not a citizen.

 “It had been brought to their attention that I was not a NZ citizen. To say I was shocked and devastated is an understatement,” Golightly said.

“After looking into it, it was confirmed that I was not. Today I resigned from my position as councillor.”

She said she emigrated from the United Kingdom with her parents when she was just 18 months old and although she travels on a UK passport, she believed she was a NZ citizen

So she was not born here, she doesn’t have a NZ passport, her parents only became citizens when she was an adult and she has never applied for citizenship herself. Why would you possibly think you are a citizen?

This is another reason we should only allow citizens to vote. Then people would have a reason to become citizens, and you would know early on if you were not a citizen as you couldn’t vote.

“I want to apologise wholeheartedly to our district, to voters, and the people of Denby who choose me to represent them as a WDC councillor;” Golightly said.

Why did the Council not check she was a citizen when she stood? Surely this is a basic check.

Stuff reports:

National pledges to increase elective surgeries to 200,000 a year over the next four years.

On Tuesday, Bill English and Health spokesman Jonathan Coleman said the plan was aimed at ensuring access to life-changing operations like hip replacements for thousands more New Zealanders.

When National came into power there were 118,000 elective surgeries each year, increasing by 1400 a year, Coleman said.

Under National the number of elective surgeries carried out by district health boards (DHBs) had increased by 56,000 to 174,000 surgeries every year. That number was to reach 178,000 this year.

This latest policy would see National increase the number of elective surgeries an average of 5500 a year over the next four years, meaning there will be 200,000 elective surgeries a year by 2022.

The increase in elective surgeries has been substantial and far in excess of population growth.

In Labour’s last seven years they increased elective surgery by just 10% which was a 0.8% increase adjusted for population. So basically no increase at all.

In National’s first seven years they increased elective surgeries by 34% which is a 23% increase adjusted for population.

Labour are good at promising how much money they’ll spend but note they almost never commit to what matters – improved outcomes or even outputs.

Hamish Rutherford reports:

Does Labour have an $11.7 billion hole in its fiscal plan?

No. Practically everyone outside of the National Party agrees on that.

So is Steven Joyce completely wrong?

Possibly not. Joyce’s argument since Monday has been an “either/or” one. Either Labour has a massive black hole, or it is proposing “zero Budgets” in its second and third year in government.

Although the media naturally focused on Joyce’s claim of a huge hole based around an error – the National Party’s press release made the claim in its headline – from the start he said that it was possible that Labour had not made the mistake.

Note the part I bolded about how Joyce said from the start that there may not be a mistake or hole.

However he said the alternative was Labour had left itself with such little room for new Government spending that it was in a “completely untenable” position.

Yep they have pre-allocated almost all the contingency spending meaning they have almost none left over.

How much room does Labour have to play with?

While it has already made a series of announcements, including major initiatives in health, education and extra police to name a few, there is little of the everyday increases.

Labour’s fiscal plan gives it roughly $900 million each year in its first three years, beyond what it has already announced.

But describing it as $900m a year is somewhat misleading, because operating allowances, by and large, only go up.

If Labour was to spend the $900m in the first year (which its fiscal plan implies it will), it would have nothing left for years two and three. Hence Joyce’s claims of “zero Budgets”.

And consider Labour have opposed every aspect of fiscal restraint National has done.

Labour could have presented its operating allowance a different way. If it spent less than $900m in year one, it would have a little more left in years two and three.

Using a very basic analysis, Labour could give itself $450m increases in operating allowances, each year.

National points out that in the past two years, its operating allowance increases outside of education and health expenditure have been more than twice this much.

This is why the Taxpayers Union has praised Labour’s fiscal plan. If you believe their fiscal plan they will run a tighter fiscal ship than National. Whether that is credible is up to voters – do you believe their rhetoric of the last nine years and their voting record against every piece of spending restraint there has been – or do you believe what they are now saying?

From today, the Taxpayers’ Union will be publishing a daily ‘campaign countdown’, outlining all the latest new from the parties, who is getting cut through, and all the latest spending promises for our Bribe-o-meter.

Joyce digging in on his comments on Labour’s budget blunder.English in Invercargill announced $72 million to help beneficiaries get off drugs and into work. 

English in Invercargill announced $72 million to help beneficiaries get off drugs and into work. 

Labour hitting hard on Joyce’s critique of their alternative budget. Phil Twyford came out firing: “it is the desperation of a government clinging to survival, evidenced by policy on-the-hoof, dodgy maths and dirty politics”.

First difficult day for Ardern, starting off by being compared to Donald Trump by the Wall Street Journal for her party’s stance on immigration. Comments on abortion have also come under fire from a disability advocacy group, as being discriminatory. 

Greens say National’s benefit plan “punitive” and will force more into poverty.

No word yet on (overdue) alternative budget.

Announcement in Wellington tomorrow about plans to tighten the gender pay gap.

Peters has continued his hand-shaking tour of the regions. Promised to apologise to Australia for the actions of former New Zealand governments if he gets into power (in response to Ardern’s debate comments that she would retaliate if Australia cuts Kiwis from tertiary education). 

Teacher’s unions are the reason for teacher’s poor salaries.

Claim English and Joyce have been misleading NZ on the country’s economic performance, saying NZ has been merely treading water. 

Criticism of Joyce’s comments on Labour’s alternative budget. Joyce only partially right: seems he over cooked the egg and instead of Labour getting the blame for their accounting error and policy/website changes, it’s all on his face.

One News Colmar Brunton tomorrow. TOP need 3% to win a ticket to Friday’s leaders’ debate.

ACT Party is the biggest mover in the weekly update of the Bribe-O-Meter (its education/teachers pay policy costed at $3 billion over the next parliamentary term). ACT’s total still negative though – more cuts than promised spending.

Nats: $7.62b Lab: $22.82b Greens: $9.94b NZ First: $25.97b Maori: $12.17b ACT: $-2.43b TOP: $10.69b (all figures limited to costs within next Parliamentary term).

National has announced:

• $72 million over four years for beneficiaries aged under 25
• Guaranteeing work experience or training for those who have been on a jobseekers benefit for six months or longer, and financial management training to help them develop financial responsibility
• Providing rehabilitation services if drug use is identified as a barrier to employment
• Ensuring all young people under 25 who are on a job seekers benefit receive intensive one-on-one case management to get a job.
• Job seekers without children who refuse work experience or training or recreational drug rehabilitation will lose 50 per cent of their benefit entitlement after four weeks of not meeting their obligations

90% of young people on a jobseekers benefit get off it within six months. But the 10% who do not stay on for an average of 10 years. So this is aimed at the tough 10%.

NewstalkZB reports:

Gareth Morgan is set to go to the High Court to try to get The Opportunities Party into a TVNZ debate on Friday night after the network said it was not polling high enough to warrant a place.

A spokesman for TOP would not comment, but the party is expected to lodge an application for judicial review on Wednesday of TVNZ’s decision to exclude it from the debate between the minor party leaders on Friday night.

It is likely to seek an urgent interim decision to get it into the debate.

1News’ political editor Corin Dann said on the programme tonight that it was longstanding policy not to include parties that were outside Parliament in election debates unless they had reached three per cent in at least one of the most recent 1News Colmar Brunton polls. TOP had not reached that threshold.

It is not the first time a minor party has taken such action – and precedent is on TOP’s side.

It will be interesting to see how the court rules. TOP is polling higher than the Maori and ACT parties but they do hold electorate seats.