Michael Fox at Stuff writes:

Where is Hone Harawira?

With just over two weeks till the election the man who is supposed to be leading Internet Mana has been nowhere to be seen.

Instead, his deputies and Internet Party leader Laila Harre have been front and centre for the unlikely alliance while Harawira was first recovering from a serious car accident and later on leave, which the party says was booked in advance.

He arranged a week’s leave for the middle of the election campaign? Yeah, right.

The Herald reports:

“Nervous.” Trevor Mallard’s response about his chances of holding on to Hutt South seems odd, considering he has held the seat for 21 years.

But boundary changes this year could swing as many as 2500 votes from red to blue. The seat now covers all of the Western Hills, formerly in Peter Dunne’s Ohariu seat, and loses Labour-leaning suburb Naenae.

Throw in National candidate Chris Bishop, highly regarded by his party, and a few high-profile visits to the electorate by John Key and Steven Joyce, and the contest heats up.

If Chris Bishop does win the seat, I suspect David Cunliffe may send him a bouquet of flowers!

I’ve just published the August 2014 edition of my monthly newsletter summarising the polls in New Zealand and four other countries. There were a huge 10 polls in August (does not include the three since 31 August which will be in the September average).

The graph above tells a story around Labour, doesn’t it?

The executive summary is:

There were ten political polls in August – two each of Roy Morgan, One News Colmar Brunton, 3 News Reid Research, Herald DigiPoll and Fairfax Ipsos.

The average of the public polls has National 23% ahead of Labour in August, down 2% from July. The current seat projection is centre-right 65 seats, centre-left 49 which would see a centre-right Government.

In Australia the Coalition still trails but is regaining support.

In the United States the Republicans are favoured to gain control of the Senate in November. 

In the UK Labour’s lead over the Conservatives has declined to just 2%.The referendum on independence for Scotland has the no vote ahead by an average of 11%.

In Canada the Liberals remain in the lead over the Conservatives, and would be able to form a minority government on current polls.

The normal two tables are provided comparing the country direction sentiment and head of government approval sentiment for the five countries. A new third table has been added, comparing approval ratings for opposition leaders in the four countries that have one.

We also carry details of polls in New Zealand on Epsom, the Maori seats, political donations, foreign investment, “Dirty Politics”, binding referenda plus the normal business and consumer confidence polls.

This newsletter is normally only available by e-mail.  If you would like to receive future issues, please go to http://listserver.actrix.co.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/polling-newsletter to subscribe yourself. 

Stuff reports:

Greenpeace USA has apologised after discovering an image in a promotional calendar was shot by Alain Mafart – one of the French agents who bombed the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in 1985.

Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira, of the Netherlands, died in an explosion. The attack has been described as the only act of international terrorism on New Zealand soil.

Greenpeace USA said on its website that publisher Workman Publishing had sourced an image from a nature photographer, Alain Mafart-Renodier, during production of the 2015 calendar.

“It was later discovered that Mafart-Renodier is … Alain Mafart, one of the French military operatives who was involved in the bombing of the Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, in New Zealand in 1985.

You’d think someone at Greenpeace would recall the name, when checking the calendar!

I regard the early release of Mafart and Prieur to Hao Atoll as the most disgraceful foreign policy decision of the 4th Labour Government. They should have served their ten year terms of imprisonment, and not been sent to a pacific island on an extended holiday.

Stephen Franks writes:

ACT and the Conservatives are making excellent criminal justice policy announcements. If both are in Parliament we might see an end to the cosy major party consensus that has fostered our high rates of serious violent and youth crime.

Garth McVicar’s announcement on parole is more straightforward than I had expected. Most criminals come up for parole at one third of their Judge-given sentence. Garth says:

“The Conservative Party will overhaul the parole system so that a Judge given sentence means what it says, 9 years will mean 9 years. Life will mean Life. The only function of the parole board will be to apply release conditions and ensure they are enforced”

So how would no parole work?

It seems that they would introduce the US Federal system introduced after 1996, when Bill Clinton reached across party lines and took the Republicans policy and ended federal parole. Instead, there is a period of mandatory supervision at the end of most sentences. 

Great! There is no evidence that parole works any better to reduce reoffending than supervision at the end of the judge-given sentence. 

I’d be interested to see data on this.

People worry that prison populations will explode. That has not been the inevitable experience elsewhere after parole has been cut back. Prison musters would likely drop after an initial rise while offenders worked out that a new sheriff had come to town. 

Some attribute the long drop in crime rates in the US, for example, at least partially to the increased deterrence of sentencing certainty. There is a good research consensus that severity of sentencing has much less deterrent power than speed and certainty of detection, conviction and punishment. Ending criminal expectation of parole dramatically increases certainty, and judges could afford to reduce sentence lengths.  

It would be logical to reduce a sentence length to take account of no parole.

But there is another reason why prison musters will not escalate nearly as much as some would theorise. Because much of the serious crime is committed by a relatively small population of career criminals, the change would  merely cancel for  those serious offenders, who accumulate records of hundreds of crimes, their brief parole excursions from prison to add to their tally. Instead they stay much longer where they cannot prey on fresh victims. 

I think this is right. A small core of criminals commit a huge amount of the crimes.

Fairfax and the Herald both released polls this morning.  One has Labour at 24.3% and the other at 23.8%. Their focus on hacked e-mails instead of policy  is backfiring.

Polls are at Curiablog.

This is the time and size weighted average of all public polls.

Fairfax have said it all over bar the shouting. I would not be complacent. Certainly the thought of Labour governing on just 25% of the vote seems preposterous, but under MMP it can happen. The centre-right parties only have one seat margin over the minimum they need to govern.

Make sure you keep encouraging people to vote.

Circa has put on a production of A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the Death of Walt Disney.

The play, written by Lucas Hnath started on Broadway, and I think this is the first time it has been produced in New Zealand.

I was excited to see the play, as it starred David McPhail as Walt Disney. However, despite some very good acting, I found the play overall under-whelming.

The four actors did well. I loved seeing David McPhail on the stage, and he looked and felt the part of a domineering boss. Maybe he was channeling his years spent playing Muldoon.

Nick Blake played Walt’s brother Roy. Roy was CEO of Disney for many years and was portrayed as the guy kept in the shadows by Walt, and even used by Walt as a foil. His depiction of Roy was very sympathetic .

Jessica Robinson played Walt’s daughter (Diane, but not named in the play). She had few lines but they were the best parts, especially when she said she didn’t want to call a son Walt, because “When I say your name, I think all sorts of things I don’t want to think. When I say your name, I think of you, and when I think of you I get all angry, and when I think of you and the way you act, and the way you yell …”

And Richard Falkner played Ron, Walt’s son-in-law. He was portrayed as a bit of a sports focused jock (and looked the part). He wanted a role with the Disney empire, even as a cleaner, but was not seen up to scratch.

The cast did well, and I liked the production details such as having Diane and Ron on stage through all the scenes where they didn’t talk, but reacting with facial expressions. Robinson especially conveyed as much with her expressions as her line.

But overall I found the play hard to get into. It livened up around half way through, but it did not emotionally engage me. There was some dramatic tension and humour, but you never felt particularly warm or repulsed to any of the characters. It almost seemed ordinary, except it was about the family of Walt Disney.

It could have been redeemed (and the fault is with the script, not the local production) if the play was based on real events. I like plays where you learn stuff about someone famous, especially a side not seen before. One could do a very good play about the darker side of Walt Disney. He was on the fringes of the anti-semitic movement, and he had feuds lasting decades with staff.

But the focus on the family didn’t work for me, as it seems to be more speculation than fact. While Disney may have been a difficult father, his daughter actually is very loyal to him, and has attacked other works criticising him. She even set up the family museum in his honour. And one of her sons is named Walter.

The son-in-law actually was CEO of Disney for many years, so wasn’t a thicko. And the stuff on Disney wanting to be cryogenically frozen is a debunked urban legend.

John Smythe at Threatreview commented:

It’s entirely possible A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about The Death of Walt Disney could work much better in the relative intimacy of Circa Two – and I have a strong feeling Destination Beehive (in Circa Two with its cast of eight) is destined to sell out and leave many punters disappointed. If it was logistically possible for the shows to swap venues, I think they should.

I’d endorse that. This play is unlikely to have mass appeal, but it is still an interesting insight into the Disney empire.

The Herald reports:

Auckland Mayor Len Brown has opted for a less fuel efficient official car, just weeks after launching a new strategy to cut the city’s greenhouse gas emissions, it has been reported.

A new Holden Commodore has been delivered to Mr Brown for use as the official mayoral car — his third Holden in seven years, with a carbon footprint more than 70 per cent bigger than some of the alternatives, Radio New Zealand reported.

The Holden Calais V-Series V6 has a carbon footprint 50 per cent bigger than a Skoda Superb and 73 per cent bigger than a Toyota Hybrid Camry, the broadcaster said, and comes just over a month after Mr Brown launched the Low Carbon Auckland Action Plan, which aims to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent by 2040.

Not even Len Brown should be forced to drive a Skoda!

Stuff has an article from Daily Life which lists 29 words only (or mainly) used about women. They are:

1. Airhead, noun
2. Ambitious, adj
3. Abrasive, noun
4. Bossy, adj
5. Bitchy, adj
6. Bubbly, adj
7. Ditsy, adj
8. Emotional, adj
9. Frigid, adj
10. Frumpy, adj
11. High-maintenance, adj
12. Pushy, adj
13. Sassy, adj
14. Bombshell, adj
15. Bolshy, adj
16. Breathless, adj
17. Bridezilla, noun
18. Curvy, adj
19. Ethereal, adj
20. Fawn-like, adj
21. Headstrong, adj
22. Hormonal, adj
23. Hysterical, adj
24. Illogical, adj and Irrational, adj
25. Mother of… , noun
26. Shrill, adj
27. Voluptuous, adj
28. Whinging, verb
29. Working mum, noun

It is a good point that most of the words mainly used to describe women are negative ones. Even ones that appear neutral like “working mum” have a suggestion that this is unusual, as you never hear “working dad”.

Even swear words are not equal. Being called a bastard is less damning than being called a bitch. In fact being called a bastard is also a term of admiration for some. And being called a prick is far less damning than being called a c**t.

Can readers think of any words that are mainly used to describe men, and are negative? Thug is one I guess. You don’t hear many women called thugs. I have no doubt that common terms about women are far more negative than common terms about men, but interested to see what there is on the male side.

Stuff reports:

A further 5 per cent of New Zealanders will get ultrafast broadband if National is re-elected, the Government has announced.

National communications spokeswoman Amy Adams said the footprint of the fibre-optic cable network would be extended from the original target of 75 per cent of the country to a new target of 80 per cent at a cost of between $152 million and $210m.

The extended programme would be funded from the Future Investment Fund.

Adams listed 35 towns she said would be “strong contenders” to join the existing 33 cities and towns getting UFB. They included some large towns such as Westport and Picton.

The UFB programme was the “most ambitious communications infrastructure programme in the world, given our low population density”, Adams said.

Excellent. A few shares in Air New Zealand or some power stations in exchange for another 5% of the population gaining fibre. A great move, and very welcome I am sure by the 200,000 extra New Zealanders who will now get fibre under this plan.

The towns named by Adams as strong contenders for UFB are: Te Puke, Motueka, Morrinsville, Kerikeri, Huntly, Thames, Matamata, Otaki, Kawerau, Waitara, Kaitaia, Dannevirke, Alexandra, Stratford, Whitianga, Cromwell, Taumarunui, Picton, Foxton, Kaikohe, Marton, Te Kuiti, Katikati, Temuka, Waihi, Waipukurau, Warkworth, Carterton, Dargaville, Opotiki, Snells Beach, Te Aroha, Wairoa, Paeroa and Westport.

National has led the way on having a fibre connected country. In 2008 all Labour was promising was VDSL to more of NZ. National promised and is delivering fibre to 75% of NZ, and now 80% of NZ. On top of that a big investment in rural broadband.

Stuff reports:

Father of two ‘Ofa Ta’ufo’ou can’t spend more than $100 a week to feed his family.

That’s breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, drinks – the works. Any more and the Birkdale resident breaks the household budget.

The 43-year-old works “like an animal” for at least 40 hours a week and still struggles to make ends meet.

“At the moment I can’t afford to take my girls to the movies. So I have to ask: Who has failed my family? The system has.

“And I’m not the only one struggling. A lot of people in the community can’t function as a family because of their finances.”

The community worker says the problem is nationwide and something must be done.

I presume Mr Ta’ufo’ou is this one, who was a union delegate for the Labour-affiliated Service and Food Workers Union. That doesn’t mean he should ot be quoted, but does mean the public are not getting the full story.

Ta’ufo’ou supports the Living Wage Movement that calls on the Government, employers and society to strive for a minimum wage of $18.80 an hour to reduce inequality and poverty.

That’s the living wage movememt backed by the union movement?

Also note we are not given any details to allow us to make an independent decision on his claims. We are not told his hourly pay rate, or that of his partner. We are not told how much support they get from Working for Families, and we are not told how much money is spent on various activities, except rent (and not told how big a house it is).

Now of course there is no obligation for a person to reveal these details – unless they pimp their story out to the media about how hard it is to make ends meet for themselves. When media don’t provide enough detail for people to make an independent judgement, the story is little more than a press release.

UPDATE: Also the Herald doesn’t mention their previous story in 2011 when he got a $30,000 backpayment.

The Herald columnists all pick different winners.

• Toby Manhire: Winston Peters & Metiria Turei
• Audrey Young: Jamie Whyte
• Fran O’Sullivan: Colin Craig
• John Armstrong: Te Ururoa Flavell

The only ones not picked to be a winner were Peter Dunne and Laila Harre!

I wonder why Hone Harawira wasn’t there?

The NZ Herald reports:

The emergence of former MP Ron Mark as a candidate for New Zealand First has potentially thrown the race for the Wairarapa seat wide open, where the two other frontrunners are first-time candidates.

I love how the media talk up a seat as being wide open, when it has a 7,000+ majority.

Ron is a strong candidate for NZ First, and is a local Mayor. But Carterton is a small part of the electorate. Ron got elected Mayor in 2010 with around 2,000 votes. By comparison John Hayes in 2011 got almost 18,000 votes.

Liam Hehir writes in the Manawatu Standard:

There is a persistent assumption that big business suffers under Centre-Left governments and prospers under Centre-Right governments. …

But this is an overly simplistic analysis. Consider Labour’s “Kiwibuild” policy, under which it promises to build 100,000 cheap houses in the next 10 years.

Hehir continues:

Last week, spokesman Phil Twyford claimed that in some instances they would sell for as much as $125,000 less than current market prices.

This is to be achieved through the state leveraging its buying power and the contracted building firms agreeing to take a smaller profit per unit in the hope of making it up through sheer volume.

Without commenting on the overall viability of the proposal, it is certainly ambitious.

For its targets to be achieved, the programme would need to have an average of 10,000 new houses built every year. That works out to more than 27 new houses being completed every single day.

The question is: Which businesses will be in a position to undertake work on such a grand scale? It is not likely to be your typical small, medium or even large regional operators. At best, some of these people might pick up employment or subcontracting work.

However, the number of companies that could take on the scale of work required to make such a venture profitable is actually small. The most prominent firm normally mentioned here is Fletcher Building – the largest company listed on the New Zealand sharemarket. In fact, Labour met with the multibillion-dollar company to discuss the policy when it was first launched last year.

So how is that for corporate welfare and crony capitalism!

Once you grant that government intercession often privileges big businesses, it is easy enough to find other examples of the principle in action – often to the detriment of smaller competitors.

For example, something that has been suggested is that only those businesses that can pay their employees the “living wage” of $18.40 should be eligible to tender for public sector contracts.

Naturally, big businesses are much more likely to be able to absorb a 30 per cent increase in labour costs than start-ups or smaller competitors.

Were such a rule put in place, it would be much harder for those smaller players to compete in that key segment of the economy.

So small businesses go under.

Where the cumulative expense of new restrictions and mandates might slow down big business, they can be fatal to smaller firms.

Is this a problem? The answer probably depends on what your interests in the matter are.

First Union secretary Robert Reid was criticised last year when he said small businesses that could not operate under the conditions his union demanded should go out of business. In the context of his job, however, those comments were not totally unreasonable.

Unions advance the interests of their members – few of whom work in small businesses. Any benefit big corporations get from union proposals is incidental to the union’s purpose.

The union’s purpose is to get their preferred parties into power, so they get policies that help boost union coffers.

The Herald has a calculator where you enter in your income and it tells you what income decile you are in, and how much your decile has gained over time compared to others.

If you are in the top 10% it shames you with your 29% income growth and tries to make the other 90% resent you.

And then just for balance, it provides a link to a left wing inequality campaign site, for people to join.

Very fair and balanced.

A reader also points out another flaw:

I have checked the fine print and it talks about needing to know your household size to compare like with like but doesn’t refer to what income to include. 

 As an example one woman i know initially did it using just after tax on her pay slip… Didn’t include WFF, tax credits, accomm supplement, cash jobs etc. Once added changed her position by two spaces 

Additionally, we are top bracket – we have grown our businesses in last few years to point where we have gone from employing three people to eleven and a financial position where we had huge debt in the business (that we have now paid off) and now getting dividends plus additional $ with me working more. 

I inputted what we had as income five years ago (I wasn’t working, kids were little, plus still had significant debt in business that we were paying down plus mortgage). The Herald indicator put us at the third tier. We weren’t poor by any stretch of imagination but it was bloody tight – and high stress trying to make a business work. We didn’t claim WFF as don’t believe in it. Damn principles!

 One of the things I love about NZ is ‘ where there is a will there is a way’ – I’d hate to think people will believe we have always been top tier because we just are… Bloody hard work got us there. And we give back where and when we can.  We don’t pull the ladder up behind us. Please recognise we need people like us to employ people and to invest in new ventures. 

Most of those in the top 10% moved there up the scale. We should applaud that, not envy them and want to pull them down.

The Electoral Commission has just reported a further $250,000 donation from Kim Dotcom towards the Internet Party. This brings the total he has donated to $4.5 million. It consists of:

• $1 million before registration
• $250,000 on 26 May
• $250,000 on 30 May
• $2,750,000 on 30 May
• $250,000 on 3 September

So $4.5 million to defeat the Government and get a new Government dependent on his pet party. I think we all know why he is doing it.

Something that many people have not realised is that the so called exemption on the family home for Labour’s Capital Gains Tax is temporary. Almost all family homes will be taxed on their capital gain, when you die, if not placed on the market immediately.

Most people now die in their late 70s or 80s. Their kids will tend to be in their 40s or 50s and hence have homes of their own. So when you die, it is very unlikely a child will move into the home. They already have one. Plus few people want to live in the home their deceased parents lived in. So the home gets sold. And guess what? Labour will tax any capital gain on that sale.

It’s almost a de facto death duty – you get taxed for dying!

UPDATE: You can avoid the death duty if you decide to sell the home within 30 days of your parents dying. Charming. At a time you are mourning, you will be forced into rushing the home onto the market to avoid the death duty.

The Herald reports:

The latest TV3 poll could see either National or Labour forming a Government.

But Labour could do only with the support of four other parties.

National could do so with the support of just one other party, either the Maori Party or New Zealand First.

National would be able to form a Government very similar to the current one, with the support of the Maori Party, Act and United Future on confidence and supply.

Labour would need both the Maori Party and New Zealand First, plus the Greens and Internet Mana.

Labour would actually need six parties including themselves as Mana and Internet only have a temporary alliance.

That means a Labour-led Government would need to get Labour, Greens, NZ First, Mana, Maori and Internet parties to all agree on something in order to be able to make a decision and progress law changes.

Think about that.

John Bishop, The Taxpayers Union Chair has blogged:

Since the Taxpayers’ Union launched a number of left wing critics have claimed that we are just a front for the National Party, and are biased in its favour. The critics are wrong and their politically motivated criticisms are just nonsense.

We have always maintained that our stand is against waste and inefficiency and against bad policy wherever we find it, and that has always included the current government.

As Chairman I ensure that our Board and staff know that we are our own vehicle, with our own purposes, and don’t do other people’s bidding. Of course, we work with other groups (for example we partnered with Age Concern, Consumer NZ and the Financial Services Council for the Fair Tax for Savers campaign) where our objectives align.

An analysis of our media releases shows that we have criticised the National led government more often than any other party or entity.

Of the 192 media releases made by the Taxpayers’ Union since we started operations in October 2013, 121 media statements have been about central government of which 67 have criticised some aspect of the National Government’s policy and just 12 statements have supported a policy stance.    

The figures for Labour are 9 statements against and one in favour; for the Greens it is four against and two in favour.

So 67 statements criticising National, 9 criticising Labour, and four criticising the Greens. Hardly a pro-National front!

I’ve said a number of times that the Taxpayers Union will generally be most annoying to the Government of the Day, no matter which party that is. And I think it is vital there is at least one voice arguing for less spending to balance the thousands of lobby groups (most taxpayer funded) that argue for more.

We backed Winston Peters on the Interislander issue, and criticised a NZF candidate for double dipping and commended another NZF candidate, Ron Mark, for promising not to do so. We have issued only three statements about the Mana Party all critical of some aspect of their policy. …

We have criticised the current government on nine separate occasions for its continued use of taxpayers’ money in grants and handouts to so called growth companies. We called these ‘corporate welfare’ and in turn we have been attacked by Minister Stephen Joyce for doing so.

And we went after government Minister Todd McLay for getting a government grant to back a tourism project in his own electorate. The “stench of pork barrel politics in Rotorua” was our headline.

We have upset Business New Zealand as well as the Council of Trade Unions for revealing government funding to a joint venture those two bodies had for health and safety training. The ACC’s audit of the training labelled it a waste of time, and the government withdrew the funding.

We have also campaigned against the government’s decision to make passports valid for only five years, and we claim some credit in forcing a rethink which has put ten year passports back on the agenda.

Pleased to see Labour now backing a ten year passport also.

We have been genuine in our efforts to hold the government to account and to promote better policy and more effective spending.  We will continue to do that regardless of the outcome of the election.

The Taxpayers Union is a fiscally conservative organisation that believes in taxpayers getting to keep more of their own money, and that spending shouldn’t grow faster than the economy as a whole. They are (generally but not exclusively) centre-right values, but the Union is independent of all political parties, and will continue to be a strong voice for its beliefs.

National has announced:

A re-elected National-led Government will spend $100 million over 10 years to buy and retire selected areas of farmland next to important waterways to create an environmental buffer that helps improve water quality.

National will also introduce a mandatory requirement to exclude dairy cattle from waterways.

National’s Environment Spokeswoman, Amy Adams, and Primary Industries spokesman Nathan Guy made the announcement at the Waituna Lagoon in Southland with Prime Minister and National Party Leader John Key today.

“New Zealand’s freshwater makes us an incredibly lucky country. We have over 400,000 kilometres of rivers and more than 4,000 lakes,” Ms Adams says.

“New Zealand’s water is among the very best in the world and we want to keep it that way. These are the next steps in our considered and sensible plan to continual improvements in freshwater quality.

“We are particularly committed to improving the quality of our freshwater and have made a number of key decisions that previous governments have put in the too-hard basket.

“This Government has introduced national standards for freshwater to safeguard it for future generations,” Ms Adams says. “That new framework will give communities around the country the tools to maintain and improve the quality of their lakes and rivers.

“To continue this progress, the next National-led Government will invest $100 million over 10 years to further enhance the quality of freshwater through a targeted fund to buy and retire areas of farmland next to waterways.

This seems like a moderate sensible policy. We all want cleaner waterways, but the extreme solutions of the Greens would see our national dairy herd reduce by at least 20%, with a corresponding fall in exports and incomes.

National will also introduce a requirement to exclude dairy cattle from waterways by 1 July 2017, and will work with industry to exclude other cattle from waterways over time on intensively farmed lowland properties, says Ms Adams.

“National is committed to building a stronger economy, particularly in our regions. We are also determined to improve the quality of our environment at the same time, and we are confident we can achieve both.”

Mr Guy says dairy farmers have done a fantastic job addressing some of the key environmental issues they face, and they have fenced over 23,000 kilometres of waterways – over 90 per cent of all dairy farm waterways.

“This is an incredible undertaking to do voluntarily. At the end of the day, farmers are environmentalists; they want to leave their land in a better state for their children, and their grandchildren.

Farmers are not the enemy.

A reader writes in:

Tonight at a public meeting in Rotorua that I attended, Catherine Delahunty made an interesting interjection.

After an ACT candidate argued that unduly restrictive policies would have us all living in caves again, Catherine interjected:

“there’s nothing wrong with living in caves”

I trust the reader that this is an accurate recollection of the quote. Would be interested to hear from anyone else at that meeting, who can confirm it.

Good to have the Greens not deny the impact of their policies 🙂

A parliamentary staffer notes to me:

Not sure how Cunliffe’s attempt to clarify Labour’s CGT squares with the summary below in their policy document, which doesn’t specifically exclude family homes owned by trusts, and in fact says trusts could not be used to avoid the CGT.

Excluding trust-owned houses from a CGT would seem to raise questions about whether different trustees of the same trust, who live in different houses, would be exempt from a CGT on a number of properties, which would become complicated and costly in terms of foregone revenue.

I also wonder whether Labour’s revenue forecasts were counting on homes held in trusts being included? After all David Cunliffe has said their Capital Gains Trust will lead to families and businesses paying an extra $4 to $5 billion a year in tax.

In Labour’s policy summary their exemptions are:

Exemptions: The family home, personal assets, collectables, small business assets sold for retirement and payouts from retirement savings schemes, including KiwiSaver, will be exempt.

It is not at all clear whether this exemption includes family homes in trusts. I expect the IRD will need to hire hundreds of new staff to deal with such a complex CGT.

I support NZ having a Capital Gains Tax, so long as income and company tax rates fall to compensate. But the CGT should be like GST – with almost no exemptions. Labour’s one is so complicated even the guy who designed it (Cunliffe was Finance Spokesperson when Labour adopted it) doesn’t know how it works.

Rob Hosing at NBR also makes a good point. He states that property speculators are already taxed if they buy and sell property to make capital gains. He gives an example of how someone in Auckland who buys a house for $750,000 and sells it a year later for $900,000 will pay (probably) 33% of the $150,000 profit if they are a property speculator.

Under the current law their tax bill would be $49,500. Under Labour’s Capital Gains Tax they will pay just 15% on their capital gain, so just $22,500 in tax.

Now it is hard to prove someone is a property speculator but National gave the IRD $6.65 million to enforce the current law more vigorously and this lead to an extra $57 million in tax revenue from property speculators.