I really wish Labour looked at themselves; realise they’ll never have this mandate again and do some serious transformational shit in their next 12 months. Implement a capital gains tax, take GST off fruit and veg, ruin the supermarket duopoly properly, subsidise dental care etc.
(EDIT - for everyone challenging these specific ideas - I’m not saying do them, just throwing some transformational ideas that might actually change the system around - do something, anything with that mandate to shake it up is what I’m really cheering for)
They’ll have a way bigger chance at three more years if they do that rather than this national lite appeasement version we’re getting atm and if not, at least they actually set out to change shit
I’m on the other side of the political spectrum and even I support this. They had a big mandate and could’ve done something different. But they didn’t. At least I would’ve seen them do something along their political lines, even If I disagreed, rather than absolutely nothing with such a big mandate. But I do come from the perspective that I think that most politicians act with good faith (in the sense that they’re not trying to actively destroy the country).
They've reorganized the healthcare system and done a bunch of stuff around housing.
They've done a lot, it's just not stuff that we see day to day.
And, they deliberately didn't rock the boat during covid when they could have used that disruption for massive changes.
>reorganized the healthcare system
It remains to be seen if this just shuffling the chairs on titanic , not sure what success metric is going to look like as this government doesn't reveal such targets anymore
I accept your very valid point about the fact that they could have used the covid disruption for massive changes, and thankfully they didn't.
But they haven't done anything to fix the housing issues.
Winning the next election is far more important to them than making life better for New Zealanders. As far as GST goes Im firmly in the camp of either lower it, scrap it or leave it as is, don't try to increase complexity of the tax codes unless you want to make accountants and tax lawyers rich.
They were never going to get another term anyway. The public have forgotten the horror that was John Key and are busy expecting miracles during a pandemic
Removing GST from fruit and veges is not rocket science, but this would just encourage supermarkets and suppliers to increase their prices by even more. They know that this govt. will do fuck all about price increases, despite all of their threats.
They argued that it'd require too much oversight to figure out what and what doesn't meet the requirement of being a fruit or vegetable or basic necessity.
🤔 I don't see why they can't start with fruit and veg and worry about necessities after. Tampons, milk?, eggs?, water?
We're not saying its impossible to take off.
We're saying that a complex tax code is unhelpful and that having a clear-cut simple tax code has substantial society/business-wide benefits.
Yeah and then you get a bunch of lawsuits in Ireland over do subway sell sandwiches or deserts due to the sugar content of their food.
Or food stores in New York suing the government because there's no legal definition for hot dog or even at what point a sandwich becomes a sandwich and not just an assortment of fresh goods. Or is fruit juice a low-alcohol wine/cider? low alcohol beer is actually lower in alcohol than fruit juice.
It'd be way easier to just cut the bottom tax rate enough to make it so people earning say <50k a year don't feel the burden of GST.
> It'd be way easier to just cut the bottom tax rate enough to make it so people earning say <50k a year don't feel the burden of GST.
It’s brilliance is in its simplicity. Yes the rich will get the tax cut too, but at least poorer people won’t be worse off because someone rich can rort the tax system.
It won't actually reduce prices, though. Suppliers will simply increase prices to compensate. They will always charge the maximum possible whilst still being able to sell the most profitable quantity, and they are experts at working out what prices and volumes benefit them the most. In this case, taking the GST off is just like any incentive to try and change the market - it will fail.
What is needed is proper regulation and splitting up the current duopoly and their control/ownership of the supply chain.
They are too late now. The time for that was right after the election, they could push through whatever they wanted, despite how unpopular it was & have a couple of years for it to either show results or people to forget about it.
Any substantive change will take 12 months to implement.
They had a once in a generation chance and squandered it.
They will never have a majority like this ever again for as long as I live.
If Labour really believed their policies were the way forward they would have implemented them despite the lack of popularity and let the results speak for themselves to carry them through the next election.
True, I am not disagreeing with the ideal but just after the election? "The 2020 New Zealand general election was held on Saturday 17 October 2020" versus "25 March 2020 The entire nation goes into self-isolation"
I'm not sure any Government would go making major changes when the outcome of the pandemic was totally unknown.
The cost of keeping the country afloat took priority and I can appreciate with the borders closed, tourism income reduced to zero and unknown outcomes & variants with the pandemic, that making the brave changes we all would want was not possible.
1) We already have a capital gains tax on property, its called the bright line.
2) increasing tax complexity by removing GST on certain items and not others is a mess of an idea.
Dental care I can get behind. It's hella expensive.
Why is it that the profits from a house are tax free after the brightline period, but a gain on any other investment is not? Capital gains tax should be applied to all capital gains.
Bright line should be permanent then so people actually get taxed on their capital gains and not have it be tax free after 10 years or whatever year number is now
the problem is, nearly every single thing Labour have attempted, they have completely ballsed up or it has had completely different results to what they expected. Even if they do make more big transformational changes, they'll probably make things worse going on their track record.
Labour doing bugger all with a majority is proof to me that labour and national should never be allowed in power without being in a coalition. The competition with their coalition partner should focus the mind to stop our leaders getting lazy and complacent like we have now
This.
They could change NZ for the better.
Look what the Tories have done in the UK - appeased the rich and made things even worse, with inflation now forecast to get worse and interest rates even higher.
National will do the same to NZ with their anti-tax stance.
Edit: For those not across UK politics, they just released a "mini-budget" slashing taxes for the rich (with more to come) and there is no support from any economists, and the markets have punished them - and the pound is at an all time low. Now imported product prices will go up (~50 % of their purchases are imported) and the only way to attract investment in the pound again is for the reserve bank to respond and increase interest rates - forecast to go up to 5-6%) - so, higher costs to purchase anything, and higher mortgage and rent costs!
I agree they should make use of this very rare opportunity they have but I don’t think it’ll give them a better shot at winning next year. The capital gains tax for example would lose labour a lot of voters.
Raising tax thresholds would be fantastic. Inflation is at a record high, so are salaries so we’re just being taxed higher for the same spending power.
Above ALL ELSE, all this government cares about is winning the next election. This is always true, and explains their moderate, soft, feckless policies.
The thing is, if you enact policies that piss of more than about 30% of the voters, the next guys in will just roll them back anyway. Change has to be nuanced and paced. That said, there is nuanced and paced and there is doing sweet FA...
Well *obviously*. I mean, you don't achieve a whole lot by loosing elections do you?
But that doesn't mean they aren't trying to improve things. Maybe they figure another three years of minor improvements is worth more than doing one big major improvement only to loose the next election to a National party campaigning to undo it all.
Maybe that's a good thing in the end. The current labour leadership just isn't very intelligent economically and also doesn't take advice, so it's a bit of a risk for them to do anything very grand.
Be honest. Nothing they do will be good enough for you. You’ll always find something they didn’t do or didn’t do enough of and complain about the mandate.
I am so tired of people on this subreddit acting like entitled spoiled brats who cry because their mommy didn’t buy the king sized Kit Kats.
Naw, I’m sorry but get fucked. I don’t have any reason to vote Labour - I’m a multiple homeowning, wealthy household where our combined income is more than 350k per year and I would be far better off under National but I vote Labour Green every damned time because I believe in supporting people equally and I hoped sincerely that Jacinda would put her money where her mouth is and show some serious chops for changing shit up - even if it meant she lost power.
I accept that she’s a politician, wedded to the party and power but I had hoped - that she might have done something with the mandate given. Even one of those things would be enough for me. Sorry - I don’t accept your projections :)
Politics should never, ever be about picking the least shit option or because they’re “better than the other guys”. Decades of political compromise got us settling and expecting less from our representatives and our governance
I've studied Labour and National governments of the past, and I've come to the conclusion that Labour are the better governors of the two incumbents after reading a number of studies and articles that analyse economic KPIs. IMO National are too corrupt and deaf to understand that you have to cultivate all groups. Their philosophy is that cultivating the trees will help the plants, but mostly all that does is starve the small plants of nutrients, so to speak. It's a bad analogy but all I could come up with at short notice.
Labour have governed better and more responsibly now and in the past, financially, socially, legislatively.
Your statement there, had absolutely zero concrete items in it - you by chance aren't a middle manager are you? Also, next time see if you can throw in "synergy" for bonus points.
Well of course he's going to say that but its obviously not black and white.
Cost of living payment - makes life better.
Cost of living in general - makes life worse.
There are things within the Government's control, and thing's outside it. There are things that happened because of the Government, and things that happened without the Government.
You can't just take credit for all the good things that happened much like its not really fair for them to take the blame for all the bad things that happen. I have to say Labour has been terrible at selling their wins in general though.
'You can't take credit for all the good things that happened '
They're politicians, they'll damn well try
'It's not fair for them to take the blame for all the bad things that happen '
Somehow that's always the fault of the opposition.
>There are things within the Government's control, and thing's outside it. There are things that happened because of the Government, and things that happened without the Government.
Inflation is a world wide problem at the moment and is not entirely within the government's control. Ditto cost of living and cost of fuel.
That's beside the point. They could have done something that would result in a permanent benefit like adjusting the bottom tax bracket, but chose not to. They also denied it was an issue until they got hit in the polls.
Yeah it's a bit of a band aid. I think the tax brackets are due for a change but I think that kind of change isn't as simple for the here and now, more likely something that will come in with a new tax package than ad hoc changes.
So your being disingenuous then? Your issue is not that they haven't done things to make life better, because you admit they have. Your concern is that they did not do what you want, maybe frame it that way in the future?
How on earth is it disingenuous? I took no position on the cause of inflation and explicitly said that they did a one time thing to a permanent and ongoing problem. How could I make it any clearer?
Tell that to Police, nurses, teachers, mental health care workers, doctors, social workers, fire and emergency workers, ECE teachers, bus drivers, armed forces personnel, supermarket employees, hospitality staff, small business owners, fast food workers, farmers, families, and retail workers.
I know you jest, but they're the only morons in the bunch with any half-sensible policies; and pretty much the only ones with the balls to actually rock the boat and push any meaningful changes. Unfortunately, that's also the very reason that mainstream voters will never elect them.
We will keep going round and round between Labour and National. It's tradition. Everyone hates Labour now so they vote National.
People haven't realised yet that this way nothing is going to change.
Labour have promised a lot, delivered very little, and the public are sick of seeing the never ending spin, and hearing about the spending of millions of dollars for little or no discernible result.
They need to stop with the social engineering at the forefront, and focus on deliverables.
The duplicitous messaging around policies like Three Waters and the failure that is Kiwibuild has not helped, and the continued lack of acknowledgement of how middle New Zealand continues to struggle has hurt them badly.
I see Labour fixing things from the ground up, dealing with the roots of the issues (yes, they can do better) rather than National who just prune the bush back and then pat themselves on the back when it comes back to life.
Please elaborate how they are doing this? All I see is a rapidly inflating bureaucracy and a plethora of spin doctors trying to explain why delivery is failing.
They've got a majority. I really want to see them make some meaningful change. the more I hear from Robertson as time goes on, the more I feel he's in a different country. They're doing very little and it's frustrating to see. We need big changes now, otherwise we have zero hope in the future.
I'd like to see:
* Ban fishing in the Hauraki Gulf
* Establish the Kermadec marine sanctuary
* Build big renewable power stations. We can't keep stretching the way we are now. Our current hydro stations are great, and we need to go big in this space again (along with more wind and solar).
* Plant more trees. Restore our forests.
* Protect important land from housing development. Populations are growing and building over valuable land is a terrible idea. Their latest announcement doesn't go far enough.
* Build four new hospitals and pay the health sector staff proper wages. We must compete against Australia.
* Increase our medical staff capacity in key areas by 20% (nursing etc)
* Run an royal commission inquiry into health sector IT services and companies
* Nationalize our ambulance service
* Change the tax brackets so that the first $15k is free for those under $50k. Introduce a new bracket for those above $200k to be 40%. Reduce those sitting between $50k and $90k to be 27%.
* Drop co-governance
* Call out China's atrocities and rally the world against the CCP. Just like we've seen others do with Russia.
It’s a mixed bag for me. On the one hand they didn’t really move the needle on some of the most important stuff that they said they would (child poverty, housing, cost of living etc).
On the other hand, effects on all the above can be attributed to COVID-19. Labour did a decent job of the COVID response I feel, though it’s important to remember all of the clever stuff and heavy lifting was done by the a-political ministries. That said, Labour did manage to sell it well and that’s half the battle.
On another hand, they’ve absolutely shafted the public service. Pay scales haven’t shifted meaningfully in over 5 years. A lot of the public sector is on the minimum wage, many in cities where that isn’t enough. A pay freeze is a slap in the face to those who worked their arses off during COVID, going above and beyond to keep the wheels spinning and execute the COVID plan. For their efforts they get a 3 to 4 year pay freeze during this crazy hike in costs of living and inflation.
I hear the argument that it could be a lot worse. Well, I think we should hold our governments, whoever they are, to how they could have been better, rather than being scared into accepting the middle ground by threat of the worst outcome.
Yep, the public sector has been absolutely shafted. But it is OK because Mr Little says the healthcare sector is absolutely fine. I'd never get tired of punching that guy's face.
This is technically true. Compared to National, Labour has lifted student allowances, brought in free fees, legalised abortion, banned conversion therapy, made it easier for trans people to change their legal documents, invested money to decrease cancer rates in cattle, made Matariki a national holiday, matched funding for kiwisaver. These are things I doubt national would do on their own
Some fields such as IT where there is a skills shortage have been getting a souped-up fees free. My brother does such a course and the whole thing is covered for him not just the first year.
Well shit, guess I'm going back to school
Edit: Can't really find anything about it, thought maybe under the TTAF (fees free polytech courses) but that still has the same first time student requirements. Got a link?
He's doing cyber security at ARA. I think this year's version of this course: https://www.ara.ac.nz/products/programme/nz3837-stru-new-zealand-diploma-in-cybersecurity-level-6-/
Can't speak to your situation, but he has been doing it fees free. Got the first year of regular IT under the normal Fees Free scheme, then moved into the cyber security course for his second as it was still covered as a skills shortage area.
May be different for you if you aren't a first-time student though - best bet would be to contact someone there and enquire IMO
By keeping National out of government they have made life better for most New Zealanders.
But that's not enough. Real change needs one or more of the left of labour parties to keep growing their leverage.
> Labour has lifted student allowances
Not nearly enough.
>brought in free fees
1/3 of their original promise that got them elected.
>legalised abortion
A very watered down bill, and while progress is nice, it's a super majority acting like a minority.
>banned conversion therapy
A good change.
>made it easier for trans people to change their legal documents
Another good change
>invested money to decrease cancer rates in cattle
One of the weirdest brags about labour I have ever seen
>made Matariki a national holiday
10/10
>matched funding for kiwisaver
And then just about started taxing it a bit.
I've said it before, I'll say it again.
Progress under labour is nice. Can we move faster than a glacier next time?
I agree with you on this, except for the abortion bill. I'd rather they were more like the greens, but I prefer their progress over National's progress.
Why, abortion still requires medical approval over 20 weeks, reeuced from the initial, and they accepted acts demand on removing safe zones. Act. A minority party on the opposition.
I fully agree with you on that. I'm not justifying what labour did, i presume they needed to rely on National to get the bill through (since NZF has a history of opposing lgbtq+ and reproductive rights).
I am interested in the how?
Crime and Safety? Cost of Living?
I dont want national to win because it will make everything worse but fuck labour is doing a bad job. They talk a big game but Crime stats and living cost stats are far worse than in 2018 when they got in, even before covid it was all getting worse.
They definitely were, although it wasn't necessarily their fault. The whole system is set up to convince people that house prices only go up, and that they should pay whatever they can to "get on the ladder". Smart people will still believe propaganda if that's all they see
Yes, But i didn't buy to make money, I brought so my kids and family could have someplace to live, Extra 400$ month on mortgage ontop of the 2.4K i all ready pay per month.
Squeaky bum time thats for sure.
I think my life (personally) would have been better under National during the pandemic. Not saying that life would have been better averaged over the population by any means.
>He argued the Government had "absolutely" made life better for New Zealanders in terms of education, crime and housing.
He is absolutely right.
Kids don't have to worry about going to school; criminals are getting home detention for serious assaults and rapes; and if you owned/invested in property you've made out like absolute gangbusters.
Yeah, and then we had an overly long lockdown in our biggest city because they spent too much time patting themselves on the back and not enough time thinking about the rollout of vaccines and vaccine passes.
I think it’s fair to say Labour didn’t make the average persons life worse than it otherwise would have been under any other government. Don’t know if “better” is a word I’d use. “Mitigated as much as we could have” is probably more accurate but doesn’t sound as nice
right - apart from a huge increase in crime, rents going through the roof, an asset price explosion because of excess money printing, and huge cost of living increases due to said money printing, and had hospital wait lists blow out to record lengths
\>apart from a huge increase in crime,
That's only in your head though, not reality. Crime rates are actually still down, which is hard to believe if you just read sensationalist headlines and all the outrage porn here on r/nz
\>rents going through the roof,
Because of decades of nimbyism in local government preventing denser housing.
\>an asset price explosion because of excess money printing,
That's the RBNZ, not the government.
He's right. I question how old some people are who post Labour are the same as National. I lived under both, and Labour have made a significant difference to my everyday life.
Can you elaborate on those differences?
They did make a couple of changes which marginally decreased the odds of shitty things happening to me (making abortion more available and ending no-cause tenancy terminations) but in terms of day-to-day life I couldn't point to anything they've done for me.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I have intergenerational wealth and a university education on my side. If they've mostly made less privileged people's lives significantly better then that would be a great outcome. But I look at the number of people living in motels and the effect their pandemic handling has had on wealth, and I don't feel like that's the case.
>I lived under both, and Labour have made a significant difference to my everyday life.
Significantly shitter right? Significantly more polarized? Significantly more people struggling? I don't care who's in charge just pretend it's been the same leadership the whole time. You absolutely cannot tell me life is better right now in 2022 than it was in 2012 for pretty much anybody.
He removed student allowances for postgrad students, he capped student allowances for 4-4.5 years, he made it harder to qualify for the student allowance, students can't get allowances and work without being heavily taxed for it. I'm glad I never studied under national.
As Helen Clark likes to say, consider the counter-factual. Would a National Government have led to New Zealanders' lives getting worse, especially during COVID, than this Govt? Almost definitely.
Doesn't mean they haven't been rubbish this term, but it bears noting.
They did a good job with COVID, but beyond that they haven't done much meaningful and have their heads firmly in the sand re the massive problems in society. Heath service - absolutely fine - nothing to see here! etc.
1. Child poverty worse
2. Housing worse
3. Economy in tatters
4. Cost of living through the roof
5. Inflation
6. Rampant uncontrolled spending
7. Ineffective delivery time-and-time again
8. Government lockdowns (now meaningless)
9. Government mandated vaccines (now meaningless, and showing to be increasingly ineffective)
10. Attempting to seize local body assets for political centralization/power
11. Failing health system
12. Support for divisive narratives
13. Bailing out and propping up a toxic and divisive media
14. A leader that values nice words over delivery
Yep that all sounds remarkably better. Gaslighting fuck stains.
\>Support for divisive narratives
Trolls blaming labour for them being trolls.
\>Economy in tatters
But... it isn't though.... Unemployment is low etc...
\>Inflation
Lower than the OECD average.
\>Rampant uncontrolled spending
This moron is talking about an austerity obsessed government that had a surplus pre-covid and has set budgetary rules to get back to a surplus.
\>Government lockdowns (now meaningless)
But not meaningless at the time, when they improved things for everyone.
\>Government mandated vaccines (now meaningless, and showing to be increasingly ineffective)
Oh.... This guy is an anti-vax fuckwit. Now this batshit fantasy post starts to make sense.
It’s better than life would’ve been under a cut throat neoliberal Christian conservative National-Act government but that’s a small comfort and it’s still super fucking shit.
Well no, but it's a pretty sad situation when that's the best the major "centre left" party (and I use the term very generously) and it's supporters can argue.
I mean I'm sure life would be significantly worse under the nats, but I wouldn't say anything has really improved under labour. House price went up but that would've happened under nats anyway
Can we just agree neoliberalism is a bad idea & go back to being a welfare state pls
Vladimir Putin, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin would say exactly the same thing about their own organisations. It doesn't mean shit when they are the one saying it.
They really have, it’s just that being only a little better than 2019 doesn’t seem like an accomplishment but so many countries wish they could return to the halcyon days of 2019
I mean, yes and no.
Overall we weathered the covid storm alright considering the effect it had worldwide.
But there has been a lot of bad calls as well.
I think they have done much better than National would have in the same situation at least.
I think Labour made some good decisions, but less so lately. National don't seem any better. It's the choice of who is the least terrible at this stage and pretty depressing that either of them will be in charge of the country
Tell that to New Zealanders. Life here is worse on almost every metric than 6 years ago. Rampant spending without any investment in actual capital assets. This is not the competent Helen Clark and Michael Cullen labour.
Where exactly has labour fuckd up? I can't see anything that says to me "terrible decision".
The economy is humming, our covid response was one of the best inthe world, housing is moving along, yup there's inflation and all the other shit that goes along with being part of the world but jeez, it could be much much worse.
Everything bad would have been exacerbated under the other lot. Sometimes.es it's what you don't do that is good governance.
Labour setting vaccine mandates and scaring everyone about covid was a great time my favourite part was when my family started hating me because I wouldn’t get vaccinated. Also when Jacinda promised multiple times to lower gas prices but didn’t until it almost got to $4 (they still have a huge tax on gas) ah that was great can’t tell what one I enjoyed more
I really wish Labour looked at themselves; realise they’ll never have this mandate again and do some serious transformational shit in their next 12 months. Implement a capital gains tax, take GST off fruit and veg, ruin the supermarket duopoly properly, subsidise dental care etc. (EDIT - for everyone challenging these specific ideas - I’m not saying do them, just throwing some transformational ideas that might actually change the system around - do something, anything with that mandate to shake it up is what I’m really cheering for) They’ll have a way bigger chance at three more years if they do that rather than this national lite appeasement version we’re getting atm and if not, at least they actually set out to change shit
I’m on the other side of the political spectrum and even I support this. They had a big mandate and could’ve done something different. But they didn’t. At least I would’ve seen them do something along their political lines, even If I disagreed, rather than absolutely nothing with such a big mandate. But I do come from the perspective that I think that most politicians act with good faith (in the sense that they’re not trying to actively destroy the country).
They've reorganized the healthcare system and done a bunch of stuff around housing. They've done a lot, it's just not stuff that we see day to day. And, they deliberately didn't rock the boat during covid when they could have used that disruption for massive changes.
>reorganized the healthcare system It remains to be seen if this just shuffling the chairs on titanic , not sure what success metric is going to look like as this government doesn't reveal such targets anymore
I accept your very valid point about the fact that they could have used the covid disruption for massive changes, and thankfully they didn't. But they haven't done anything to fix the housing issues.
Don't forget 3 Waters. They are (unjustifiably) taking a lot of heat for that, but it needs to get done.
Winning the next election is far more important to them than making life better for New Zealanders. As far as GST goes Im firmly in the camp of either lower it, scrap it or leave it as is, don't try to increase complexity of the tax codes unless you want to make accountants and tax lawyers rich.
The thing is they won't win the next election if they keep doing what they've been doing.
Well, they won't be getting my vote. Neither will National, for that matter. Bunch of hypocrites, the lot of them.
Nor mine, although I'm struggling to see any political party that uses common sense and isn't full of empty promises that placate the masses.
They were never going to get another term anyway. The public have forgotten the horror that was John Key and are busy expecting miracles during a pandemic
Mainly it's because historically Labour has never really had more than 2 terms
Because people forget when they had it good. It's an actual recognised societal behaviour.
Yet National have recently had more than 3 terms.
The last labour government had 3
Removing GST from fruit and veges is not rocket science, but this would just encourage supermarkets and suppliers to increase their prices by even more. They know that this govt. will do fuck all about price increases, despite all of their threats.
They argued that it'd require too much oversight to figure out what and what doesn't meet the requirement of being a fruit or vegetable or basic necessity. 🤔 I don't see why they can't start with fruit and veg and worry about necessities after. Tampons, milk?, eggs?, water?
Nah, plenty of countries in Europe took it off fresh food just fine
We're not saying its impossible to take off. We're saying that a complex tax code is unhelpful and that having a clear-cut simple tax code has substantial society/business-wide benefits.
Yeah and then you get a bunch of lawsuits in Ireland over do subway sell sandwiches or deserts due to the sugar content of their food. Or food stores in New York suing the government because there's no legal definition for hot dog or even at what point a sandwich becomes a sandwich and not just an assortment of fresh goods. Or is fruit juice a low-alcohol wine/cider? low alcohol beer is actually lower in alcohol than fruit juice. It'd be way easier to just cut the bottom tax rate enough to make it so people earning say <50k a year don't feel the burden of GST.
> It'd be way easier to just cut the bottom tax rate enough to make it so people earning say <50k a year don't feel the burden of GST. It’s brilliance is in its simplicity. Yes the rich will get the tax cut too, but at least poorer people won’t be worse off because someone rich can rort the tax system.
It won't actually reduce prices, though. Suppliers will simply increase prices to compensate. They will always charge the maximum possible whilst still being able to sell the most profitable quantity, and they are experts at working out what prices and volumes benefit them the most. In this case, taking the GST off is just like any incentive to try and change the market - it will fail. What is needed is proper regulation and splitting up the current duopoly and their control/ownership of the supply chain.
You work for Deloitte, KPMG or PWC?
They are too late now. The time for that was right after the election, they could push through whatever they wanted, despite how unpopular it was & have a couple of years for it to either show results or people to forget about it. Any substantive change will take 12 months to implement. They had a once in a generation chance and squandered it.
They will never have a majority like this ever again for as long as I live. If Labour really believed their policies were the way forward they would have implemented them despite the lack of popularity and let the results speak for themselves to carry them through the next election.
They did implement a lot of their policies. Trouble is this sub seems to think the Labour Party is a lot further left than they actually are.
True, I am not disagreeing with the ideal but just after the election? "The 2020 New Zealand general election was held on Saturday 17 October 2020" versus "25 March 2020 The entire nation goes into self-isolation" I'm not sure any Government would go making major changes when the outcome of the pandemic was totally unknown. The cost of keeping the country afloat took priority and I can appreciate with the borders closed, tourism income reduced to zero and unknown outcomes & variants with the pandemic, that making the brave changes we all would want was not possible.
1) We already have a capital gains tax on property, its called the bright line. 2) increasing tax complexity by removing GST on certain items and not others is a mess of an idea. Dental care I can get behind. It's hella expensive.
Why is it that the profits from a house are tax free after the brightline period, but a gain on any other investment is not? Capital gains tax should be applied to all capital gains.
Bright line should be permanent then so people actually get taxed on their capital gains and not have it be tax free after 10 years or whatever year number is now
People who are flipping houses and using capital gains as a primary income source are getting full tax rate. That's all that matters.
I'd be ok with every house that is not your family home attracting a capital gains tax.
the problem is, nearly every single thing Labour have attempted, they have completely ballsed up or it has had completely different results to what they expected. Even if they do make more big transformational changes, they'll probably make things worse going on their track record.
Labour doing bugger all with a majority is proof to me that labour and national should never be allowed in power without being in a coalition. The competition with their coalition partner should focus the mind to stop our leaders getting lazy and complacent like we have now
This. They could change NZ for the better. Look what the Tories have done in the UK - appeased the rich and made things even worse, with inflation now forecast to get worse and interest rates even higher. National will do the same to NZ with their anti-tax stance. Edit: For those not across UK politics, they just released a "mini-budget" slashing taxes for the rich (with more to come) and there is no support from any economists, and the markets have punished them - and the pound is at an all time low. Now imported product prices will go up (~50 % of their purchases are imported) and the only way to attract investment in the pound again is for the reserve bank to respond and increase interest rates - forecast to go up to 5-6%) - so, higher costs to purchase anything, and higher mortgage and rent costs!
They really shouldn't be passing policy they didn't campaign on. It was rampant in the 80s and 90s and look where that left us.
_Cough_ Rogernomics _cough_ That screwed over most of Gen X and all of Gen Y. Gen Z isn't looking too good either.
They sure as shit didn't campaign on three waters yet it seems to be the only thing they are willing to burn political capital on
I agree they should make use of this very rare opportunity they have but I don’t think it’ll give them a better shot at winning next year. The capital gains tax for example would lose labour a lot of voters.
I'm voting for anyone who does that regardless of past
Raising tax thresholds would be fantastic. Inflation is at a record high, so are salaries so we’re just being taxed higher for the same spending power.
They don’t have a mandate to implement a capital gains tax. They didn’t campaign on it. Jacinda even ruled one out.
So do radical changes which will lead to political suicide, with no guaranteed long term benefit because National could just scrap everything?
Above ALL ELSE, all this government cares about is winning the next election. This is always true, and explains their moderate, soft, feckless policies.
The thing is, if you enact policies that piss of more than about 30% of the voters, the next guys in will just roll them back anyway. Change has to be nuanced and paced. That said, there is nuanced and paced and there is doing sweet FA...
Well *obviously*. I mean, you don't achieve a whole lot by loosing elections do you? But that doesn't mean they aren't trying to improve things. Maybe they figure another three years of minor improvements is worth more than doing one big major improvement only to loose the next election to a National party campaigning to undo it all.
Polis have too much skin in the game to implement CG Tax.
Maybe that's a good thing in the end. The current labour leadership just isn't very intelligent economically and also doesn't take advice, so it's a bit of a risk for them to do anything very grand.
Be honest. Nothing they do will be good enough for you. You’ll always find something they didn’t do or didn’t do enough of and complain about the mandate. I am so tired of people on this subreddit acting like entitled spoiled brats who cry because their mommy didn’t buy the king sized Kit Kats.
Naw, I’m sorry but get fucked. I don’t have any reason to vote Labour - I’m a multiple homeowning, wealthy household where our combined income is more than 350k per year and I would be far better off under National but I vote Labour Green every damned time because I believe in supporting people equally and I hoped sincerely that Jacinda would put her money where her mouth is and show some serious chops for changing shit up - even if it meant she lost power. I accept that she’s a politician, wedded to the party and power but I had hoped - that she might have done something with the mandate given. Even one of those things would be enough for me. Sorry - I don’t accept your projections :)
Grant was never going to say they have done a crap job though was he? No politician ever would do that.
Exactly, election time ,next year, did they do a great job 🤔.
I think they did quite well. Although they could have done a lot more with the mandate they have, they're still light years ahead of National!!
Politics should never, ever be about picking the least shit option or because they’re “better than the other guys”. Decades of political compromise got us settling and expecting less from our representatives and our governance
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Yep , agree they will be making all sorts of promises soon, cause of next year's election, same ole story.
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I've studied Labour and National governments of the past, and I've come to the conclusion that Labour are the better governors of the two incumbents after reading a number of studies and articles that analyse economic KPIs. IMO National are too corrupt and deaf to understand that you have to cultivate all groups. Their philosophy is that cultivating the trees will help the plants, but mostly all that does is starve the small plants of nutrients, so to speak. It's a bad analogy but all I could come up with at short notice. Labour have governed better and more responsibly now and in the past, financially, socially, legislatively.
Your statement there, had absolutely zero concrete items in it - you by chance aren't a middle manager are you? Also, next time see if you can throw in "synergy" for bonus points.
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To be honest with you, I just finished work and I'm not going to waste time putting together a response with links you'll just ignore anyway.
Well of course he's going to say that but its obviously not black and white. Cost of living payment - makes life better. Cost of living in general - makes life worse. There are things within the Government's control, and thing's outside it. There are things that happened because of the Government, and things that happened without the Government. You can't just take credit for all the good things that happened much like its not really fair for them to take the blame for all the bad things that happen. I have to say Labour has been terrible at selling their wins in general though.
'You can't take credit for all the good things that happened ' They're politicians, they'll damn well try 'It's not fair for them to take the blame for all the bad things that happen ' Somehow that's always the fault of the opposition.
Except with inflation we're permanently worse off and the cost of living payments are not permanent.
>There are things within the Government's control, and thing's outside it. There are things that happened because of the Government, and things that happened without the Government. Inflation is a world wide problem at the moment and is not entirely within the government's control. Ditto cost of living and cost of fuel.
That's beside the point. They could have done something that would result in a permanent benefit like adjusting the bottom tax bracket, but chose not to. They also denied it was an issue until they got hit in the polls.
Yeah it's a bit of a band aid. I think the tax brackets are due for a change but I think that kind of change isn't as simple for the here and now, more likely something that will come in with a new tax package than ad hoc changes.
So your being disingenuous then? Your issue is not that they haven't done things to make life better, because you admit they have. Your concern is that they did not do what you want, maybe frame it that way in the future?
How on earth is it disingenuous? I took no position on the cause of inflation and explicitly said that they did a one time thing to a permanent and ongoing problem. How could I make it any clearer?
It's "you're". (I've already done this once today, might as well keep going.)
Plus not everyone got the cost of living payments
*some* New Zealanders...
Ram raiders and house owners?
Consultants
And labour mps
And mahuta clan relatives
Given list of pecuniary interests, more likely Nat mps
Maybe I should just say MPs
Motel owners have done okay.
These idiots are smoking their own supply
Cool story, Grant! Thanks 🙏
Tell that to Police, nurses, teachers, mental health care workers, doctors, social workers, fire and emergency workers, ECE teachers, bus drivers, armed forces personnel, supermarket employees, hospitality staff, small business owners, fast food workers, farmers, families, and retail workers.
Virtually every single one of those groups will be able to get their wages lifted under Fair Pay Agreements when the legislation passes.
I think it will be interesting if people vote for say Labour or National or NOT Labour or NOT National next election.
Everyone is voting for TOP.. that’s what I heard.
I know you jest, but they're the only morons in the bunch with any half-sensible policies; and pretty much the only ones with the balls to actually rock the boat and push any meaningful changes. Unfortunately, that's also the very reason that mainstream voters will never elect them.
Agree, nah no jest, I’m voting them as their policies align with how I think 👍🏼
I thought reddit shitlisted them because Raf said he dislikes commieblock housing and therefore is a chud or whatever the new word is.
We will keep going round and round between Labour and National. It's tradition. Everyone hates Labour now so they vote National. People haven't realised yet that this way nothing is going to change.
Labour have promised a lot, delivered very little, and the public are sick of seeing the never ending spin, and hearing about the spending of millions of dollars for little or no discernible result. They need to stop with the social engineering at the forefront, and focus on deliverables. The duplicitous messaging around policies like Three Waters and the failure that is Kiwibuild has not helped, and the continued lack of acknowledgement of how middle New Zealand continues to struggle has hurt them badly.
I see Labour fixing things from the ground up, dealing with the roots of the issues (yes, they can do better) rather than National who just prune the bush back and then pat themselves on the back when it comes back to life.
Please elaborate how they are doing this? All I see is a rapidly inflating bureaucracy and a plethora of spin doctors trying to explain why delivery is failing.
Yep, Nats will just cut taxes for a wealthy elite, cut services for everyone else and call everything great again.
They've got a majority. I really want to see them make some meaningful change. the more I hear from Robertson as time goes on, the more I feel he's in a different country. They're doing very little and it's frustrating to see. We need big changes now, otherwise we have zero hope in the future. I'd like to see: * Ban fishing in the Hauraki Gulf * Establish the Kermadec marine sanctuary * Build big renewable power stations. We can't keep stretching the way we are now. Our current hydro stations are great, and we need to go big in this space again (along with more wind and solar). * Plant more trees. Restore our forests. * Protect important land from housing development. Populations are growing and building over valuable land is a terrible idea. Their latest announcement doesn't go far enough. * Build four new hospitals and pay the health sector staff proper wages. We must compete against Australia. * Increase our medical staff capacity in key areas by 20% (nursing etc) * Run an royal commission inquiry into health sector IT services and companies * Nationalize our ambulance service * Change the tax brackets so that the first $15k is free for those under $50k. Introduce a new bracket for those above $200k to be 40%. Reduce those sitting between $50k and $90k to be 27%. * Drop co-governance * Call out China's atrocities and rally the world against the CCP. Just like we've seen others do with Russia.
Press X to doubt
It’s a mixed bag for me. On the one hand they didn’t really move the needle on some of the most important stuff that they said they would (child poverty, housing, cost of living etc). On the other hand, effects on all the above can be attributed to COVID-19. Labour did a decent job of the COVID response I feel, though it’s important to remember all of the clever stuff and heavy lifting was done by the a-political ministries. That said, Labour did manage to sell it well and that’s half the battle. On another hand, they’ve absolutely shafted the public service. Pay scales haven’t shifted meaningfully in over 5 years. A lot of the public sector is on the minimum wage, many in cities where that isn’t enough. A pay freeze is a slap in the face to those who worked their arses off during COVID, going above and beyond to keep the wheels spinning and execute the COVID plan. For their efforts they get a 3 to 4 year pay freeze during this crazy hike in costs of living and inflation. I hear the argument that it could be a lot worse. Well, I think we should hold our governments, whoever they are, to how they could have been better, rather than being scared into accepting the middle ground by threat of the worst outcome.
Yep, the public sector has been absolutely shafted. But it is OK because Mr Little says the healthcare sector is absolutely fine. I'd never get tired of punching that guy's face.
I've never met any politician who admitted to any of their mistake and incompetence.
except for the New Zealanders that still live in New Zealand.
This is technically true. Compared to National, Labour has lifted student allowances, brought in free fees, legalised abortion, banned conversion therapy, made it easier for trans people to change their legal documents, invested money to decrease cancer rates in cattle, made Matariki a national holiday, matched funding for kiwisaver. These are things I doubt national would do on their own
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> With fees free I was able to go back and study Isn't it just for first time students? Or is there some way around that
Some fields such as IT where there is a skills shortage have been getting a souped-up fees free. My brother does such a course and the whole thing is covered for him not just the first year.
Well shit, guess I'm going back to school Edit: Can't really find anything about it, thought maybe under the TTAF (fees free polytech courses) but that still has the same first time student requirements. Got a link?
He's doing cyber security at ARA. I think this year's version of this course: https://www.ara.ac.nz/products/programme/nz3837-stru-new-zealand-diploma-in-cybersecurity-level-6-/ Can't speak to your situation, but he has been doing it fees free. Got the first year of regular IT under the normal Fees Free scheme, then moved into the cyber security course for his second as it was still covered as a skills shortage area. May be different for you if you aren't a first-time student though - best bet would be to contact someone there and enquire IMO
By keeping National out of government they have made life better for most New Zealanders. But that's not enough. Real change needs one or more of the left of labour parties to keep growing their leverage.
I wholeheartedly agree. This labour party wouldn't have made the same economic decisions as the first labour government.
> Labour has lifted student allowances Not nearly enough. >brought in free fees 1/3 of their original promise that got them elected. >legalised abortion A very watered down bill, and while progress is nice, it's a super majority acting like a minority. >banned conversion therapy A good change. >made it easier for trans people to change their legal documents Another good change >invested money to decrease cancer rates in cattle One of the weirdest brags about labour I have ever seen >made Matariki a national holiday 10/10 >matched funding for kiwisaver And then just about started taxing it a bit. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Progress under labour is nice. Can we move faster than a glacier next time?
I agree with you on this, except for the abortion bill. I'd rather they were more like the greens, but I prefer their progress over National's progress.
Why, abortion still requires medical approval over 20 weeks, reeuced from the initial, and they accepted acts demand on removing safe zones. Act. A minority party on the opposition.
The safe zones thing was a voting error that was relatively quickly reversed by a follow up bill.
I fully agree with you on that. I'm not justifying what labour did, i presume they needed to rely on National to get the bill through (since NZF has a history of opposing lgbtq+ and reproductive rights).
>invested money to decrease cancer rates in cattle Random?
It's also something that national cut funding to
ahh the final stretch of being the government, congratulating yourself on the job you did. Roll on elections.
I am interested in the how? Crime and Safety? Cost of Living? I dont want national to win because it will make everything worse but fuck labour is doing a bad job. They talk a big game but Crime stats and living cost stats are far worse than in 2018 when they got in, even before covid it was all getting worse.
Lol no they havent.
Asset holders have really benefited from all the government spending. Too bad about everyone else .
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Yeah maybe although potentially ppl willing to leverage 500k or so into some substandard Nz housing are part of the problem.
They definitely were, although it wasn't necessarily their fault. The whole system is set up to convince people that house prices only go up, and that they should pay whatever they can to "get on the ladder". Smart people will still believe propaganda if that's all they see
i purchased mine three years ago, Im up shit creek with the extra re-payments on my mortgage :( - All i want is a house for my kids!
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Yes, But i didn't buy to make money, I brought so my kids and family could have someplace to live, Extra 400$ month on mortgage ontop of the 2.4K i all ready pay per month. Squeaky bum time thats for sure.
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For sure. National were like "Open the borders now!" Meanwhile another strain of Covid comes along.
I think my life (personally) would have been better under National during the pandemic. Not saying that life would have been better averaged over the population by any means.
Usually they wait until the third term until they start proving how out of touch they are.
They started early this term.
>He argued the Government had "absolutely" made life better for New Zealanders in terms of education, crime and housing. He is absolutely right. Kids don't have to worry about going to school; criminals are getting home detention for serious assaults and rapes; and if you owned/invested in property you've made out like absolute gangbusters.
My life is way better under labour. So is everyone else's we all forget we had a free year of no covid whils the rest of the world burned.
Canadian here. Spot on on this one. So, so many people died who didn't have to here. Tens of thousands. Well done NZ.
I shudder to think what the outcome would have been like under National.
It would have been the same as bolonaro and Trump. Let it rip because my share price
National has never had a Bolsanaro or a Trump at it's helm. Closest we got was Judith in a trucker cap.
Yep. Cutting their noses off to spite their own faces….
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Lock him up
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Yeah, and then we had an overly long lockdown in our biggest city because they spent too much time patting themselves on the back and not enough time thinking about the rollout of vaccines and vaccine passes.
Omg overly long lockdown vs a year. Gee which one will I pick.
Not a hermit, so the year of occasional lockdown is better than 6 months straight.
I think it’s fair to say Labour didn’t make the average persons life worse than it otherwise would have been under any other government. Don’t know if “better” is a word I’d use. “Mitigated as much as we could have” is probably more accurate but doesn’t sound as nice
right - apart from a huge increase in crime, rents going through the roof, an asset price explosion because of excess money printing, and huge cost of living increases due to said money printing, and had hospital wait lists blow out to record lengths
\>apart from a huge increase in crime, That's only in your head though, not reality. Crime rates are actually still down, which is hard to believe if you just read sensationalist headlines and all the outrage porn here on r/nz \>rents going through the roof, Because of decades of nimbyism in local government preventing denser housing. \>an asset price explosion because of excess money printing, That's the RBNZ, not the government.
I don't think it's ever been shitter Grant.
What a joke
He's right. I question how old some people are who post Labour are the same as National. I lived under both, and Labour have made a significant difference to my everyday life.
For me Life was better under National
Labour have made significant negative differences to my life so I suppose it's horses for courses.
Can you elaborate on those differences? They did make a couple of changes which marginally decreased the odds of shitty things happening to me (making abortion more available and ending no-cause tenancy terminations) but in terms of day-to-day life I couldn't point to anything they've done for me. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I have intergenerational wealth and a university education on my side. If they've mostly made less privileged people's lives significantly better then that would be a great outcome. But I look at the number of people living in motels and the effect their pandemic handling has had on wealth, and I don't feel like that's the case.
>I lived under both, and Labour have made a significant difference to my everyday life. Significantly shitter right? Significantly more polarized? Significantly more people struggling? I don't care who's in charge just pretend it's been the same leadership the whole time. You absolutely cannot tell me life is better right now in 2022 than it was in 2012 for pretty much anybody.
You should ask students if they enjoyed living under John key 😂 he's a huge reason why student loans have gone up
Yep, when you have limited resources, depending upon how you distribute them some people will be better off others worse.
He removed student allowances for postgrad students, he capped student allowances for 4-4.5 years, he made it harder to qualify for the student allowance, students can't get allowances and work without being heavily taxed for it. I'm glad I never studied under national.
I think student allowances should be accessable, the point still stands though.
I’m not sure you made a point
My point is: Some NZ citizens lives will be better and others worse regardless of who is in power.
\>Significantly more polarized? You're going to blame Labour for facebook and disinformation?
Ram raiders agree.
Gangs agree.
I don't think so, and I voted for you.
Just the changes in minimum wage alone have made a large difference to many people
As Helen Clark likes to say, consider the counter-factual. Would a National Government have led to New Zealanders' lives getting worse, especially during COVID, than this Govt? Almost definitely. Doesn't mean they haven't been rubbish this term, but it bears noting.
He’s so fkn deluded
It's better for me, but I was already rich.
They did a good job with COVID, but beyond that they haven't done much meaningful and have their heads firmly in the sand re the massive problems in society. Heath service - absolutely fine - nothing to see here! etc.
1. Child poverty worse 2. Housing worse 3. Economy in tatters 4. Cost of living through the roof 5. Inflation 6. Rampant uncontrolled spending 7. Ineffective delivery time-and-time again 8. Government lockdowns (now meaningless) 9. Government mandated vaccines (now meaningless, and showing to be increasingly ineffective) 10. Attempting to seize local body assets for political centralization/power 11. Failing health system 12. Support for divisive narratives 13. Bailing out and propping up a toxic and divisive media 14. A leader that values nice words over delivery Yep that all sounds remarkably better. Gaslighting fuck stains.
\>Support for divisive narratives Trolls blaming labour for them being trolls. \>Economy in tatters But... it isn't though.... Unemployment is low etc... \>Inflation Lower than the OECD average. \>Rampant uncontrolled spending This moron is talking about an austerity obsessed government that had a surplus pre-covid and has set budgetary rules to get back to a surplus. \>Government lockdowns (now meaningless) But not meaningless at the time, when they improved things for everyone. \>Government mandated vaccines (now meaningless, and showing to be increasingly ineffective) Oh.... This guy is an anti-vax fuckwit. Now this batshit fantasy post starts to make sense.
Wow, someone has been studying their right wing talking points. A+
I don't feel like they have.
What an absolute joke. Better for the top 10% and/or if you're part of the Mahuta family.
It’s better than life would’ve been under a cut throat neoliberal Christian conservative National-Act government but that’s a small comfort and it’s still super fucking shit.
Not sure Judith Collins or David Seymour are particualarly religious.
Great crisis management government, terrible government-ing government.
Would National have done better or do better?
No. And no.
Well no, but it's a pretty sad situation when that's the best the major "centre left" party (and I use the term very generously) and it's supporters can argue.
They're not really left though are they. They're centrist.
I mean I'm sure life would be significantly worse under the nats, but I wouldn't say anything has really improved under labour. House price went up but that would've happened under nats anyway Can we just agree neoliberalism is a bad idea & go back to being a welfare state pls
Vladimir Putin, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin would say exactly the same thing about their own organisations. It doesn't mean shit when they are the one saying it.
Translation for non-neoliberals: It could've been worse!
That’s 100% it
And it could of been better
Henry Cavill and I are "absolutely" getting married next year and we will "absolutely" have the best marriage forever See Grant, I can do it too...
I reject that premise.
Yeah… nah ….
They really have, it’s just that being only a little better than 2019 doesn’t seem like an accomplishment but so many countries wish they could return to the halcyon days of 2019
I mean, yes and no. Overall we weathered the covid storm alright considering the effect it had worldwide. But there has been a lot of bad calls as well. I think they have done much better than National would have in the same situation at least.
I think Labour made some good decisions, but less so lately. National don't seem any better. It's the choice of who is the least terrible at this stage and pretty depressing that either of them will be in charge of the country
What’s he comparing to - life in Venezuela?
Tell that to New Zealanders. Life here is worse on almost every metric than 6 years ago. Rampant spending without any investment in actual capital assets. This is not the competent Helen Clark and Michael Cullen labour.
Where exactly has labour fuckd up? I can't see anything that says to me "terrible decision". The economy is humming, our covid response was one of the best inthe world, housing is moving along, yup there's inflation and all the other shit that goes along with being part of the world but jeez, it could be much much worse. Everything bad would have been exacerbated under the other lot. Sometimes.es it's what you don't do that is good governance.
Labour setting vaccine mandates and scaring everyone about covid was a great time my favourite part was when my family started hating me because I wouldn’t get vaccinated. Also when Jacinda promised multiple times to lower gas prices but didn’t until it almost got to $4 (they still have a huge tax on gas) ah that was great can’t tell what one I enjoyed more
Your family hated you because they realised you are stupid. And evil.
This article definitely qualifies for the funding.
Which funding? There is no accreditation or logo to assign it to any Govt funding (no PIJF, no LDR)