The article is spot-on in some areas but misplaced in others. For example, no any party has ever taxed capital in NZ since the abolishment of land tax in 1990 by National. But to Labour's credit, they did improve our short-term capital gains tax by extending the bright line while abolishing mortgage interest deductibility. Baby steps, now reversed. Their funding of climate, public transport, mental health funding, and water infrastructure reform have indeed had some beneficial outcomes- with time, far more. But our badly needed water reform was sabotaged by the conspiracy theory toting racist right wing.
Mental health investing could have been better (more investing, not less) but there was a successful investment in clinical psychology training. Cutting de facto health spending, as National admitted that it may do, by not keeping up with inflation and population growth, is a huge mistake. It cut health and education by stealth (if inflation and popluation growth is "stealth") during their last 9 years in power to such a devastating effect, that Labour could never catch up (especially under Covid).
• To create "a high-quality public sector that delivers services like health, education, welfare and a criminal justice system, and builds and maintains the infrastructure required to support a modern nation-state", we need more spending. We cannot remain the 25th lowest spender per GDP in the OECD and get improved results in the public sector!
• "Competitive free markets"? Perhaps anti-trust measures and more government oversight of markets would help, especially on food. We remain the only OECD nation without some sort of GST/sale tax/VAT exemption on food. Only in NZ do our party line neo-lib "economists” reject tax free benefits on food. The Lancet recently provided a comprehensive study on the benefits of a GST exemption on fruits and vegetables.
• "A low-rate, broad-based tax system including a tax on either land or capital"? Agreed...a strong Green presence would guarantee that.
• "And we need reform around donations, lobbying and conflicts of interest." Definitely!
One solution to this dilemma is to elevate the Greens to a major party, or at least to the status a Green Party enjoys in nations such as Germany. We need to remember that we have been in a MMP system for a long time. And the Greens have the most “left” policies of any viable political party in New Zealand, economically (taxing capital), socially (honouring the treaty), and environmentally (taxing farm emissions). But for the commentariat, they don’t exist or are too “woke” to be worthwhile.
Alt-centrist - um, isn’t this idea what social-democracy used to be about? The sooner what you have outlined is sent to every school teacher, tutor and student the better because they might just be able to use the ideas to stop a total collapse of our kiwi society because if inequality gets much worse and Nact1stthingie drives on, I can see a brake down and protest in the streets to make the Beehive bonfire a very small affair!
Maybe if those two books (and a bunch more) were part of the curriculum we could hope for a future state (as in state of being rather than nation state) along these lines...
I have to ask...the issue with taxing land and wealth...
I spent 20yrs working hard to pay of house and 5 acres of land. I was paying higher tax rate bands all the time while doing this...
You are now suggesting I now need to accept the rules being reversed and I have to now pay tax on my overvalued house and land and pay less tax on the now greatly inflated away value of my income????
How are you propose to balance this???
Your just parasitizing people who have worked hard now that the juice has been squeezed under the old system and your looking to impose a new system.....
While you make some valid observations your still just proposing solutions little better to the current muppets notionally running the country....
What needs to be taxed heavily is the rent seeking income streams....the wealth that is being accumulated with no actual return of services to justify the income streams...
You also have lot of foreign capital being allowed to come in and buy up NZ assets which is I suspect the largest driver (amongst many) for the land and house inflation.....
Excellent article, Danyl. Please keep on with your insightful analysis and commentary. Eventually, enough people will read your work, share it with friends, talk about it, and demand change from our politicians.
Damn. How do we make government work better? It feels pretty difficult from way inside the workings of the system. I’d describe my view on these things with a couple of principles:
1. The government should do things (educate, provide healthcare, support the unemployed, support and regulate business etc)
2. Government should do the things it does well.
The second one seems really hard to realise amid the contradictory, incoherent demands in the middle of the public service. Show what you’re doing, but don’t admit a failure in case it looks bad. Deliver to the public but don’t spend more money despite costs going up.
New Zealand is a mess and for 40 years I’ve observed an ignorant media complicit with puppet politicians in that destruction. So how do we get out of this plunge- vote yet another politician who says “trust me” . Here is an interview I did with Liz Gunn on the subject.
Liz Gunn is a former commercial barrister with Rudd Watts Auckland where she worked with a number of lawyers I know well. They spoke very highly of her. One of them is Prof Rick Bigwood Dean of law Queensland University. I’ve read the media slur on her inferring she’s into wild conspiracies such as the Covid vaccine injuries for which there is solid evidence it’s not only occurring it’s being covered up. So apart from that what’s your beef with her or is this “take a shot” nonsense NZ is so good at producing. Her assessment of the economy is accurate. Her assessment of government services is accurate. Let’s put some cards on the table and see where this leads to.
A very interesting and important read! I was delighted with this, Danyl - please carry on!
The article is spot-on in some areas but misplaced in others. For example, no any party has ever taxed capital in NZ since the abolishment of land tax in 1990 by National. But to Labour's credit, they did improve our short-term capital gains tax by extending the bright line while abolishing mortgage interest deductibility. Baby steps, now reversed. Their funding of climate, public transport, mental health funding, and water infrastructure reform have indeed had some beneficial outcomes- with time, far more. But our badly needed water reform was sabotaged by the conspiracy theory toting racist right wing.
Mental health investing could have been better (more investing, not less) but there was a successful investment in clinical psychology training. Cutting de facto health spending, as National admitted that it may do, by not keeping up with inflation and population growth, is a huge mistake. It cut health and education by stealth (if inflation and popluation growth is "stealth") during their last 9 years in power to such a devastating effect, that Labour could never catch up (especially under Covid).
• To create "a high-quality public sector that delivers services like health, education, welfare and a criminal justice system, and builds and maintains the infrastructure required to support a modern nation-state", we need more spending. We cannot remain the 25th lowest spender per GDP in the OECD and get improved results in the public sector!
• "Competitive free markets"? Perhaps anti-trust measures and more government oversight of markets would help, especially on food. We remain the only OECD nation without some sort of GST/sale tax/VAT exemption on food. Only in NZ do our party line neo-lib "economists” reject tax free benefits on food. The Lancet recently provided a comprehensive study on the benefits of a GST exemption on fruits and vegetables.
• "A low-rate, broad-based tax system including a tax on either land or capital"? Agreed...a strong Green presence would guarantee that.
• "And we need reform around donations, lobbying and conflicts of interest." Definitely!
One solution to this dilemma is to elevate the Greens to a major party, or at least to the status a Green Party enjoys in nations such as Germany. We need to remember that we have been in a MMP system for a long time. And the Greens have the most “left” policies of any viable political party in New Zealand, economically (taxing capital), socially (honouring the treaty), and environmentally (taxing farm emissions). But for the commentariat, they don’t exist or are too “woke” to be worthwhile.
This is a theme that seems to be resonating internationally right now. In just the last week or so I've seen:
- https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-needs-a-bigger-better-bureaucracy
- https://www.mercatus.org/macro-musings/sam-hammond-ai-techno-feudalism-and-future-state (in the context of the future of AI, but they talk about state capacity at length)
Alt-centrist - um, isn’t this idea what social-democracy used to be about? The sooner what you have outlined is sent to every school teacher, tutor and student the better because they might just be able to use the ideas to stop a total collapse of our kiwi society because if inequality gets much worse and Nact1stthingie drives on, I can see a brake down and protest in the streets to make the Beehive bonfire a very small affair!
Maybe if those two books (and a bunch more) were part of the curriculum we could hope for a future state (as in state of being rather than nation state) along these lines...
A 12 month on revisit/update on this piece would make for very interesting reading…
I have to ask...the issue with taxing land and wealth...
I spent 20yrs working hard to pay of house and 5 acres of land. I was paying higher tax rate bands all the time while doing this...
You are now suggesting I now need to accept the rules being reversed and I have to now pay tax on my overvalued house and land and pay less tax on the now greatly inflated away value of my income????
How are you propose to balance this???
Your just parasitizing people who have worked hard now that the juice has been squeezed under the old system and your looking to impose a new system.....
While you make some valid observations your still just proposing solutions little better to the current muppets notionally running the country....
What needs to be taxed heavily is the rent seeking income streams....the wealth that is being accumulated with no actual return of services to justify the income streams...
You also have lot of foreign capital being allowed to come in and buy up NZ assets which is I suspect the largest driver (amongst many) for the land and house inflation.....
Excellent article, Danyl. Please keep on with your insightful analysis and commentary. Eventually, enough people will read your work, share it with friends, talk about it, and demand change from our politicians.
Great article
Damn. How do we make government work better? It feels pretty difficult from way inside the workings of the system. I’d describe my view on these things with a couple of principles:
1. The government should do things (educate, provide healthcare, support the unemployed, support and regulate business etc)
2. Government should do the things it does well.
The second one seems really hard to realise amid the contradictory, incoherent demands in the middle of the public service. Show what you’re doing, but don’t admit a failure in case it looks bad. Deliver to the public but don’t spend more money despite costs going up.
Brilliant piece of writing Danyl.
It’s not left wing or right wing it’s managerialism.
New Zealand is a mess and for 40 years I’ve observed an ignorant media complicit with puppet politicians in that destruction. So how do we get out of this plunge- vote yet another politician who says “trust me” . Here is an interview I did with Liz Gunn on the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02eJqP2JAec
You had us all... right up to the point you mentioned Ms Gunn.
Liz Gunn is a former commercial barrister with Rudd Watts Auckland where she worked with a number of lawyers I know well. They spoke very highly of her. One of them is Prof Rick Bigwood Dean of law Queensland University. I’ve read the media slur on her inferring she’s into wild conspiracies such as the Covid vaccine injuries for which there is solid evidence it’s not only occurring it’s being covered up. So apart from that what’s your beef with her or is this “take a shot” nonsense NZ is so good at producing. Her assessment of the economy is accurate. Her assessment of government services is accurate. Let’s put some cards on the table and see where this leads to.