$6Billion of National’s Tax cuts will go to the richest 5% – how does that fix the cost of living crisis?

1. It all started here…

   “Mr Key’s legacy is sweetest for property owners, who saw the values of their homes rise $NZ400 billion to almost $NZ1 trillion on his watch. Meanwhile, the cost of servicing their mortgages as a percentage of disposable incomes fell almost 40 percent. Renters and aspiring homeowners have not benefited from the Key era. They have gone backwards. The poorest 40 percent of the population had their housing costs rise substantially under Mr Key, and faster than than their incomes, particularly if they are single, on benefits, or have insecure and poorly-paid work.

   Finance Minister Bill English.Mr Key has Bill English to thank for much of the economy’s success, Bernard Hickey says. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
   The right-wing think tank, the New Zealand Initiative, described that legacy best in a report in October on inequality.

   “There is a massive inequality concern that is rightly troubling many New Zealanders: housing. In short, New Zealand’s “inequality crisis” is really a housing crisis, wrote the NZ Initiative’s Bryce Wilkinson and Jenesa Jeram. “While incomes have risen for high and low earners, the rising cost of housing especially hits the poor.”

   Mr English has been the loudest voice in the government in recent years about how fast-rising housing costs drive child poverty and increase the government’s costs. If he becomes Prime Minister for any length of time, he will have to deal with his predecessor’s $NZ400 billion legacy of higher house values and housing costs. Somehow, he will have to restart growth in output per hour to create a real economic legacy”

   • Actually Bert, it began happening very obviously during the Helen Clark years. I know as I was active on the topic back then and i couldnt believe that with every election, she would keep ignoring the need for reform of incentives to buy and rent houses and CGT or similar.

     I know that she was aware of it and those who were in the party who wanted change and could see what was coming, settled on the view that she was too afraid of the backlash and its effect on polling.
     At around 2006 there was a study? survey? done that showed that the presence of speculators in the housing market was adding 35% to the cost of houses and that it was pricing lower income families out of the market. John Key came along and it just continued to worsen.

     So to be fair to the Nats this issue came into being in the Clark years (possibly earlier but I wasnt in the country then so cant say for certain). Suffuce to say it got really noticeable under the Clark govt.

     • It actually started in the Shipley era, I know as I was present through those years and it was very noticeable through her short reign. So trying to be fair to the Nats may suit your narrative, I don’t know, but the Key/English era was appalling, and as mentioned English even admitted as such.

       • Yes Bert, the Natz never added to the social housing stock for nearly 30 years. Then during Key’s tenure the value of rural and urban land exploded. He then invited the property speculators (in cahoots with banks) to “make hay” while he was PM. Thats going to be his legacy.

2. “are you honestly stupid enough as a voter to give him and his rich mates billions in tax cuts?”

   You as in the average person, abso-fucking-lutely, I’ve met otherwise intelligent people who would vote based on a smile.

   Don’t forget that Shortland Street is still popular and our state broadcasters top commissioned program is FBoy Island.

3. Dear oh dear oh dear, National.

   Our health system has a social contract to provide first world health care to the people of NZ. It has totally reneged on that contract, pure and simple because of decades of underfunding in no small part because of tax cuts. We have people dying of basic treatable illnesses or suffering unnecessarily from out of date medications regularly because of health system is so broken and so underfunded. This has gone on far too long to be even vaguely tolerable.

   So tell me Luxon, and your cronies in National, where is the mass infusion of exrtra billions of dollars required annually to provide the health system our citizens are entitled to when you are proposing cutting the governments income, AGAIN, to so unnecessarily fund tax cuts for you and your rich prick mates, AGAIN? Where?

   No wonder Nationals vote is as low as it is! The brains trust of National are as thick as Labour’s!

   • Thank you Xray for acknowledging it.
     Our Health system was $2 billion underfunded in 2015/16 and our medicines funding is still 1.8 billion a year behind the oecd AVERAGE FOR OOUNTRIES OF OUR SIZE.
     So those 6 billion in tax cuts will definitely hurt the health budget no matter what Luxflake says.

     • By how much is our health sector currently underfunded and staffed?

   • I will agree National underspent but unfortunately I have spent too much time in hospital over the last 10 years not to see things have got worse over the years . Covid was a curve ball but that’s is why some people get a big tax paid paycheque to sort out problems and keep the wheels turning . This in no way is a cracked at the hospital staff who should all get medals but in Chch all they get is a hefty parking bill due to volunteering to work overtime. Labour proudly announced a 10 Billion excess of tax income but will not pay rest homes more as their share of the medical bill so they have to close which in turn means many old people cannot be discharged from hospital adding to the overcrowding.
     I get very tired of the continuous shouting about Luxon get $18000 extra when he gave up a job paying millions for his current job . The tax bracket creep has occurred because no correction has been made since 2010 so someone on the living wage is nearly in the higher tax bracket.

4. We got even more from Labour. Our properties are still worth a fortune thanks to Jacinda and Blobbertson. How does that fix the cost of living crisis?

   • As Bert posted…

     “Mr English has been the loudest voice in the government in recent years about how fast-rising housing costs drive child poverty and increase the government’s costs. If he becomes Prime Minister for any length of time, he will have to deal with his predecessor’s $NZ400 billion legacy of higher house values and housing costs. Somehow, he will have to restart growth in output per hour to create a real economic legacy”

     Says it all really, even Bill English recognised the impending disaster, yet nothing, absolutely nothing was done. In fact National campaigned on higher house prices and immigration. Labour, at least, have tried to do something.

5. But, But, But – didn’t Nicola Willis say the Nats would be donating to worthy causes?

6. So, what is Labour doing for the poor??

   • Well Nathan clearly not enough but that’s more than National I would wager. Increasing the minimum wage, the winter energy payment, and in terms of the cost of living the reduction in fuel taxes. I have only heard National say they wouldn’t allow a minimum wage increase, and bleat about the cost of the other measures. I think Labours measures would amount to more the $2/ week. Again that’s not saying Labour have done enough because clearly they haven’t.

   • didnt you read about fair pay agreements
     this week

     • Good point. Missed that

       • Which National voted down, seems they’re not interested in those in poverty after all. National all talk.

       • mike + Wheel – the Fair Pay agreements is Individual Employment Agreement 2.0 — read it

7. Yes, we are honestly stupid enough to vote for tax cuts for the rich. Aspirational voters empathize with the rich because one day they to will be rich themselves. The working class vote on culture issues not economics. Woke bashing, maybe some disguised racism and picking on the poor this will be NActional strategy for working class votes.

8. Spot on Martyn. We all recognise the government’s failings. But to see some folk tickle their keyboards and proclaim they’re going to vote NAct as a form of protest is utterly beyond comprehension. Either they’re being disingenuous or, worse, happy to be class traitors.
   National/ACT have declared war on the working class. They aren’t even bothering to hide this fact.
   Sure, Labour may have earned a position on your list of “Who I Ain’t Gonna’ Vote For”, but sweet baby cheeses, National and ACT would HAVE to be permanently & indelibly at the top of that list?! There’s plenty of other options (none are socialist unfortunately , but they would still be a better bet as a protest vote).

   Not everyone on the left in New Zealand can come up with a clever nom-de-plume, jump on a keyboard, and chastise their fellow working class comrades for not doing enough, as I read in the comments of another TDB article.
   Some of us are, believe it or not, are in the background, doing some mahi to help advocate for the working classes and have a planet worth inheriting from the rich parasites. We aren’t all being loud-mouthed woke Identitarians. These wokesters are a small percentage of our population, but are a useful target for the right wing to exploit and divide the left.
   When I read the comments on TDB, I can see how successful it has been for that tactic to derail the left. Or at least, the folk on here who hold pretences to being Left.
   Woke idiocracy is best handled by being ignored. We need to focus on our real enemies and the policies they are getting their political stooges to pimp.
   Tax cuts for the rich?? F@ck Off Chris & David.

   • Jase – how does one ignore 3 Waters, Co governance and a myriad of law changes and changes to standing orders, universities, curriculums etc? We just keep supporting the party and pretend we are sure they have good intentions and really do know better than us.

     Some of us dont think that’s the right step for NZ but the majority of us are smarting at the authoritarian attitude of the Govt in reorganising our constitution without even telling people about it. Or involving them in the Convo – we’re old enough to know it’s not the Kiwi way. And as for the woke being divisive – they are very loud voices and they are everywhere so even though they may be few in number, it seems the government are just fine funding them eg: Hate Speech Laws, The Disinfo project, various left promoting or woke docos etc.

     It isnt the right who is driving this, it is our incredibly stupid and infantile government, the right just gets to sit back and watch. (You know – Never interrupt your enemy when they are in the process of effing up). If an early 2021 survey is to be believed about 30%+ of the traditional Labour vote will go elsewhere. I agree I’d rather swallow a rat than vote Nats but if that’s what it takes to stop uncontrolled overreach that’s what’ll happen.

     Finally, I dont know if you can call people traitors when they themselves were first betrayed?

9. Do the right wing – globally – actually have any other policy but tax cuts for themselves & their mates (I mean, apart from making people scared and angry)?

10. N will do as N will do. And if N wins the next election it is not for what they will do, but it will be for L has planned for us, and frankly people are getting rightfully scared of Labour and their ideas. Dob in your friends and family for knitting and wrong think. Vote Labour 2023
    And fwiw, i think that Act might actually outshine National.

11. ” How the fuck does $6 billion to the richest 5% help anyone with the cost of living crisis ”

    That’s what the shyster and his brighter future brigade were selling and marketing from 2005 – 2008 with the corporate media’s help. I remember the pressure that was coming on the then Labour led government to cut taxes because quote they were stealing our money !

    Our money ?

    No not ours , theirs. And what Luxon , Willis , Seymour are now arguing is more of the same theft but not when its being taken from those who have very little and given to the obscenely wealthy and top six figure salary earners.

    And after lying that he would not increase GST to help pay for this hard earned bonus for the top John Phillip Key and English increased GST hurting the very people he solicited votes from New Zealand’s most destitute communities like Mc Gellan close. They never apologised or even tried to acknowledge the harshness this would cause all in the name of excessive greed.

    The difference between now and then is the obvious dire situation with the cost of living and this tax cutting exercise has been sold before but did nothing in terms of making people better off , quite the opposite including the dismal state of our mental and health system due to lack of investment which is still an ongoing crisis.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/130383684/mental-health-unit-could-close-due-to-significant-lack-of-staff

    Both Labour and NACTZ parties are failing in managing this economy. No one should be hungry , homeless or living a destitute existence not in a country like New Zealand.

    Its simple priorities. If you are going to campaign for tax relief for the top which in turn will mean no funding or cutting for the state and by that I mean resources that go directly to health and education not paying for more leeches like consultants then be honest about your priorities and the outcomes that will result from the same approach that has been tried over and over but with the same results…what we have right now.

    ” This isn’t an economic plan, it’s economic sadism!

    Billions to the richest won’t make NZ a better place – why should the 5% richest get huge tax cuts that will come at the expense of public education, public health and public housing ?

    Have the Hobbits woken up yet ?

    Doesn’t look like it.

12. In the immortal words of an old film producer friend of mine ” There ya go, see? ” after he’d stole some idea or other off me then he’d spin it as his own then he’d take the credit for it in production office meetings. Oh, how we laughed.
    What you’re seeing/reading above is precisely as good an example of what I’ve been commenting about here. Our politics isn’t ours any longer. What’s more, our politics hasn’t been ours for generations. Our politics has been a complicated psy-ops charade. They, The Them’s, keep us happy enough by feeding as scraps off the table while they hoarded top shelf, proper cooked, cordon bleu to gorge on later and out of sight of our gaunt, ever searching eyes. The Wine Box Inquiry and latterly the Panama Papers are both clues as to where our money has gone. And by gone, I mean laundered. And there was, and is, a lot of it. More than most can comprehend. But hey, it’s not your fault. You can only work with what you know and our now entirely corrupt MSM are well instructed to only show you rapes, kills, ram raids, weather events, beautiful sports people who are also abusive lunatics, car crashes and stories about budgies who can play the piano and other attractions brought to us from the Outlands to our exhausted minds to distract us from the truth of the situation that exists between us, our politicians and reality.
    We need a bloody royal commission of inquiry into our politics in relation to our economy, in relation to Big Business Boys and their political puppets spanning the last 140 years.
    This is why 140 years. Wikipedia: “The Dunedin (1876–90) was the first ship [In the world] to successfully transport a full cargo of refrigerated meat from New Zealand to England. In this capacity, it provided the impetus to develop the capacity of New Zealand as a major provider of agricultural exports, notwithstanding its remoteness from most markets.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunedin_(ship)
    I promise you, it’d make great reading of a camp fire night around the waste bins under that bridge overpass by the Mc Donald’s where that over-paid, bald manipulator can be seen fucking with your heads while taking the piss while being a belittling cunt to you.

    • you’re in fine form CB. I actually Enjoyed that rave.

    • 100% CB

13. A tax cut across the board is required just to adjust for the bracket creep created by inflation.

    That said, I think Luxon is a fool to even mention it prior to an election. He should just implement it in his first budget. The same goes for a whole list of slash & burn policies that are desperately needed to put the Wellington bureaucrats back in their place. He should just promise the electorate the world then when elected, do exactly as he fancies. When the media inevitably complains that these weren’t things campaigned on, he can just point toward Labour, He Puapua, 3 Waters, Unelected Maori wards and all their other sins and ask the ‘journalists’ where they were 3 years ago.

    • History shows that Key campaigned on not rising GST Andrew and then he did.
      National can never ever be a trusted party, hell the Bridges/Jamie Lee Ross saga confirmed that and their president Michelle Boag was hideous, often caught out lying.

      • Easy to overlook now Bert as they have all had their orders to not ever rock the boat and always appear professional. But of course you are correct, they were the biggest bunch of lying scumbags back then. Although JA is now giving them a run for their money.

14. Unfortunately the working class of 30 years ago still included many tradesmen however they have now become middle class businessmen. They have moved above their station to the natz. Even my mate of that era who was a plumber cleaning shit from pipes became a boss and said ” I’ll still drink with you in the public bar”. I dont think its so much class issues driving the polls. Its misogynist and grumpy men (and nasty women) who hate a young successful prime minister. The “HATE JACINDER” lunatics encouraged the right wing/media/press have taken over talkback radio. The right wing/NATZACT are nasty and dirty as we have seen since Jacinda got into government. We’ll see how the media/press respond if the NATZACT get into power.

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