It is a good day in New Zealand. The Government has backed down on their plans to tax your Kiwisaver. 

Is this the fastest back down in the history of backdowns in this country? 

Somebody needs to check David Parker for whiplash, such is the force with which he slammed the brakes on his own tax plan.

It’s amazing what the team of five million can do if we work together.  From the tax experts to the fund managers to the texters on this station and the opposition parties, we have all collectively said no to Labour.

 And a good bloody thing too, because had they gone through with the IR plans, we would have ended up with less money for our retirement. Individual savers with $100K in their pot would’ve lost about $20K over 25 years. Over 45 years we would’ve collectively lost $103 billion to the Government’s grasping.

Yes, it is a tax on the management fee of Kiwisaver rather than the funds in Kiwisaver, but the point is the same: we end up each accumulating less to retire on.  And when you think of it like that, it’s actually mad.  We want people to save money to retire on.  That’s the point of Kiwisaver.  When that is the aim, there is no justification for the government then pilfering so we end up with less to retire on. 

You know what else is objectionable? Trying to sneak it in through the legislation but not mentioning it in the press release yesterday afternoon.

And you know what else is objectionable? Bringing in another tax when they promised us no new taxes.

A retirement tax on top of the ute tax and the amazon tax and the landlord tax and the longer bright-line test tax.

It is our good fortune that David Parker is already this week donkey deep in bad news after being slammed by the Auditor General for the sloppiness with the cost of living payment. He could probably not handle any more.

• 'Thought we were fixing the system': PM on reason for KiwiSaver tax U-turn after outcry
• Barry Soper on Govt's KiwiSaver tax U-turn

 So congratulations New Zealand.  Here’s to people power. We’re stuck with this lot for at least another year but – as we saw today - if we work together we might just be able to stop their stupider ideas.