Reminder from Brent Barrett...
Wow! What a response!!! Looking forward to seeing you all on the morning of the 26th of February 2018.)
Gather from 8.30 at Gate 2 in Heretaunga St. You're most welcome to bring a banner or sign of support!
The District Health Board meeting opens at 9 a.m. with a deputation from the Collective, joined by Mayor Grant Smith and others.
Together, we'll join them and fill the room to overflowing with support for women's health and the vital valuable services provided by Te Hā o Hine-ahu-one Palmerston North Women’s Health Collective.
Thanks all for your interest and support for women's health, and the amazing health work the Collective provide in our region.
2.
Simon Bridges said the Government Tax Working Group’s call for a capital gains tax was an ‘assault on the Kiwi way of life’. That betrays a very depressing and limited view of the Kiwi way of life, says Hayden Donnell.
The ink had barely dried on the Tax Working Group report and Simon Bridges was already declaring war. It had recommended a capital gains tax on investment properties and income from shares, offset by an income tax cut for working New Zealanders. That was an atrocity in Bridges’ mind. “This Tax Working Group report is an assault on the Kiwi way of life,” his minders presumably typed as he sweatily clambered into some Winston Churchill LARPgear. “I will fight it every step of the way.”
The tweet was dispiriting for anyone who’d hoped for a sober discussion on the equity of our country’s tax system rather than a Civil War against Michael Cullen. Instead of putting forward a constructive alternative case, Bridges seemed to be ready to lead a platoon into battle to defend the baches of Omaha Beach.
But it was also dispiriting in what it said about Bridges’ view of the Kiwi way of life. To him, it seems there’s nothing more quintessentially Kiwi than buying a portfolio of investment properties and hocking them off with no obligation to divert any of your oversized profits to the State. There’s having a beer at the barby, heading to the beach in your jandals on a sunny day, and using the tax-free capital gain from one investment property to fund the deposit on a lifestyle block. Kiwi Onion Dip, sausage rolls, and raising the rent on your third property twice-yearly. In Bridges eyes, the Kiwi way of life is being rich and using property to make yourself richer.
That really is a typical New Zealand lifestyle, provided you speak only to the broad range of New Zealanders John Key used to encounter in the Koru Lounge; the people at the top of this graph and the children waiting to inherit their share of the estate.
But there is another Kiwi way of life. It could involve renting a damp and substandard home in perpetuity, fearing eviction because the next one could be something worse, or no home at all. It could be living in a car or a motel room paid for by the Ministry of Social Development. Or it could be having a mid-sized income – the type that used to comfortably get you a house – and still watching as price growth in a booming untaxed property market outpaces your savings.
Unlike someone with a multi-property portfolio, the people living that Kiwi way of life pay tax on every single cent of their income and every item they purchase. They’re the ones whose lives are made more difficult, and less secure, by New Zealand having an economy geared around property investment – the Kiwi way of life that Bridges wants to defend.
Capital gains tax will make it harder for renters, man who owns 80 Hawke's Bay homes warns nzh.nu/yxh630nMlEL
Maybe Bridges doesn’t speak to a lot of people living that other Kiwi way of life. Maybe he usually associates more with people like him, who own four homes and have vested interests in commercial property investment firms. Or his deputy leader Paula Bennett, who owns three properties. Or his shadow attorney general Amy Adams, who owns eight houses. Or his front-bencher Todd McClay, who isn’t sure how many properties he owns.
More likely, though, he doesn’t mention the people living that way because they vote at a lower rate, and when they do they tend not to vote National. He thinks he can win the next election in the way they’ve been won in the past – by shimmying up to older people with multiple properties and whispering softly in their ear than nothing is ever going to change. If a capital gains tax is an assault on anything, it’s not on the Kiwi way of life – it’s on that Kiwi selfishness. The Kiwi way of lifting up the people who already have enough, and entrenching the position of those who don’t have as much. The Kiwi handout to the already well-off. That’s an assault worth carrying out.
3.
Jordan Peterson who is touring NZ at this time to sell his various books: Who is Peterson you may ask? Is he NZ's latest male guru?
The Guardian publishes a new comment on him every few days – which aggregate all his rambling pseudo-philosophical nonsense and his creepy remarks about women and the evils of feminism, and come away with an impression of a malevolent gibberish-spouting misogynistic demon. All of this turns out to be a great marketing tool. Peterson is now the most famous public intellectual in the world, and this week he’s here in New Zealand, speaking to crowds in the Auckland Town Hall, Wellington Michael Fowler Centre and the Royal Theatre in Christchurch. Tickets are around the $150 mark, which is $150 more than you’d usually pay to see an author on a publicity tour.
So much for honest [yeah right] Jordan Peterson:
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2 comments:
This by email from Peter Grove:
Peter,
Bridges to Nowhere's angst over the CGT is all pie in the sky and expresses his faux concern for the rich listers. When the infamous Herr Kreyp who raised GST to its present level of 15%. I thought about it. Superannuitants have their measly pittances taxed at 17.5% at source. I try to meet all my expenses from my super alone I don't have much in the way of savings as a back stop so I budget for our recurring expenses quite carefully. I do all the grocery shopping which normally works out at around $145.00 each fortnight. That leaves not very much of the Super. I do buy a few things with what is left all of which attract GST. This means that for my shopping and those other odd purchases, the total tax I am paying amounts to 32.5%. Not bad when you consider the top rate of tax is 33%! You can see perhaps the deep sorrow I feel for the rich listers facing the dreadful prospect of the CGT.
Not bloody likely!
Peter.
Thanks Peter G
Can I add to the above:
Peter,
Thanks for your comments. The bit about GST will come as a sort of shock to many elderly. I wrote to Grey Power Magazine a while ago, advocating for pensioners, when shopping and fronting up to the check-outs could present their Gold Cards and have the GST on their purchases reversed. Some Bean counter replied and really got into me.
If you recall Douglas said when he introduced GST the 10% rate would cover all government expenses. If that was the case then why isn't it the case now? With the passage of time costs and prices have risen. Wouldn't the Government Take risen proportionately. The whole exercise of raising GST was based purely on Government Greed, and an attempt to cover up their needless profligacy.
Peter G.
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