The biggest news story around the Finnish PM’s visit to New Zealand is the now-viral exchange between a member of the press and the two Prime Ministers regarding the reason for their meeting. The question “did you meet just because you are of similar age?” seemed to trivialise the meeting between two female Prime Ministers. …
As is often the case with crises, the coronavirus pandemic has been a boon for New Zealand’s political leadership. Jacinda Ardern’s decisive and effective health response to the virus has garnered both New Zealand and herself adoring headlines around the world, particularly in countries starving for basic governmental competence. New Zealand’s exceptional handling of the …
The Government has been widely panned over its major announcement yesterday on housing. There are a few positive takes on the “reset”, but generally it has been viewed as an embarrassing backdown at best, or at worst a sell-out of those needing the housing crisis addressed. One political journalist has even branded yesterday’s announcement as …
The extraordinary Māori land protest at Ihumātao in Auckland is symbolic of our time. It is unlikely to have occurred, say, five years ago. It perfectly reflects heightened concerns and increased radicalism over racism, economic inequality, and the history of colonialism in New Zealand. This meant that when the police moved in last week to …
Call it “state housing”, “social housing” or this Government’s preference, “public housing” – it’s the accommodation solution that continues to be overlooked and neglected by both Labour and National governments. Sure, the current government might talk a lot about “public housing” and they might be building more state houses than the previous government, but it’s …
Yesterday the Prime Minister sent a clear message to voters: the Government has not given up on fixing the housing crisis. It was communicated via the sacking of the Housing Minister, and a serious re-organisation of the housing portfolio so that a team of five ministers now share responsibility for fixing what is becoming an …
Will KiwiBuild minister Phil Twyford lose his portfolio in tomorrow’s Cabinet reshuffle? That’s the big question, given that the Government’s flagship housing programme has been so heavily discredited, and the accompanying debate about Twyford’s role in the debacle and whether he’s to blame. It seems unlikely that Twyford will get the sack. Although Prime Minister …
For each Budget, the government of the day spends huge amounts of resources getting its message and branding across about its spending decisions. Careful attempts at framing their Budget are made, and all of this largely gets reported. This year is no different, and so you can read, watch and listen to hundreds of media …
When politicians win votes on the basis of heroic promises to fix intractable problems, but then break those promises, the public quite rightly feel they’ve been ripped off. That’s exactly what has happened with KiwiBuild. Labour politicians largely won office in 2017 on the basis of their scathing critique of how badly the National Government …
Perhaps the public has looked at the Tax Working Group proposals for a capital gains tax and come back with a “no”. Certainly, the opinion poll published last night about the tax proposals looked quite definitive – the headline for Tova O’Brien’s Newshub scoop was: Large majority of New Zealanders don’t want capital gains tax – …
The capital gains tax debate is a huge political issue, and a great deal rides on the outcome – especially the chances of the Labour-led Government being re-elected next year. So far, it’s not looking great for the Government. At this stage it appears very unlikely that they will be able to implement the full …
Are the purported benefits of the Tax Working Group’s proposed capital gains tax an illusion? So far, questions about the potential effectiveness of the tax are the biggest challenge to the proposal, as there are strong doubts about whether the new tax would really achieve its desired aims. The best arguments in favour of introducing …
During the last decade, there has been an explosion of concern around the world about economic inequality. Here in New Zealand there has been a growing debate about how to deal with this, and virtually all parts of the political spectrum now pay attention to this problem. It is in this context that the Tax …
Given the ongoing problems with the Government’s flagship housing policy, it seems inevitable that a major change of direction is required for KiwiBuild. A consensus is growing that the policy either needs to be revamped or replaced with something more effective and ambitious. Today the New Zealand Herald has called for the Government to “think …
Is the Labour-led Government “disconnected from reality” over its fledgling house-building programme? KiwiBuild minister, Phil Twyford, says he is “pretty gutted” by his realisation that the house building agenda will fail to get anywhere near its targets this year. It’s merely the latest in a long-line of bad publicity, stuff-ups, and questions for the Kiwibuild …
When David Shearer proposed getting the state into the housing market and building and selling properties, his advisers came up with an excellent name for the scheme. KiwiBuild was meant to imply the same values and credibility of Jim Anderton’s KiwiBank. And various other Helen Clark-era Labour projects were given the same sort of nomenclature, …
If there was any excitement brewing at being able to enter a lottery to buy an affordable Kiwibuild house, it was certainly short-lived, as further details revealed that the “lottery of birth” has probably already scuttled most people’s chances. Disappointment is setting in as more people realise that the scheme is really only going to …
Jacinda Ardern’s promise to lead a “transformational government” is looking fairly hollow at the moment. That’s because it’s insisting on running the same sort of economic regime as the previous government, while somehow expecting a different result. Ardern’s administration continues to commit itself to many core National Party fiscal policies – including running budget surpluses, …