Should the ultra-wealthy pay more tax?
It’s a debate that’s continued for decades, even centuries. From Ancient Athens to present day, the idea has been a constant when it comes to addressing inequality.
Yet, no government has been brave enough to impose one.
It’s a staple of the Green Party’s proposed Budget, which promises bold moves to make sure everyone has a warm home, decent kai, and the care and support for a good life.
But who pays? And is leaning even more left than centre doing wonders for the party’s polling?
Today on The Front Page, Green Party co-leader, Chlöe Swarbrick is with us to discuss whether it’s time for the wealthy few to fund.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Kiyota owned Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Should
the ultra wealthy pay more tax? It's a debate that's
continued for decades, even centuries, from ancient Athens to present day.
(00:27):
The idea has been a constant when it comes to
addressing inequality, yet no government in the last few decades
has been brave enough to impose one. It's a staple
of the Green Party's proposed budget, which promises bold moves
to make sure everyone has a warm home, decent ki
(00:48):
and the care and support for a good life. But
who pays and is leaning even more left than center
doing wonders for the party's polling. Today on the Front
Green Party co leader Chloe's Swarbrick is with us to
discuss whether it's time for the wealthy to fund the.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Rest of us.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
First off, Chloe, your Green's on Tour road show is
taking the party's Green budget directly to communities. What are
the most common concerns or questions or stuff raised with you?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
People know that the wheels are falling off. You know,
if you diagnose the problem of the world that we're
living in today or the country that we're living in today.
You know, half a million New Zealanders are using food
banks every single month, one hundred and ninety one New
Zealanders or leaving the country every single day, and a
pharicle correctly two thirds of them are between the ages
of eighteen to forty five. If Nicola Oillis has concerns
about the aging population and the challenges that may face
(01:45):
in terms of fiscal propositions for us, then we need
to actually be having sensible, rational conversations. And that was
just only underscored by the iid's Long Term Insights briefing
from a few weeks ago, which told us that the
rational conversation and politics if we change the tax system,
it's how we change the tax system to make things fairer.
But look, you don't need to be an economist to
(02:05):
know that things are pretty dire and pretty diabolical out
there at the moment, and New Zealanders are feeling it
every single day. So I'm also really part of the
fact that we've been going out there and saying we'll
not here to complain an solidarity with those complaints, but
also to put some solutions on the table. So for us,
let's looked like obviously free early childhood education, free dentistry,
free GPS in the primary healthcare space, and also helping
(02:28):
the transition into a climate resilient economy, because you can't
just be talking about climate adaptation without also talking about
how we curb our climate changing emissions. And this government's
making some deeply irresponsible and frankly stupid decisions with, for example,
the two hundred million dollars that it's decided to invest
in new fossil fuel subsidies. It's taxpayer money. Yeah, so the.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Party's promising you mentioned, free early childhood education, free dental care,
free GP visits. I mean, what do you say to
critics who find all of this to be fiscally unrealistic?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Say that if we were advocating for or fighting for
free compulsory education or free hospitals, these days would be
called the exact same thing. It'd be called wasteful spending,
would be called Marxists, and all the rest come at us.
The reality is that we've done really big things in
the past, and the nineteen thirties and forties, after World
Wars and the Great Depression, we came together as a
(03:21):
country and decided to build a nation which looked like
the foundations of public health care, public education, and public housing.
And we paid for that responsibly by higher taxes on
those who had profited handsomely during a time of hardship
for many. Right now, we're in a situation where the
top one percent in this country hold twenty three percent
of all of the country's wealth, and IRD research from
(03:43):
twenty twenty three told us that the top three hundred
eleven households pay an effective tax rate less than half
of that of the average New Zealander. It's not fair.
And when are we going to be able to have
a rational political debate about how we fix and change
these things? I mean, there's a reason that the Conservatives
on the other sid out of the political debate and
not even willing to engage in the terms of this debate.
(04:04):
They simply want to shut it down. And that should
tell New Zealanders everything that they need to know. I'd
also add that in the government's first hundred days, one
of the first things that it did, as quietly as
it possibly could was revoke or appeal the enabling legislation
to require id to report on the fairness or on
fairness of our tax system. One the way there is
I think Nobel Peace Prize winning economists have recently called
(04:27):
for a global tax on the ultra wretch, arguing that
even a modest two percent wealth tax on billionaires, say
not even just millionaires, billionaires could raise substantial revenue internationally. Now,
how does the Green parties proposed wealth tax compare? And
do you see new zeeraltters having a kind of a
leadership role in this global argument at the moment. I mean,
(04:51):
we absolutely could be taking leadership position if we want
to do. Unfortunately, I think with this current government we're
saying far more of a shredder than we are any
kind of vision for the nation and that we'd want
to build. And this is the point that I made
in the budget debate. You know, this kind of cut, cut,
cut after callous cut, whether it's in conservation or frontline
of what's necessary for communities or climate resilience or adaptation
(05:11):
or whatever. It's not only cruel and unusual, but it's
not how you build a country, it's how you break one.
And that's where I kind of come back to those
basic economic principles. You know, it's really deeply ironic and
profoundly nonsensical for the government to be talking out one
side of its mouth about productivity and growth while actively
kneecapping precisely those things with its fiscal strategy, where it
(05:35):
is pulling back on government investment and the things that
drive that productivity and that growth, let alone fair distribution
of those things. But to your question on how our
tax proposals would work, so we put on the table
a proposal for a wealth tax which would only apply
to the top approximate three percent in this country. So
for anyone with an individual net wealth over two million dollars,
so for a couple, it's over four million, and that's
(05:56):
net wealth, so it's minus obviously your mortgages. Ratherwise, you'd
pay a two point five percent tax above that term
million dollars net wealth individually, and doing that along the
suite of other reforms, and using debt sensibly to actually
pay for productive investment in our infrastructure, as opposed to
the tax cuts of Nicola Willis, which have generated zero
jobs and in fact have only continued to minimize the
(06:18):
opportunity for young New Zealanders. We can build an economy
that works for people and planet.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
They are further entrenching a system, mister speaker, which sees
our nurses, our firefighters, our teachers pay an effective tax
rate almost double that of the wealthiest in this country.
And not only is that so deeply unfair and so
deeply inequitable that it robs us of the very productivity
that they tell us that they care about, it robs
(06:47):
us of the investment that we could be making in
that infrastructure that all.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Of us need.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
The fundamental problem with the economy and the tax system
in altero in New Zealand is that we over tax
work and we undertaxt indeed oftentimes do not tax at
all wealth.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
We're hearing these terms rich ultra riches as a term
that I've heard pop up recently as well. How does
the Green Party define rich in this context of tax policy?
Where do we draw the line for who should pay more?
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I mean, we've drawn the line and our proposals as
that termillion dollar figure, termillion dollars individual net wealth puts
in the top three percent in this country. So I
think you're doing pretty all right. And this is where
I think we just kind of need to come back
to these really fundamental points. Right there are very few
people in this country who could individually afford to pay
for the cost of building a school or a hospital,
(07:45):
or even closer to home for a loved one's cancer treatment.
When tragedy befalls us. That is why we pull our
resources together and we create this thing called a country.
Because we're not five million random individual people or running
around this country doing our own thing. Actually need each
other and we can build this infrastructure by working together.
So yeah, I mean, maybe it's a bit of a
(08:05):
red hearing to try and define what we perceive rich
to be, but we've decided to draw the line in
terms of our wealth tax is currently at that two
million dollar net individual wealth.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
What about Nan and Pop who bought say a villa
in Mount Eden for a ten of tomatoes in the
seventiges or something, and they're obviously going to be above that.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
What happens there. Yeah, So in terms of people who
are you know, asset wealthyed but don't necessarily have the
cash flow, they would be able to have this eventually
paid off in the same way that rates can accumulate
against the kind of property to the point that it's
sold or the point at which somebody passes on. So
we'd have those same features in our wealth.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Tax critics often claim that higher taxes on wealth will
drive high net worth individuals to leave.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
The country, and this is probably a few gimes, and
that's why we simply can't do anything about it.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
No, No, what evidence do we have that something similar
wouldn't happen here? Like would there be some kind of
brain drain? I mean we're seeing one at the moment anyway,
that's kind of the point. But would we be seeing
different individuals leave and we don't mind them leaving, but
we want the young ends day.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
It's frankly ludicrous. Look, I'm not going to pretend that
it is easy to change the tax system. Of course
it's not. But ease should not be the reason that
we do something. Fairness and equity and the fundamental principles
and values that we have as New Zealanders, that is
that we care about each other and the planet that
we live on should be the driving force behind why
we do things. And we've done people should one hundred
(09:34):
and we've done hard things in the past, So I mean, yeah,
just a lot of the arguments that are often floated around,
for example, Norway, at the top of my head, I
think it's there's approximately two hundred and thirty six thousand
millionaires and billionaires in Norway and there are approximately thirty
high profile individuals who made a big song and dance
(09:54):
about leaving the country as a result of their wealth
tax changes, and that resulted in a huge amount of hysteria.
Again a drop in the bucket in terms of the
reality of it. So I think we just need to
come back down to earth as far as this debate goes,
and ask ourselves why do people want to live here?
It shouldn't be a race to the bottom to shred
the social safety in there and the infrastructure that all
of us ultimately rely on. All the country falls apart
(10:16):
and people end up with less social cohesion and we
have more people sleeping rough down the bottom of Queen
Street outside of luxury stores. The reason that people should
want to live here is because of our great quality
of life, and we are losing that because we are
not investing in it. What about people?
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And you've probably heard this one before as well, because
I've heard it a few times. I've worked hard to
get here.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
I ask anyone, well, firstly, I would say the hard
working news are some of the hardest working New Zealanders
that I have met are single mothers working multiple jobs,
paying double the effective tax rate if the multi multi
millionaires and billionaires in this country. So yeah, I mean,
any politician who wants to claim to be fighting for
the hard working New Zealanders should be fighting for those
(11:08):
who make their income from work, not from near wealth accumulation.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
By the way, I read some critique about the so
you've got this thing five thousand dollars per passenger private
jet tax proposing, and I've read something that's somewhere that said, look,
it'll it'll force people to fly commercial or something. And
I actually laughed out loud at that because these people
are not like five thousand dollars to me, for instance,
(11:32):
I don't know about you, but that's I don't have
that total will really do you know what I mean?
But these people who have private jets, I'm going to
say they will drop that on a lunch aind of
some things, so.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Little in the multiples of that that it costs they
actually use the private jet to get here in the position.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, I mean, do you have any data or any
idea how many of those private jet passengers are actually
coming here? Every month.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yeah, every year. I believe it's between two hundred and
fifty to three hundred, so it's not that many. But again,
this is about kind of drawing a line in the
sand or making a point of principle, because we've seen
similar policies applied in other jurisdictions. I just think that
it is insane that we are at a point in
time where regular people, low income, middle income, regular people
(12:16):
are trying their best to use reusable straws and reusable cups,
and billionaires are allowed to set the planet on fire.
That's kind of the end of it for me.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Oh yeah, Well, Jeff Bezos is wedding the other Oh yeah.
I was giving a close eye on that guest lest
thinking like, oh right, that's good to see Oprah there.
I mean, in New York City recently, attacks the rich
message helped Zoran Mumdani to win the Democratic mayoral primary.
Do you say this as a sign that public sentiment
(12:45):
is shifting globally in favor of wealth taxes.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah. I think there's a few things that we can
take from Zoran's win. The first, you know, I really
applaud the approach that he took post Trump's Win. He
went into communities within New York and the equivalents of
kind of electorates or burrows or whatever they call them
over there, and he asked people why they had flipped
from the Democrats to voting for Trump, because that seems
to be a question that many of us in commentary
(13:11):
land are asking. And what he found, strangely enough, was
people citing the cost of living and basic economic issues
and they felt as though they had voted for decades
and decades their entire lives for the Democrats to do
something about it, and they hadn't. So it was kind
of a hail Mary, something needs to change. So we're
just going to grasp for the closest thing that looks
(13:32):
like a meaningful transformation or a meaningful change there. And
that is why he ended up coming out with such
strong fundamental economic policies of how you basically rebuild society,
of how you rebuild communities, of how you provide people
with actual economic freedom which then results in those social freedoms.
So you know, will be completely transparent about the fact
(13:52):
that Baquard I was at university, I was enamored by
the idea of libertarianism, which is actually the ideology encapsulated
best by the activity right now, because I was like, oh, yeah,
course it makes sense. We'll just get to run around,
live our own lives, don't interrupt other people doing their
own thing. But the more that I thought about it,
and I read a second book, you then start to
realize that that social freedom is allsory. It's not real
(14:14):
if you don't have access to the material basics to
be able to participate in society to survive, let alone
to thrive. So that's where he came out, obviously with
the kind of tax the rich stuff, but also those
basic propositions for free public transport services, for free early childhood.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
I think that what that tells us is in a
nutshell tempered centrism which has failed people for decades, for
forty decades, as they're being subjected to trackle down economics
is a breeding ground for effectively right wing radicalism. And
the antidote to that is to ensure that everybody has
their basic needs met. It's not rocket science.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
On our numbers, the opposition parties Labor, the Greens, Antipart
and Maldi would be in a position to govern if
an election was held today. Let's break the numbers down.
National is on thirty point seven points. That's down two
point two on our last poll in March. Labor is
a head of National sitting on thirty three point two.
That's a slight increase of zero point nine. The Greens
(15:14):
into Party Mardi are both up. The Greens one point
six points to eleven point six while to Party Mardi
has nudged up zero point five to five point five
percentage points.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Well, the Green Party is currently polling really well.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
We can go high.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
The double digits now, which is I mean, this far
out from election isn't too bad, all right, and that's
ahead of ACT in New Zealand. First in the recent
post fresh Water and ourn z Read research polls, Rather,
what do you attribute this surge and support to.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
First thing, I say, I'm always so reticent to provide
commentary on poles. I know, me, it feels like reading
the tea leave and it's kind of like, you know,
everyone's always like when it's good, oh yeah, it means
that we're doing great, and when it's bad, we don't
actually pay that much attention. That's in pole but our
and another thing is just my basic experience, you know,
(16:12):
in Auckland Central in twenty twenty, I was put behind
on all the poles, and then of course we ended
up making history because the real poll is people realizing
not to watch the poles. But we are the poles,
we have agency, and we can actually change things here.
But I guess to try and read the tea leaves
and the vibes that are out there. The sense that
I'm getting from folks across the country is people are
much like as we're discussing around zorns, when people are
(16:35):
looking for what the next iteration of our economic framework
looks like. People know that the wheels are falling off
of the way that things are currently operating. So there's
obviously a heck of a lot of frustration. And I'm
really proud to be co leading a party that is
putting genuine solutions on the table. And this is about
(16:55):
also understanding the kind of fundamental principles of the Green
Party too, because it's a moral panic that I get
asked about every few months or so where people are like, oh,
you're talking about social policies. That's not Green Party stuff.
Your name is green, your color is green. So just
to give you some insight, the Green Party or Green
parties all around the world have the same four core
charter principles. What differentiates the Green Party in Altered or
(17:16):
in New Zealand is a recognition of ten tooth your
waiting is our foundational constitutional text. From that flows firstly
the notion of ecological responsibility. Resources are finite, even those
resources that do regenerate need time and space and God
forbids and planning Shane Jones in order to regenerate. If
you accept that as the first principle, that makes you
know in terms of the flow on effects for society,
(17:37):
it makes sense to go, well, we need to share
those resources in a somewhat fair, just and reasonable and
rational way. That's known as social responsibility or social justice
on the internet. The third is appropriate decision making. We
like devolving decision making powers down to the level where
it actually affects people. It's why I'm such a massive
nerd for local government. And the fourth is non violence.
Of course we're happies and we don't like going to war,
(17:58):
but if you dig into that little bit deeper, it's
basically about how do you create these systems and settings
and blueprints and ways of operating as a country and
governance and making decisions that don't neglect people or their perspectives,
so that further down the track they go, this thing
doesn't work for me, and I want to uproot the
entire thing.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Do you reckon?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
The Greens have bounced back.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I mean, yeah, we're back, baby, But I think I
think that you know, my aspirations, our aspirations as a party,
will not be met until we live in a country
where every child is able to live a good life,
until our rivers are clean, and you know, our native
wildlife is flourishing. It was utterly mind lying to me
(18:43):
to be in a discussion or a debate or whatever
you want to call it the other day with an
act Party MP where you know, the proposition of bringing
back the more was on the table through genetic engineering,
and it's like, yeah, cool, like novel whatever, get it? Yeap,
science is awesome, but like, we're putting our eggs in
the basket of something that literally sounds like Jurassic Park. Meanwhile,
(19:05):
seventy five percent of our current native wildlife is at
risk of extinction. The government is approving and fast tracking
coal mines and kiwi habitats and cutting predator free twenty
fifty and Department of Conservation funding make it make sense.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
But mama's got a lot of meat on. Look. Finally,
if Chris Luckson called you tomorrow, he said, look, I've
had a good look at your green badga. Not bad,
but I'll let you pick one thing to implement tomorrow.
And he's got a genie out the back, so don't
worry about logistics.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
What would you choose? I think it has to be
the wealth tax as a starting point. You know, if
we're talking about economic transformation and fairness, which is deeply
into related to climate justice, then we need tax reform.
And regardless of whatever side of the political spectrum that
you're on at the moment, as the IID themselves said,
and you know they're not politically beholden, the visible, rational,
(20:02):
mature political debate at the moment is not if we
have text reform, it's how we do tax reform.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Thanks for joining us, Chloe. Thank you. That's it for
this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzid Herald
dot co dot enz The Front Page is produced by
Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
(20:28):
I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the front page on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
for another look behind the headlines.
Kiyota owned Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Should
the ultra wealthy pay more tax? It's a debate that's
continued for decades, even centuries, from ancient Athens to present day.
(00:27):
The idea has been a constant when it comes to
addressing inequality, yet no government in the last few decades
has been brave enough to impose one. It's a staple
of the Green Party's proposed budget, which promises bold moves
to make sure everyone has a warm home, decent ki
(00:48):
and the care and support for a good life. But
who pays and is leaning even more left than center
doing wonders for the party's polling. Today on the Front
Green Party co leader Chloe's Swarbrick is with us to
discuss whether it's time for the wealthy to fund the.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Rest of us.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
First off, Chloe, your Green's on Tour road show is
taking the party's Green budget directly to communities. What are
the most common concerns or questions or stuff raised with you?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
People know that the wheels are falling off. You know,
if you diagnose the problem of the world that we're
living in today or the country that we're living in today.
You know, half a million New Zealanders are using food
banks every single month, one hundred and ninety one New
Zealanders or leaving the country every single day, and a
pharicle correctly two thirds of them are between the ages
of eighteen to forty five. If Nicola Oillis has concerns
about the aging population and the challenges that may face
(01:45):
in terms of fiscal propositions for us, then we need
to actually be having sensible, rational conversations. And that was
just only underscored by the iid's Long Term Insights briefing
from a few weeks ago, which told us that the
rational conversation and politics if we change the tax system,
it's how we change the tax system to make things fairer.
But look, you don't need to be an economist to
(02:05):
know that things are pretty dire and pretty diabolical out
there at the moment, and New Zealanders are feeling it
every single day. So I'm also really part of the
fact that we've been going out there and saying we'll
not here to complain an solidarity with those complaints, but
also to put some solutions on the table. So for us,
let's looked like obviously free early childhood education, free dentistry,
free GPS in the primary healthcare space, and also helping
(02:28):
the transition into a climate resilient economy, because you can't
just be talking about climate adaptation without also talking about
how we curb our climate changing emissions. And this government's
making some deeply irresponsible and frankly stupid decisions with, for example,
the two hundred million dollars that it's decided to invest
in new fossil fuel subsidies. It's taxpayer money. Yeah, so the.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Party's promising you mentioned, free early childhood education, free dental care,
free GP visits. I mean, what do you say to
critics who find all of this to be fiscally unrealistic?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Say that if we were advocating for or fighting for
free compulsory education or free hospitals, these days would be
called the exact same thing. It'd be called wasteful spending,
would be called Marxists, and all the rest come at us.
The reality is that we've done really big things in
the past, and the nineteen thirties and forties, after World
Wars and the Great Depression, we came together as a
(03:21):
country and decided to build a nation which looked like
the foundations of public health care, public education, and public housing.
And we paid for that responsibly by higher taxes on
those who had profited handsomely during a time of hardship
for many. Right now, we're in a situation where the
top one percent in this country hold twenty three percent
of all of the country's wealth, and IRD research from
(03:43):
twenty twenty three told us that the top three hundred
eleven households pay an effective tax rate less than half
of that of the average New Zealander. It's not fair.
And when are we going to be able to have
a rational political debate about how we fix and change
these things? I mean, there's a reason that the Conservatives
on the other sid out of the political debate and
not even willing to engage in the terms of this debate.
(04:04):
They simply want to shut it down. And that should
tell New Zealanders everything that they need to know. I'd
also add that in the government's first hundred days, one
of the first things that it did, as quietly as
it possibly could was revoke or appeal the enabling legislation
to require id to report on the fairness or on
fairness of our tax system. One the way there is
I think Nobel Peace Prize winning economists have recently called
(04:27):
for a global tax on the ultra wretch, arguing that
even a modest two percent wealth tax on billionaires, say
not even just millionaires, billionaires could raise substantial revenue internationally. Now,
how does the Green parties proposed wealth tax compare? And
do you see new zeeraltters having a kind of a
leadership role in this global argument at the moment. I mean,
(04:51):
we absolutely could be taking leadership position if we want
to do. Unfortunately, I think with this current government we're
saying far more of a shredder than we are any
kind of vision for the nation and that we'd want
to build. And this is the point that I made
in the budget debate. You know, this kind of cut, cut,
cut after callous cut, whether it's in conservation or frontline
of what's necessary for communities or climate resilience or adaptation
(05:11):
or whatever. It's not only cruel and unusual, but it's
not how you build a country, it's how you break one.
And that's where I kind of come back to those
basic economic principles. You know, it's really deeply ironic and
profoundly nonsensical for the government to be talking out one
side of its mouth about productivity and growth while actively
kneecapping precisely those things with its fiscal strategy, where it
(05:35):
is pulling back on government investment and the things that
drive that productivity and that growth, let alone fair distribution
of those things. But to your question on how our
tax proposals would work, so we put on the table
a proposal for a wealth tax which would only apply
to the top approximate three percent in this country. So
for anyone with an individual net wealth over two million dollars,
so for a couple, it's over four million, and that's
(05:56):
net wealth, so it's minus obviously your mortgages. Ratherwise, you'd
pay a two point five percent tax above that term
million dollars net wealth individually, and doing that along the
suite of other reforms, and using debt sensibly to actually
pay for productive investment in our infrastructure, as opposed to
the tax cuts of Nicola Willis, which have generated zero
jobs and in fact have only continued to minimize the
(06:18):
opportunity for young New Zealanders. We can build an economy
that works for people and planet.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
They are further entrenching a system, mister speaker, which sees
our nurses, our firefighters, our teachers pay an effective tax
rate almost double that of the wealthiest in this country.
And not only is that so deeply unfair and so
deeply inequitable that it robs us of the very productivity
that they tell us that they care about, it robs
(06:47):
us of the investment that we could be making in
that infrastructure that all.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Of us need.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
The fundamental problem with the economy and the tax system
in altero in New Zealand is that we over tax
work and we undertaxt indeed oftentimes do not tax at
all wealth.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
We're hearing these terms rich ultra riches as a term
that I've heard pop up recently as well. How does
the Green Party define rich in this context of tax policy?
Where do we draw the line for who should pay more?
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I mean, we've drawn the line and our proposals as
that termillion dollar figure, termillion dollars individual net wealth puts
in the top three percent in this country. So I
think you're doing pretty all right. And this is where
I think we just kind of need to come back
to these really fundamental points. Right there are very few
people in this country who could individually afford to pay
for the cost of building a school or a hospital,
(07:45):
or even closer to home for a loved one's cancer treatment.
When tragedy befalls us. That is why we pull our
resources together and we create this thing called a country.
Because we're not five million random individual people or running
around this country doing our own thing. Actually need each
other and we can build this infrastructure by working together.
So yeah, I mean, maybe it's a bit of a
(08:05):
red hearing to try and define what we perceive rich
to be, but we've decided to draw the line in
terms of our wealth tax is currently at that two
million dollar net individual wealth.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
What about Nan and Pop who bought say a villa
in Mount Eden for a ten of tomatoes in the
seventiges or something, and they're obviously going to be above that.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
What happens there. Yeah, So in terms of people who
are you know, asset wealthyed but don't necessarily have the
cash flow, they would be able to have this eventually
paid off in the same way that rates can accumulate
against the kind of property to the point that it's
sold or the point at which somebody passes on. So
we'd have those same features in our wealth.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Tax critics often claim that higher taxes on wealth will
drive high net worth individuals to leave.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
The country, and this is probably a few gimes, and
that's why we simply can't do anything about it.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
No, No, what evidence do we have that something similar
wouldn't happen here? Like would there be some kind of
brain drain? I mean we're seeing one at the moment anyway,
that's kind of the point. But would we be seeing
different individuals leave and we don't mind them leaving, but
we want the young ends day.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
It's frankly ludicrous. Look, I'm not going to pretend that
it is easy to change the tax system. Of course
it's not. But ease should not be the reason that
we do something. Fairness and equity and the fundamental principles
and values that we have as New Zealanders, that is
that we care about each other and the planet that
we live on should be the driving force behind why
we do things. And we've done people should one hundred
(09:34):
and we've done hard things in the past, So I mean, yeah,
just a lot of the arguments that are often floated around,
for example, Norway, at the top of my head, I
think it's there's approximately two hundred and thirty six thousand
millionaires and billionaires in Norway and there are approximately thirty
high profile individuals who made a big song and dance
(09:54):
about leaving the country as a result of their wealth
tax changes, and that resulted in a huge amount of hysteria.
Again a drop in the bucket in terms of the
reality of it. So I think we just need to
come back down to earth as far as this debate goes,
and ask ourselves why do people want to live here?
It shouldn't be a race to the bottom to shred
the social safety in there and the infrastructure that all
of us ultimately rely on. All the country falls apart
(10:16):
and people end up with less social cohesion and we
have more people sleeping rough down the bottom of Queen
Street outside of luxury stores. The reason that people should
want to live here is because of our great quality
of life, and we are losing that because we are
not investing in it. What about people?
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And you've probably heard this one before as well, because
I've heard it a few times. I've worked hard to
get here.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
I ask anyone, well, firstly, I would say the hard
working news are some of the hardest working New Zealanders
that I have met are single mothers working multiple jobs,
paying double the effective tax rate if the multi multi
millionaires and billionaires in this country. So yeah, I mean,
any politician who wants to claim to be fighting for
the hard working New Zealanders should be fighting for those
(11:08):
who make their income from work, not from near wealth accumulation.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
By the way, I read some critique about the so
you've got this thing five thousand dollars per passenger private
jet tax proposing, and I've read something that's somewhere that said, look,
it'll it'll force people to fly commercial or something. And
I actually laughed out loud at that because these people
are not like five thousand dollars to me, for instance,
(11:32):
I don't know about you, but that's I don't have
that total will really do you know what I mean?
But these people who have private jets, I'm going to
say they will drop that on a lunch aind of
some things, so.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Little in the multiples of that that it costs they
actually use the private jet to get here in the position.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, I mean, do you have any data or any
idea how many of those private jet passengers are actually
coming here? Every month.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yeah, every year. I believe it's between two hundred and
fifty to three hundred, so it's not that many. But again,
this is about kind of drawing a line in the
sand or making a point of principle, because we've seen
similar policies applied in other jurisdictions. I just think that
it is insane that we are at a point in
time where regular people, low income, middle income, regular people
(12:16):
are trying their best to use reusable straws and reusable cups,
and billionaires are allowed to set the planet on fire.
That's kind of the end of it for me.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Oh yeah, Well, Jeff Bezos is wedding the other Oh yeah.
I was giving a close eye on that guest lest
thinking like, oh right, that's good to see Oprah there.
I mean, in New York City recently, attacks the rich
message helped Zoran Mumdani to win the Democratic mayoral primary.
Do you say this as a sign that public sentiment
(12:45):
is shifting globally in favor of wealth taxes.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah. I think there's a few things that we can
take from Zoran's win. The first, you know, I really
applaud the approach that he took post Trump's Win. He
went into communities within New York and the equivalents of
kind of electorates or burrows or whatever they call them
over there, and he asked people why they had flipped
from the Democrats to voting for Trump, because that seems
to be a question that many of us in commentary
(13:11):
land are asking. And what he found, strangely enough, was
people citing the cost of living and basic economic issues
and they felt as though they had voted for decades
and decades their entire lives for the Democrats to do
something about it, and they hadn't. So it was kind
of a hail Mary, something needs to change. So we're
just going to grasp for the closest thing that looks
(13:32):
like a meaningful transformation or a meaningful change there. And
that is why he ended up coming out with such
strong fundamental economic policies of how you basically rebuild society,
of how you rebuild communities, of how you provide people
with actual economic freedom which then results in those social freedoms.
So you know, will be completely transparent about the fact
(13:52):
that Baquard I was at university, I was enamored by
the idea of libertarianism, which is actually the ideology encapsulated
best by the activity right now, because I was like, oh, yeah,
course it makes sense. We'll just get to run around,
live our own lives, don't interrupt other people doing their
own thing. But the more that I thought about it,
and I read a second book, you then start to
realize that that social freedom is allsory. It's not real
(14:14):
if you don't have access to the material basics to
be able to participate in society to survive, let alone
to thrive. So that's where he came out, obviously with
the kind of tax the rich stuff, but also those
basic propositions for free public transport services, for free early childhood.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
I think that what that tells us is in a
nutshell tempered centrism which has failed people for decades, for
forty decades, as they're being subjected to trackle down economics
is a breeding ground for effectively right wing radicalism. And
the antidote to that is to ensure that everybody has
their basic needs met. It's not rocket science.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
On our numbers, the opposition parties Labor, the Greens, Antipart
and Maldi would be in a position to govern if
an election was held today. Let's break the numbers down.
National is on thirty point seven points. That's down two
point two on our last poll in March. Labor is
a head of National sitting on thirty three point two.
That's a slight increase of zero point nine. The Greens
(15:14):
into Party Mardi are both up. The Greens one point
six points to eleven point six while to Party Mardi
has nudged up zero point five to five point five
percentage points.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Well, the Green Party is currently polling really well.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
We can go high.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
The double digits now, which is I mean, this far
out from election isn't too bad, all right, and that's
ahead of ACT in New Zealand. First in the recent
post fresh Water and ourn z Read research polls, Rather,
what do you attribute this surge and support to.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
First thing, I say, I'm always so reticent to provide
commentary on poles. I know, me, it feels like reading
the tea leave and it's kind of like, you know,
everyone's always like when it's good, oh yeah, it means
that we're doing great, and when it's bad, we don't
actually pay that much attention. That's in pole but our
and another thing is just my basic experience, you know,
(16:12):
in Auckland Central in twenty twenty, I was put behind
on all the poles, and then of course we ended
up making history because the real poll is people realizing
not to watch the poles. But we are the poles,
we have agency, and we can actually change things here.
But I guess to try and read the tea leaves
and the vibes that are out there. The sense that
I'm getting from folks across the country is people are
much like as we're discussing around zorns, when people are
(16:35):
looking for what the next iteration of our economic framework
looks like. People know that the wheels are falling off
of the way that things are currently operating. So there's
obviously a heck of a lot of frustration. And I'm
really proud to be co leading a party that is
putting genuine solutions on the table. And this is about
(16:55):
also understanding the kind of fundamental principles of the Green
Party too, because it's a moral panic that I get
asked about every few months or so where people are like, oh,
you're talking about social policies. That's not Green Party stuff.
Your name is green, your color is green. So just
to give you some insight, the Green Party or Green
parties all around the world have the same four core
charter principles. What differentiates the Green Party in Altered or
(17:16):
in New Zealand is a recognition of ten tooth your
waiting is our foundational constitutional text. From that flows firstly
the notion of ecological responsibility. Resources are finite, even those
resources that do regenerate need time and space and God
forbids and planning Shane Jones in order to regenerate. If
you accept that as the first principle, that makes you
know in terms of the flow on effects for society,
(17:37):
it makes sense to go, well, we need to share
those resources in a somewhat fair, just and reasonable and
rational way. That's known as social responsibility or social justice
on the internet. The third is appropriate decision making. We
like devolving decision making powers down to the level where
it actually affects people. It's why I'm such a massive
nerd for local government. And the fourth is non violence.
Of course we're happies and we don't like going to war,
(17:58):
but if you dig into that little bit deeper, it's
basically about how do you create these systems and settings
and blueprints and ways of operating as a country and
governance and making decisions that don't neglect people or their perspectives,
so that further down the track they go, this thing
doesn't work for me, and I want to uproot the
entire thing.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Do you reckon?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
The Greens have bounced back.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I mean, yeah, we're back, baby, But I think I
think that you know, my aspirations, our aspirations as a party,
will not be met until we live in a country
where every child is able to live a good life,
until our rivers are clean, and you know, our native
wildlife is flourishing. It was utterly mind lying to me
(18:43):
to be in a discussion or a debate or whatever
you want to call it the other day with an
act Party MP where you know, the proposition of bringing
back the more was on the table through genetic engineering,
and it's like, yeah, cool, like novel whatever, get it? Yeap,
science is awesome, but like, we're putting our eggs in
the basket of something that literally sounds like Jurassic Park. Meanwhile,
(19:05):
seventy five percent of our current native wildlife is at
risk of extinction. The government is approving and fast tracking
coal mines and kiwi habitats and cutting predator free twenty
fifty and Department of Conservation funding make it make sense.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
But mama's got a lot of meat on. Look. Finally,
if Chris Luckson called you tomorrow, he said, look, I've
had a good look at your green badga. Not bad,
but I'll let you pick one thing to implement tomorrow.
And he's got a genie out the back, so don't
worry about logistics.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
What would you choose? I think it has to be
the wealth tax as a starting point. You know, if
we're talking about economic transformation and fairness, which is deeply
into related to climate justice, then we need tax reform.
And regardless of whatever side of the political spectrum that
you're on at the moment, as the IID themselves said,
and you know they're not politically beholden, the visible, rational,
(20:02):
mature political debate at the moment is not if we
have text reform, it's how we do tax reform.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Thanks for joining us, Chloe. Thank you. That's it for
this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzid Herald
dot co dot enz The Front Page is produced by
Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
(20:28):
I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the front page on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
for another look behind the headlines.
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