David Cormack
patreon
Better benefits AND a wealth tax
🕑 Added 2020-06-28 01:30:20 +0000 UTCThe Green Party has today launched the first bold policy of the 2020 election campaign.
The guaranteed minimum income policy is a well thought-out and sensible idea. It effectively sets the benefit rate at $325 a week, which is a wee bit more than the minimum recommended by the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (the WEAG was tasked by Labour to come up with a bunch of recommendations for the party to then ignore).
New Zealand has woeful rates of poverty, especially child poverty, and upping the benefits was considered the single best way to help that.
This $325 a week would also go to students. Which is about bloody time.
There is also $100 per week universal child payment up to the age of three.
The party has also done some thinking on health and disability support. All support is proposed to come under one umbrella, and be guaranteed to be 80% of the minimum wage. I'm not an expert on disability support by a long-shot, but it seems a simplification so that no matter the impairment, no matter your employment status at the time of impairment, you get the money you need to live. Which is a good idea.
To pay for this is where the political nerd in me gets excited. The Green Party is proposing two new income tax brackets, 37c at $100,000 p/a and 42c at $150,000 p/a. I'm not a fan of increased income taxes if that's the only change being made, but in this policy it's not. There is a wealth tax!
It's proposed that wealth above $1M will be taxed at 1% (if you have a mortgage then that comes off your wealth), and 2% over $2M.
It's. About. Time.
For too long the burden of tax has fallen on the worker, while those folks who are asset rich have benefited from the labour of others and not had to pay their fair share. This redistributes the tax burden a wee bit - perhaps not as much as I'd like, but it's a start.
It's clever from the Greens. As I noted in my campaign piece, the Capital Gains Tax was off the table for them when the Prime Minister said there would never be a CGT while she was PM, so they've snuck around the side with a wealth tax.
The increased benefits and the disability support is returning dignity to people who have had it stripped away by successive governments for decades. And the wealth tax is attempting to address a big stupid hole in our taxation system - namely that assets can sit there and accrue their owners tax-free income.
Controversially, it will also include wealth in trusts and Kiwisaver. But that makes sense to me.
As is the case with Green Party policy, it's been fully costed out and explained how it will be paid for, but that won't stop people from saying it's the CRAZY GREENS trying to tax and spend their way to richness. It's not. It's the fair Greens trying to make New Zealand a little bit easier to live in for those struggling.
It's also a smart play because Labour is oh so vulnerable on its left. It's hardly been the paty of progress and reform that we'd dreamed of. So this first shot makes it clear that the Green Party is the only (even remotely) lefty party we have.
I can't wait to hear the other party's response to this. On first blush, it just seems fair and reasonable.
Comments
Sonja Barneveld
I’m a natural third party voter (raised by Social Credit voting parents in the 70’s) but have also voted Labour when it’s been tactical. Having said that I’m also aware of the Wellington region bubble - so would like to see how this goes in the rest of the country. I’m the generation that was hit hard by Rogernomics and the Mother of all Budgets. I remember a much more equitable benefit system (not easy but live able) and have been frustrated by successive govt’s failure to rebalance that .
Taylor Fairey
Bit disappointed they don't seem to have included a tax free threshold at the lower end. Also until we fix how abatement rates work there will remain a punitive disincentive to go into full time work. That being said I am happy they're making an effort to change things for the better.
