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Almost 1 year ago, Jacinda Ardern abandoned campaigning on a Capital Gains Tax ever again as Labour leader, stating that they had campaigned hard on it for 3 elections but NZers don& #39;t want it and so they listened. Let& #39;s dig into this a bit more. 1/7
NZES data indicates the public was actually quite evenly split on the policy from 2011 to 2014, and were basically unmoved. But NZES data also consistently indicates the public feel strongly that wealth and income inequality is a major problem and needs to be tackled... 2/7
E.g. in 2011, 60% agreed the income gap is too big, 52% agreed there& #39;s "one law for the rich, one for the poor", and a whopping 2/3 agreed "ordinary working ppl dont get a fair share of the country& #39;s wealth". In 2017, 60% said "govt shld remove tax breaks from prop investors" 3/7
Broad buy-in of a CGT was there to be won. So *how* Labour campaigned on it was crucial. Especially in 2011 & 2014, they got bogged down & were unprepared on details, were defensive, and desperate to prove their neolib credentials to appear as "responsible economic managers" 4/7
Here& #39;s Phil Goff in 2011, stumbling, sidetracking, defending, and then promising to reduce govt debt to ZERO by 2022! Key ate him alive. The only argument for CGT here is govt revenue raising and debt pay-down. That& #39;s completely out of step with why ppl would want one. 5/7
And again, Cunliffe destroyed in 2014. Can& #39;t answer a pretty simple policy detail, sidetracks, then says Labour& #39;s "tax" plan is to run surpluses every year and pay down debt?! Although notice how the biggest cheer was when he spoke about wealth transfer to the top... 6/7
So Labour weren’t "listening to the public" when they abandoned CGT. They were failing on policy, failing on values, & failing, inevitably, at trying to beat Nats at their own austerity politics game. Tax needs to be simple & fought for on values of fairness and collectivism. 7/7
