David Cunliffe Q+A

Guest post
10 years ago
Categories: david cunliffe, election 2014

Firstly, it’s really good to be back at the Standard – in the last few weeks our opponents have made it clear that they’re going to play a rough game this election. But we are strong enough to withstand dirty tricks and to focus on what matters to our people – our work, our homes and our families. I’m confident we can win this election and make real change by working together.

Secondly, you’re all welcome to come to my Congress speech in Wellington next Sunday where I’ll be outlining the kind of change we need to make. You can click here to register.

Last Wednesday David Parker and I released our alternative budget. It includes the provision of a billion dollars a year to ensure inflation and demographic increases in health, education, and other social services are accounted for.

Unlike National, we’ll be upfront with our policies in these areas – new policies will come from new spend.

We’re also going to raise the top rate to 36% for every dollar earned over $150,000 a year and we’ll raise the trust rate to the same amount. This will raise as much revenue as raising the top rate further and will cut any incentive to hide income in trusts.

We’re also cracking down on tax avoidance by multi-nationals. We’re doing this because we believe that to get a fair society we need everyone to pay their fair share.

We have carefully shown what we have available to spend on election policy and where we are funding it from. Again, unlike National, we are going into the election campaign with a transparent and accountable position. We have a plan for a fair society, a society based on strong and progressive values – Kiwi values – and we know how we will pay for it.

The kind of values expressed in our Christchurch housing policy that we announced on Friday which states our commitment to building 10,000 new houses, 3,000 of which will be set aside for affordable rentals while the housing crisis is fixed, and another 100 that will be used as emergency housing.

In that announcement we also committed to increasing the Canterbury accommodation supplement by up to $50 a week – Christchurch has some of the most expensive rents in the country, the accommodation supplement hasn’t kept up, and people in Christchurch are suffering. That’s not right and Labour will fix it.

Over the next few months we’ll be releasing more policy focused on making a positive change to New Zealand and building a progressive and egalitarian society, but for now I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts and answering your questions. We’re going to win this together.

David Cunliffe

lprent: Stay broadly on topic, and be aware that I will be fully moderating every comment.

David will be here at about 4pm. It’d be good to have your starting comments up by then.

The usual rules apply – don’t be stupid. I will not be allowing boring speeches on commenter’s own pet topics, the author sets the topic.. People who make “when did you kill your mother” style accusations may find that they get a 3 month ban for being really stupid.

You don’t have to be nice. Just make your comments short and intelligent. Remember David is only giving us up to an hour. If you want your comment answered then don’t waste his time or ours

I prefer to have guests doing Q&A’s to want to come back.