””It is absolutely extraordinary that they are able to get away with paying zero tax in this country. I really like Apple products – they’re incredibly innovative – but it looks like their tax department is even more innovative than their product designers,” Shaw said.”
apple ripping nz of
Why don’t we just have a 10% tax on all money as it leaves the country ,?
Very good work by Mr Nippert again. John Campbell has also been on the Apple case for more than a year – trying to get some explanation from Apple about their activities in NZ.
According to Nippert, Apple has at least several dozen employees in NZ. It’s NZ sales are handled by its Aussie office – so can claim not to have a business here, I think. Legal but morally dodgy.
“Apple aims to be a force for good and we’re proud of the contributions we’ve made in New Zealand over the past decade. Because our products and services are created, designed and engineered in the US, that’s where the vast majority of our tax is paid,” the spokesperson said.
But aren’t most of the products made by cheap labour in Asian countries?
Spark chief executive Simon Moutter said Apple’s zero tax bill reinforced his concerns that New Zealand’s tax base was threatened by the burgeoning wave of technology companies.
“Some of these companies are willing to use every trick in the book to minimise the tax they pay towards the cost of running our schools, hospitals and social infrastructure,” Moutter said.
…
“Whether something can be done about it is another question. The United Kingdom and Australia are taking a lead on this and it will be interesting to see how it works out for them.”
Both Australia and Britain have gone further than the New Zealand Government and impose a diverted profits tax on companies trying to unfairly skirt national tax obligations.
John Payne, spokesman for the big business umbrella outfit the Corporate Taxpayers Group, cautioned against radical changes to the tax regime and warned the mechanism used by Apple was also used by local exporters.
“It’s Tax 101 in terms of activity … and it’s quid pro quo for us when we’re operating similarly in another country,” Payne said.
But NZ companies tend not to be on the same scale as the likes of Apple. So NZ ultimately is the loser. We’d be better off if all companies, NZ and others, paid a fair share of the tax in countries where they sell products and get some income.
Although I suspect there is some self / corporate interest there – good on Simon Moutter for sounding more engaged in the country’s welfare than our RW Nact Politicians.
Don’t forget any local competitor is stuck with uncompetative outcomes as they pay onshore tax.
Is the TOP tax policy actually a good idea? Or is it just a brainfart from a mouthy millionaire out-of-touch economist that can only see things in terms of dollars?
Most of the argument will no doubt focus on the harmful effects on the asset-rich income-poor, such as the elderly who live in areas where property values have skyrocketed. This policy suggests they build up debt to pay their imputed tax, which destroys their security and peace of mind. Or they sell up and move out, which trashes the idea of community. Basically these problems come about from viewing a home as just another capital asset, which economists only value for producing income. The alternative is a capital gains tax, as used in most of the rest of the world. This gets levied at the time of sale, at the time the property has changed from being a home to just another financial instrument.
But this policy also favours businesses with low capital requirements such as Trademe, Infometrics etc over businesses that require substantial capital investment to produce tangible goods. For instance, this 3D printing firm http://www.rapidman.co.nz/ would have needed to invest a huge chunk up-front to start up their 3D printing business. Slamming them with a tax liability on that investment right from the beginning would be a big disincentive to starting up. But long term, it’s the actually tangible goods businesses that are better for the economy.
Hitting farmers with a capital tax strikes me as a particularly crap idea. It gives them yet more incentive to try to wring yet more income from their very expensive investment. Do we really want to drive more intensification by changing the tax system to favour it?
The TOP proposal also puts a continuous burden on cashflow. This adds another difficulty to companies going though a rough patch, and may put some under that would otherwise survive.
Seems to me a capital gains tax, as used in most of the rest of the world, is a much fairer, less distortionary way of taxing capital. I favour including everything, even family homes (with rollover provisions for family homes). It more fairly captures the income enjoyed by the founders of businesses with low capital requirements that achieve a high sell price because of intangibles such as customer base, brand, intellectual property. TOP’s proposal is light on companies such as TradeMe, Infometrics, Charlie’s, 42 Below, while it would hit hard companies like F&P that need to invest in substantial equipment.
Finally, since capital gains taxes are widely used elsewhere, there’s plenty of other examples to look to and pick what works and eliminate the loopholes from the beginning.
My reading of their tax policy is more as a capital investment policy. The tax is on equity, so is designed to encourage property owners to borrow against their property and to invest in income generating businesses.
A noble aspiration, and a very correct observation of what is wrong with all our wealth tied up in non-productive real estate, and Morgan’s ideas may be a solution to that, but there’s some serious transition issues around how we get there.
Also, on the face of it, a huge structural subsidy (even more of a licence to print money) in favour of the banks.
Encouraging debt can’t be a good thing. I know of a bunch of businesses that went under 2009/2010. Most of them were running on borrowed money. I know a bunch of businesses that survived 2009/2010 with just a bit of belt-tightening. Most of them were debt-free or nearly. The correlation was pretty good.
Let alone encouraging more mortgage debt to avoid paying tax to live in your own home…
Seems to me a better way to encourage investment in more productive sectors is to clean up the financial shenanigans that make non-property investment so unattractive in NZ.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of it for those reasons too. The whole thing looks like a few rather noble ideas with rather poorly thought out execution. But that’s how Morgan operates.
You’re on the button about this problem needing a carrot approach to make productive investment safer than hence more attractive than real estate. It’s the financial markets that need the stick, not the property owners.
That’s a bit too generic a statement. A lot of new investment is debt funded so any form of encouraging investment is going to encourage debt. The problem occurs when your getting a lot of debt taken on which is chasing capital gains anticipated due to expanding underlying debt levels.
In terms of Morgans policy proposals, I doubt that the indirect measures like tax changes will have much effect. Even a capital gains tax has worked where? If we were serious about stopping the housing bubble in NZ then you need to prevent competition in taking on more debt directly. The LVR ratio is a start but needs to apply property by property (to stop competition between borrowers) and the cap could be on all borrowing, and lower. Also its still tied into the valuations, so make it loan to rental income to serious stop the competition in who can take on the biggest loan at purchase time.
Cleaning up the share market and dodgy practices there would do a lot to improve investment, but it will take a long while to kick in, many people have been scammed in the past and have a long memory.
I too doubt capital gains taxes will do much to slow the housing bubble inflating.
CGT is more an equity argument about those that benefit from a societal environment that allows capital investment to be protected and grow being required to contribute something back to maintaining that society. Instead of parasitically keeping it all in their pocket like they do now in NZ.
I don’t really believe in that fairness arguments. If some people are profiting off of others falling into significant indebitedness, that is unfair and problematic for society even if the government is taking a cut or even a very significant cut. If Capital Gains Taxes actually work then they need to be set at levels where they collect very little revenue because the underlying behavior is being discouraged by them. On the other hand I don’t think I have seen any examples of them working to actually achieve that.
My reasoning around Morgan’s tax policies is that essentially he believes the market is fundamentally pretty rational and so if profit is discouraged by taxation then this behavior will desist. I don’t think the market is anywhere near that rational, there are plenty of analysis saying that essentially many property investors are already losing money with their housing speculation and would get better returns with more productive investments anyway.
“A lot of new investment is debt funded so any form of encouraging investment is going to encourage debt. The problem occurs when your getting a lot of debt taken on which is chasing capital gains anticipated due to expanding underlying debt levels.”
The problem occurs when the interest paid gobbles up profit to the extent that little or no income tax is paid. Banks, however, don’t invest in businesses; they lend to investors, whether proprietors or shareholders, who do the investing. The trouble is that monies borrowed represent a personal benefit to the borrower since he is provided thereby with funds to invest in, and own, a business or property, and of course interest is the cost of that personal benefit, and personal benefits, while normally not tax deductible (this why we have fringe benefit tax), seem to have been deemed deductible in the case of interest.
Getting rid of deductibility of interest for tax purposes would probably mitigate many problems.
Banks do lend to businesses, interest is only deductible for the payer of the interest, so if interest is being deducted before profits are taxed then the business is making the interest payments.
We don’t want investment in productive businesses because they pay more tax to the government (which is pretty much irrelevant). We want that because it avoids the economy being a contest in speculation, which is prone to busts. Getting rid of interest deductibility is unlikely to solve that problem, though it is likely to make borrowing have a higher interest cost which will likely hamper investment in productive business as well as speculation. That kind of measure needs to be carefully targeted at speculative businesses.
“Banks do lend to businesses, interest is only deductible for the payer of the interest, so if interest is being deducted before profits are taxed then the business is making the interest payments.”
Businesses don’t pay interest; the person to whom the monies were lent, ie the proprietor, pays the interest. It doesn’t matter whether the proprietor pays it from his “business” account or from his “personal” account, it is the proprietor who is paying.
The issue is not the effect that non deductibility would have on this or that business. The issue is whether it is fair that someone who puts his own savings into (say) a rental property, and earns a decent profit, pays a respectable amount of tax, while someone who borrows heavily to invest pays very little tax because most of his profit is being eaten up by a personal expense.
of course they can, but will the government be able to continue paying the Accommodation Supplement that would allow Landlords to charge higher rents?
and how long before we have riots in the streets and would that be a good outcome?
Hmm, but maybe that is the intended outcome, destroy a bit of real estate, lock up a few people, insurance pay out, rebuild, charge higher rents.
so how do you like your current society vs the one i just painted?
cause it seems that the ‘burn down the house in which you are living’ is a thing at the moment with certain people on the left and the right.
“Seems to me a capital gains tax, as used in most of the rest of the world, is a much fairer, less distortionary way of taxing capital. I favour including everything, even family homes (with rollover provisions for family homes).”
A capital gain is still capital, but it represents only a small part of the capital that exists.
It is therefore difficult to see how taxing capital gains is “fairer” or “less distortionary”
when other capital is not being taxed.
“Finally, since capital gains taxes are widely used elsewhere, there’s plenty of other examples to look to and pick what works and eliminate the loopholes from the beginning.”
CGTs don’t seem to have “worked” elsewhere. Countries that have them seem to have just as many problems with property as we have here. I suspect the reason most countries persist with them is because they are a relatively easy to collect form of revenue. That they do not have much effect on interest rates probably makes them popular with the banks as well.
Great thread of discussion. At Gareth Morgan recent meeting he talked about stamp duty and estate duty that used to be ways of clipping tickets of valuable assets. Seems good idea if not set unreasonably high. Farms shouldn’t have to be sold to pay death duties etc.
It would be fairer to bring down GST to 7andhalf as I envisage, and make up the slack with tax on transferring properties. Any being sold under 5 years ownership, having a good tax on the difference between purchase and sale, only allowing for CPI and reasonable costs. (That way there would be a little correction for the huge difference between CPI and the burst in house prices.)
This is only connected in that it involves business people playing with their money in NZ to help them to get all of our money of us. Old news bac in 2012 but for lovers of interesting back stories might fill in gaps
Why is urban land expensive in NZ? Because it is just a way to gain Monopoly
money.
The property was acquired by Victoria Properties Consolidated in 2005 for $5.4 million with an optimistic forecast of potential value of $18 million to be gleaned from section sales after rezoning….
About 150 mainly Otago investors have money in the Victoria group, which is managed by Britannia Management, whose directors include National Party director and Canterbury Westland chairman Roger Bridge and financial adviser Craig Myles.
Probably where some of the payout from Hubbard’s South Canterbury Finance debacle went.
Agreed. Maybe after their Republican Messiah bloodies their collective noses, they’ll feel a little differently. Although, judging by some of the comments Trump’s supporters have made in the past, coherent thought is simply a bridge too far.
Trump: "Major meeting" tonight at Mar-a-Lago to "talk all about the VA"*turns to VA Sec.*Will you be there?*awkwardly shakes head no* pic.twitter.com/Up2tPEIxbO— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) March 17, 2017
this was after their meeting and i would suggest that Mutti just did not give him the love he so thinks he deserves.
Also there is that Mutti thing that they orange one has, unless the chick is young, has big boobs and a fine ass he is not interested. All other women, especially ones with guts and smarts remind him to much of his mother. And he can’t bribe his mother into fucking him for a pot of gold, cause shes seen it all before and he aint anything special. 🙂
it takes a lot of guts to board a ship at seventeen and to move to a new country to work as a domestic, even if you have sisters that already live and work there.
Mother Trump had guts and in the end lived glory, as she did well in the US.
Hekia has been attempting to bully Salisbury School into closure for many years now, by denying girls the best facility in the country for their needs, instead preferring they use a ‘wrap around’ service.
Once again we discover another story of the struggle a family has gone through over a number of years to have their daughter attend Salisbury School.
Finally she has been excepted, Salisbury will change and improve her life and that of her family tremendously.
I wish this family all the very best, your girl is going to love Salisbury, so happy you finally got there.
A change of government will help to keep one of the most valuable schools in the country open.
Some wrap around services must be making a fortune, Salisbury school is not about making money, it’s about improving lives. Would be interesting to know who is making money from the wrap around services, someone is.
Have you any idea what ‘wrap around services’ are or are they just double speak for actually doing nothing?
I’m not surprised they’ve been trying to shut down what seems to me to be a great school – they’ve been making it harder and harder for children with additional needs to access suitable education.
For that matter, they’ve been busy screwing the whole education system from top to bottom to suit their own ideological ends – they’ve got to go!!!
Have you any idea what ‘wrap around services’ are or are they just double speak for actually doing nothing?
I suspect that it’s doublespeak for the average, run of the mill school that suits most children but is detrimental to those that are outside the norm.
Yesah Salisbury School is an incredible place which saves lives.
Sometimes residential care is the best option rather than mainstream school. And the way this school prepares the girls for life is outstanding. Like when they reach a certain age they are moved to little villas to live with each other, on site with staff support, to give them life skills in a supportive controlled environment. Awesome.
They get to experience a strong sense of community, not only in the school, but also in Richmond itself and sometimes that will be the first time some girls have ever felt a sense of community or inclusion.
Hekia has been hell bent on closing Salisbury down, it’s more like a competition to her, the urge to win. People shouldn’t play games like that with the lives of others.
It’s so hard for me to understand why push the wrap around services which haven’t worked for some families, rather than supporting a facility that has been up and running and making a huge difference for decades. So I begin to wonder things like… do her friends have a wrap around service business?
Should some parents not be told about the school from the beginning as an option?
Anyways, Salisbury is a very very good school, huge respect for all the staff whom have made it so amazing over the many years it has been operating, and looking forward to seeing the roll increase in the future, rather than more road blocks, and more suffering from the outgoing government.
Connections?
Rangiora High School has Trust land. The Ministry wants to grab the control off the BOT so they can sell the land. So destroy Principal and BOT.
Salisbury has valuable land. The Ministry wants to grab the control off the BOT so they can sell the land. So destroy Principal and BOT and strangle the entrance for the girls.
Good on Parata! Yay!
Kempthorne wants the school to remain open, and is vocally strong about his support, so many MP’s are as well, Tracey Martin, Catherine Delahunty, Chris Hipkins, Damien O’Connor and others, am so thankful to them for their ongoing support
Beware of moving from Auckland Council (Corporate) Controlled Organisations (CCOs) to Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).
This upcoming ‘review’ needs to, in my view, make a top priority of returning all public services provided by Auckland Council and CCOs back to ‘in house’ service provision under the genuine, not-for-profit public service model.
Which was never broken before we had two doses of Neo-liberal ‘Rogernomic$’ reforms forced upon the public majority of Aucklanders.
In my view, we also need a huge clean out of ex-private sector businesspeople from ‘public servant’ roles.
How do people from the private sector ‘transmogrify’ into genuine public servants – serving the public and the public interest?
In my view – they don’t.
They’re from Planet ‘Private Profit’ and come from a completely different background and culture
– make money for shareholders – look after yourself and your mates?
Time for some BIG changes!
OPEN THE BOOKS!
CUT OUT THE CONSULTANTS ,
CONTRACTORS and CCOs!
BRING COUNCIL PUBLIC SERVICES BACK ‘IN HOUSE’ UNDER THE ‘NOT-FOR-PROFIT’ PUBLIC SERVICE MODEL!
This upcoming ‘review’ needs to, in my view, make a top priority of returning all public services provided by Auckland Council and CCOs back to ‘in house’ service provision under the genuine, not-for-profit public service model.
That’s would be the desired end result but the review should do an unbiased cost/benefit review. If they do that then moving all back in house should be a no-brainer.
The PPP model simply costs too much for limited returns that often makes things worse.
“If Forest & Bird gets its way, marine farming could never be considered…”
While “Forest & Bird Otago/Southland regional manager Sue Maturin said it did not consider marine farming to be appropriate for internationally significant and special places such as Fiordland and the wild pristine waters of Stewart Island, or the marine mammal sanctuaries for Hector’s dolphins in Curio Bay and Te Wae Wae”.
They’re talking about two bays by the sounds of things. Sounds reasonable.
“He was concerned the Wellington-based organisation was “not prepared to compromise” and said court action would cost a lot of money for Southland ratepayers.”
I’m sure all the Southland F and B members and volunteers who work in the area will love that bit.
Weka Interested to know more about 2 Bays… interested in hearing more.. Link Please…
Seems a default setting/response whenever these sorts of questions are raised…
“court action would cost a lot of money for Southland ratepayers.” (or any her Ratepayers… Why is is it that only Ratepayers count when these are National issues! Just like Dairy Intensification!
Northland/Westland/Canterbury/Horowhenua… wherever… Why is it that only Ratepayers, (As I am), only allowed to comment on/have impute into “district” issues”
Surely Marine Farming in Fiordland or Stewart Island, (as part of NZ), or the planet! If it’s unsustainable/ and/or inappropriate,( In some circumstance) (Just like Cows in the McKenzie Country, or Canterbury…) Why is it that these issues can only be allowed/commented on by _”Rate Payers”..
When there is so much apathy locally surely there’s a need for other parties to put their 10 cents worth in. For the Good of All!
Or can the few in Jackson’s Bay, ( or the Westland Council) determine whats Best…
I only know about Curio and Te Waewae Bays issues from the article (although I have been to both places too). I trust F and B’s judgement. Hopefully Robert Guyton will comment. He would also know if there is a place for non-rate payers to have input.
I also think getting it written into the Regional Policy Statement is critical, because so much time, energy, effort and resource is being wasted having to refight these battles over and over and over.
My concern is that too many people are saying we need to put a price on water. I think we should have a moratorium on all new exports until we sort this out.
If we’re going to keep with a market system then we most definitely need to put a price on it.
Me, I’d like to put science on it and determine just how much water we can use before it becomes unsustainable.
I’m also pretty sure that we’re well into the unsustainable usage now and it’s just getting worse as the farms suck up more water and the water bottlers export it.
“If we’re going to keep with a market system then we most definitely need to put a price on it”
Quite. Which is why I think focussing on the price rather than a moratorium is buying into neoliberal framing. Have the conversation first about water being life, then talk about the limits, then see what if any price is needed. But then I think bottling water for profit is up there in terms of evil alongside Monsanto or chopping down rainforest to make burgers.
“Me, I’d like to put science on it and determine just how much water we can use before it becomes unsustainable.
I’m also pretty sure that we’re well into the unsustainable usage now and it’s just getting worse as the farms suck up more water and the water bottlers export it.”
I also believe we are well past anything remotely sustainable. I’m not sure we could even determine what sustainable is under the current system. Industrial export dairying would have to stop for a start, and no-one even wants to talk about that apart from those of us who have nothing to lose. And Rachel Steward 🙂
Look at the bigger picture. Bottled water is a pollutant because of plastic’s accumulation in the environment (e.g. the Pacific gyre), and because plastic is an endocrine disruptor.
Exporting water has a ridiculous carbon cost. It actively supports the despoilment of local aquifers and watersheds in the places it is being sold. There is a reason people need to ship water from here. It’s daft beyond all reasoning to be moving water from one side of the planet to another using fossil fuels, but even if that were sustainable, it doesn’t get around why people need the water in the first place. Making money off other people’s destruction of the environment is not only amoral, it’s going to back lash against us. You think people with bigger sticks won’t come and take water from us if we let the civilisation get to the point of mass water wars?
“It is very little water that the bottlers are exporting.”
That argument I am not convince about. It’s the overall take from a catchment that counts, and if an aquifer is depleting (e.g. farming), then taking out water for bottling is still a further depletion. We also don’t know what the demand will be going forward except that it’s most likely to increase and may increase exponentially. We should be setting limits now, not doing what we have done with dairy and seeing how far we can push the plunder. From what I understand replenishing an aquifer is not a quick or easy thing, and by the time we get to that point we will be well into direct climate change issues.
We’re already at the point of fucking with the groundwater beyond our ken,
Everyone agrees that the world has real physical limits. The interesting bit starts when you talk about what those limits are, how close we are to exceeding them, and what should be done about it.
My point is that water bottling (as opposed to dairy) takes you only a very little closer to reaching a hard limit.
Everyone agrees that the world has real physical limits.
That’s not actually true. Many of the conservative bent don’t think that the world has limits. They’re easy to spot as they insist that we can just keep using more and more of the worlds limited resources with consequences.
Bottling water is fine because it uses so little. Owning and running a car is fine because it uses so little.
They don’t seem to understand the effect of multiplication and that it’s not just a single bottling plant and just one car being but many. That the demands upon those scarce resources isn’t just one thing but many and they all have their cost that reduces amount available.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
But very few people understand that. Even, IMO, most economists don’t get it despite it being at the root of their profession.
My point is that water bottling (as opposed to dairy) takes you only a very little closer to reaching a hard limit.
But what is the limit? Without knowing that how can you say that water bottling doesn’t take us over it?
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. . Lock Down: Day 3 – A photo essay with observations . March 28: First day of the first weekend in Lock Down. It feels like it’s been weeks since only Level 3 was declared last Tuesday, only four days ago. Woke up this morning to RNZ; coffee; toast, ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 22, 2020 through Sat, Mar 28, 2020Articles Linked to on FacebookSun, Mar 22, 2020In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of Disasters by Chelsea Harvey, ...
I’m here in lockdown with my flatmate and her two girls (6 and 2) and it. is. a time. They’re usually really active so to start with the only boardgame in the house is the copy of Guess Who that the 6 year old got for her birthday. Flatmate commented ...
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...
. . Lock Down: Day 2 – A photo essay with observations . March 27 – Day 2 of our Strange New World. The Park and Ride near my suburb, usually filled with hundreds of vehicles, had just… four; . . Another drive into Wellington City on a highway nearly ...
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to rent a property on the open market in New Zealand, which is one of the most expensive in the entire world, you’ll likely be keenly aware of just how arrogant and entitled landlords and their real estate agents can be.Unfortunately for ...
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights:In this legal blog we outline some ...
by Equipo Jurídico Pueblos and Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (25/03/2020) An escape plan in question On the night of March 21st and the early morning of the 22nd, the forces of the Colombian state stormed into the Modelo prison in Bogotá, murdering 23 prisoners and injuring 83, in response to the ...
When the government banned semi-automatic weapons in response to a terrorist atrocity, gun-nuts were outraged. Mired in toxic American gun culture, they thought owning weapons whose sole purpose was killing people was some sort of "constitutional right", a necessity for "defending themselves" against the government. Now, the Court of Appeal ...
Just before midnight on Wednesday March 25, Aotearoa New Zealand entered a countrywide alert level four lockdown. For at least the next four weeks, everyone who isn’t an essential worker is confined to their bubble. We are doing this to stop the explosive growth in people contracting and dying from ...
. . Lock Down: Day 1 – A photo essay with observations . Day one of the Level 4 nationwide lock-down (or, DefCon 4 as I sometimes cheekily call it) started at 11.59PM on 25 March. For a moment, most of the nation held it’s collective breath. In that brief ...
Broad, Sunlit Uplands: How those words fired my young imagination! Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say: how those words fused, in my young mind, with the image printed on every packet of Fielder’s Cornflour. Always fascinated by history, especially modern history, I cannot hear Churchill’s wonderfully evocative words, even ...
. . 24 March 2020 9.46AM Number of covid19 cases in Aotearoa New Zealand: 102 . As of 11.59 on Thursday, most of New Zealand will go into “lock down”. People will be expected not to travel to work; not to socialise; and to stay home. I will not be ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections A respected research group, Project Drawdown, finds that deploying solutions consistent with meeting the Paris climate targets would cost tens of trillions of dollars globally. But crucially, those outlays would also yield long-term savings many times larger than the up-front costs. The new 2020 Drawdown ...
It will pass. What happens next? Not immediately, but longer term. There are many opinions, fewer certainties. Will it “change everything!” as many confidently, and contradictorily predict? In this post I look at how foresight can help bound some of the uncertainties so you can more objectively consider the future. ...
We’ve been meaning t write something on Cuba and the coronavirus but have just discovered a very good article on the subject in the US left publication Jacobin. The article looks at how Cuba, a poor country but one where capitalism has been done away with, is leading the way ...
In 2018, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey - two British citizens who had purportedly been stripped of their citizenship by the British government - were captured while fighting for Isis in Syria. The British government then conspired to hand them over to the US, and agreed to provide evidence ...
Transformers: The disaster of the Great Depression was transformed into a new and fairer society by the democratic socialism of the First Labour Government. The disaster of the Covid-19 Pandemic offers a similar transformative possibility to the Labour-NZ First-Green Government. Seize the time, Jacinda! You will never have a better ...
Tamper with The System? Well, we already are. But there's a difference between accidentally trickling sand into a precision gearbox versus formulating a plan to alter it on the fly with improvements in mind. One action is more or less innocently unscrupulous, the other amenable to earning an easy ...
Associate Prof George Thomson, Louise Delany, Prof Nick WilsonWhile it is possible that New Zealand can use intense public health controls to eradicate COVID-19 from the country – we must also plan for other scenarios where thousands of New Zealanders are sick – including many urgently hospitalised.1 Better resilience ...
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...
We're about to do something unprecedented as a nation. We hope that by taking this extraordinary action before a single life in New Zealand has been lost to the deadly novel virus we will save tens of thousands of lives. Our lives. We'll do it together, in households, in isolation ...
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”So writes the author of Ecclesiastes, a book in the Old Testament that’s counted as a ‘wisdom’ book and written as if by an unnamed king of Jerusalem. But who would have thought there would be a time ...
I was surprised when the prime minister described the Economic Response to Covid-19 package as the ‘largest peacetime government spend in New Zealand's history’. Reflecting – checking through history – I realised that the term ‘spend’ was crucial and the package had no income tax cuts. Even so, it has ...
Years ago the Argentine sociologist Carlos Weisman wrote a book titled “Living within our Means.” It was a critique of Argentine society that focused on the paradoxical question of why, in a land of plenty, there was so much economic instability, inequality, corruption and political turmoil. His conclusion was basically ...
Parliament will be leading by example and adjourning tomorrow after a special sitting to consider an epidemic notice and state of emergency. Day-to-day oversight of the government will be delegated to a select committee. But that's not the only overight mechanism. The OIA will still be law, and (so far) ...
Michael Baker, University of OtagoOverjoyed. That’s not a word epidemiologists normally use, but that’s how I felt after hearing Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement about New Zealand’s COVID-19 shutdown of everything except essential services for at least four weeks from midnight on Wednesday. More than anything, I just ...
How much homelessness is caused by house hoarding? We're about to find out. The pandemic has destroyed tourism, which means that house hoarders who put their hoarded properties up as short-term tourist rentals are now offering them on the ordinary rental market:Property investors are pulling properties from Airbnb to offer ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman It seems like such a simple, straightforward, empowering idea: plant trees – a lot of trees – all over the world, and watch the planet’s temperature fall. Who doesn’t love a tree or two, even far more – the right ...
According to Newshub, Simon Bridges is open to joining a “grand coalition” with Labour as we hunker down to go into a month long lockdown. The idea is sound. Before now, the role of the opposition was to scrutinise and oppose. In the context of what almost amounts to a ...
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or ...
We need to be lifting our game against COVID-19. You and I need to help those working to prevent the spread of COVID-19 while they’re trying to lift the testing and treatment efforts. We don’t want to be playing this game running backwards. Best to play it solidly forward, from ...
Prof Tony Blakely, Prof Michael Baker, and Prof Nick WilsonThe NZ Government must do more to clearly articulate its COVID-19 strategy: eradication or ‘flattening the curve’ mitigation. But to do so means understanding the maths and ethics of both these strategies. In this blog, we adapt our work for ...
A few days ago I was starting to write something about the pandemic, which now seems unconscionable. It took the form of a letter to an agony aunt:“Dear Deidre, I have an ugly confession. I am quite excited by Covid-19.”This is how the piece went:“I’m not a psychopath, honest. Although the ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Climate Feedback Article Review... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of DisastersThe likelihood of extreme events ...
Last week, the government announced a $12 billion initial package to support people during the pandemic. Today, the Reserve Bank is buying government bonds - effectively printing money - to keep up the money supply during the crisis. Normally such moves would have the right apoplectic. Instead, the National Party ...
I am a pundit, somebody who opines and comments on the news. There are no real qualifications to punditry though having a rudimentary way with words and good general knowledge helps. That is one reason there is a constant oversupply of would-be pundits and why it is quite hard to ...
I recently encountered the following prescription from a Faculty of Education at a leading New Zealand University. At first I wondered if it was another product of the postmodern generator (http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/), designed to create gibberish in the postmodern form, but I’m told it is real: The “schooled” society: Towards the ...
The coronavirus pandemic has of course had a major impact on individual lives and on societies as a whole. But, long after the crisis has passed (assuming it does), we will begin to realise that its real and lasting significance lies in the lessons it has taught us, if only ...
COVID-19 has plunged Aotearoa New Zealand (indeed, the world) into territory that, while maybe not totally unprecedented, certainly hasn’t been seen during the lifetimes of most of us here today. Our borders are closed to non-citizens, we’re being told not to gather in groups of more than 500 outside/100 inside, ...
For the last few weeks, I’ve been urging you to prepare yourself, your family, business, and community for Covid-19. Now it’s time for real action. Yesterday the director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announced another 13 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, bringing our total to date to 52. ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 15, 2020 through Sat, Mar 21, 2020 Editor's Pick Now Isn’t the Time to Forget About Our Climate Change EffortsTasha Tilberg, Lindsey Wixson, and Liu Wen photographed ...
by Jan Rivers The article has been corrected to show that it was Ewen MacAskill, former Guardian journalist and not Luke Harding who travelled to meet Edward Snowden with journalist Glenn Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras. Some of the Guardian’s well-known journalists who did not sign the protest letter are ...
by Cultural Worker Late March 2020 amidst the virus. With gigs crashing and burning all around it was without much hope that I called a long standing rest home booking: “ Hi, I’m supposed to be entertaining at your place this afternoon – is it still on?” “”If you don’t ...
Whenever people demand real change from their politicians, we're told that "politics is the art of the possible". The implication is that change isn't possible, so we'd better just get used to the sucky status quo. But now that there's a pandemic, a lot of things we were previously told ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Ground-breaking law has passed that will decriminalise abortion and ensure women and pregnant people seeking abortions have compassionate healthcare. ...
The Green Party says that the measures announced by the Government today will help families and businesses to prioritise our collective health and wellbeing in the response to COVID-19. ...
As New Zealanders brace for a global downturn due to Covid-19, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says his Coalition Government’s rescue package "more significant" than any other he's seen around the world. The Coalition is to reveal a multi-billion-dollar stimulus plan on Tuesday afternoon designed to cushion the economic blow ...
We know some people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
People needing to travel on domestic flights, trains and Cook Strait ferries to get home before the country moves into level 4 lock-down tomorrow night will be able to continue using the passenger services until midnight on Friday, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Domestic passenger services, particularly ferries, have ...
The Government, retail banks and the Reserve Bank are today announcing a major financial support package for home owners and businesses affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been ...
Minister of Transport Phil Twyford has today announced details of the Government’s support package to keep key air freight moving and ensure New Zealanders retain access to essential goods during the four-week level 4 lockdown. “The Government is working with airlines and air freight operators to ensure New Zealand’s key ...
New Zealand moved up to COVID-19 Alert Level 3 – Restrict New Zealand to move up to COVID-19 Alert Level 4 – Eliminate, in 48 hours Two-staged approach to give people and businesses time to prepare Level 3, from tomorrow Non-essential businesses must close All events and gatherings must be ...
Good afternoon The Cabinet met this morning to discuss our next actions in the fight against COVID-19. Like the rest of the world, we are facing the potential for devastating impacts from this virus. But, through decisive action, and through working together, do we have a small window to get ...
The Government is announcing significant further support for the economy, workers and businesses as the country unites to prepare for Alert Level 4 in the fight against COVID-19. Cabinet today agreed to remove the cap on the Government’s wage subsidy scheme, which will inject a further $4 billion into the ...
The Government is backing the Reserve Bank’s latest action to support the economy by reducing longer-term interest rates, meaning lower costs for businesses and mortgage holders, and a lower currency to help our exporters. The Minister of Finance has signed a memorandum of understanding and a letter of indemnity with ...
The Government has asked the Commerce Commission to take account of the exceptional circumstances created by COVID-19 when monitoring business behaviour in coming weeks. “The purpose of my request to the Commerce Commission is to make sure businesses can work together in ways that will allow them to provide ...
The New Zealand Government has temporarily closed its High Commission in Bridgetown, Barbados and its Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Due to the increasing scarcity of air links in and out of Bridgetown and Yangon, and the pressure COVID-19 is placing ...
Associate Health and Whānau Ora Minister Peeni Henare has today announced the Government’s plan to support Māori communities and businesses in the face of COVID-19. “Our Government’s $12.1 billion economic package will help many Māori whānau, workers and businesses, whether it’s through wage subsidies, income support and worker redeployment, or ...
The Government and the hospitality industry have worked together to produce guidelines to assist with managing and reducing transmission of COVID-19, Health Minister David Clark announced today. The guidelines developed between the Government, Hospitality New Zealand and SkyCity Entertainment Group, set out how the new restrictions on physical distancing and ...
Four stage Alert System for COVID-19 announced New Zealand moved up to COVID-19 Alert Level 2 – Reduce Contact New Zealanders over 70 and those with certain medical conditions told to stay at home as much as they can to reduce risk of contact with the virus Workplaces to implement ...
By RNZ News New Zealanders in their 20s are the age group with the biggest numbers of Covid-19 and are “the vector for transmission”, says Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Ardern has thanked NZ for its efforts, but says it is still too early to say if the level four ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristy Hess, Associate Professor (Communication), Deakin University The coronavirus pandemic has spawned a lexicon of its own. We have had to quickly incorporate words like “self-isolation” and “social distancing” into our everyday language to navigate it. “Essential service” is another one. In ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin I was concerned to read last night that Greta Thunberg and her father almost certainly have Covid19; however, because of very restrictive testing criteria used in Sweden, they have not been tested. And I heard yesterday, on a Radio New Zealand news bulletin, a story about ...
Support services have raised alarm bells over the lockdown, saying it could spark more cases of family violence in New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said this afternoon that nearly half of the $27 million allocated for NGOs and community ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Blay, Research Fellow – workforce, Western Sydney University The number of people going to hospital with the coronavirus is expected to rise, putting a strain on our health and aged care services and their workforce. Australian undergraduate student nurses and those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Haiqing Yu, Associate Professor, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University China has gradually emerged out of its shadow of despair as the epicentre where the coronavirus pandemic started. Now, there is face saving required – as well as agenda-setting in the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Director, Health Program, Grattan Institute The growth in COVID-19 cases in Australia appears to have slowed across all states, through a combination of tighter border control and spatial distancing. With the number of new cases each day growing at a ...
The third in our new series of charts, graphics and data-visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in ...
The Government must stamp out Covid-19 but also answer questions, writes David Williams OPINION: It’s a national emergency, almost all Kiwis are locked down, and all arms of government must work as hard as they can to find, stamp out and eradicate Covid-19. But that doesn’t absolve those taxpayer-paid bureaucrats and ...
Paengawhāwhā (April) also known as Kaipō or Whetūkaupō (Deneb star) is the eleventh month of the Māori year and is a productive time. Get planting!Kia ora e te whānau, ngā mihi mahana o te marama a Paengawhāwhā.March and August are often our most challenging lunar cycles from my observation, and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martina Doblin, Senior Research Fellow, Plant Functional Biology & Climate Change, University of Technology Sydney As the climate warms, the land we use for growing energy-intensive crops such as wheat and corn is becoming less productive. We need to find ways to ...
Helping Low Income Families cope in this time of crisis is critical to their survival says Peter Malcolm Spokesperson for Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc—“Closing the Gap” Families on low incomes need and deserve all the financial help they can ...
With neither a bang nor barely a whimper, barely one week ago New Zealand put being a long established and respected Parliamentary democracy on hold to become a virtual Police state in the ongoing fight against Covid-19, writes Peter Dunne We have settled into a life regime more restrictive ...
Almost a week into the level four lockdown and people are probably starting to feel a little cooped up. To help with this, some subscription services and brands have begun to make their products temporarily free. Here are just some of the things currently on offer.For those with the privilege ...
Life and health insurers are trimming their policy offerings in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, because some risks linked to the virus are deemed too great. Partners Life founder and risk expert Naomi Ballantyne said it was important consumers knew what they were covered for, particularly if they were ...
Life and health insurers are trimming their policy offerings in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, because some risks linked to the virus are deemed too great. Partners Life founder and risk expert Naomi Ballantyne said it was important consumers knew what they were covered for, particularly if they were ...
The housing market continued to perform well through the pre-lockdown period, with properties in all 16 major centres growing in value for the fourth consecutive month. The QV House Price Index data rose 6.1 percent in the year to March, with the average house price rising to $728,276. However, last ...
The District Court continues to operate during the AlertLevel 4 period to deal with priority proceedings as the need arises. For this purpose, there will be District Court Judges and Ministry of Justice staff available. The Chief District Court Judge ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Breunig, Professor of Economics and Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University How would you feel if you were having a Zoom meeting with your accountant and they asked “how would you like to ...
Kathmandu has moved to strengthen its finances to counter the impact of the Covid-19 virus. The outdoors clothing retailer will raise $207 million through a sale of new shares, some of which will go to large investment funds, with the balance offered to existing shareholders. Group chief executive Xavier Simonet ...
The country's banks are likely to take a significant hit to their profits from the Covid-19 virus, according to a new report. Business advisory firm KPMG's latest quarterly Financial Institutions Performance Survey for the final three months of last year showed bank profits had already fallen nearly 7 percent, $1.1 ...
Child Poverty Action Group applauds the Prime Minister's move to go hard and early to curb the spread of Covid-19. And we believe the Government needs to take the same approach when it comes to supporting those doing it tough during this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Editor’s note: this is an edited version of a paper written in late March to outline the rationale for a short, sharp lockdown. The full ...
Anna Rawhiti-Connell's ode to Director-General Ashley Bloomfield - the balm for our furrowed brows When children ask me what I did during the great pandemic of the 2020s, I will tell them I participated in idolatry so egregious that the Golden Calf would’ve blushed a dusky shade of metallic rose. Every ...
The Single Object is a series exploring our material culture, examining the meaning and influence of objects that surround us in everyday life. Artist Bronwyn Holloway-Smith shares her obsession with the 30,000km long Southern Cross Cable that connects New Zealand to the internet and the rest of the world, and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Collins, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University To the young and healthy, our new “social distancing” rules may look unnecessarily draconian. If you’re in a demographic that’s low risk for coronavirus, it may be difficult to see the benefit of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Mette Hotker, Lecturer in Social Planning, RMIT University Most Australians know you never end up winning on the pokies. What Australians might not know is that the odds of winning a case against a poker-machine proposal in their local neighbourhood are ...
Sports journalist Jim Kayes was a weekend host for the canned Radio Sport channel - and reckons its demise and cuts to sports reporting nationally can in part be put down to snobbery and neglect. It was never my plan to cover sport but a busted knee saw it happen. ...
The number of Māori academic staff remains disproportionately low at New Zealand universities. Simon Day spoke to three newly appointed Māori professors at the University of Otago about why putting te ao Māori at the centre of their work is so important. Māori participation in tertiary education is steadily increasing. According ...
Wellington, 1 April - Rushing to deal with new vaping legislation during an unprecedented economic lockdown is not just folly, it is anti-democratic, according to a public submission by the New Zealand Initiative. While most businesses and public services ...
As the Covid-19 pandemic takes its toll on the New Zealand economy, Greenpeace is pushing back on industry lobbyists and politicians arguing for weakening and delaying environmental protections. The environment group says that now more than ever, we ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Jeffrey, Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute; Professor of Development Geography, University of Melbourne Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown for India’s 1.3 billion people. With just four hours’ notice, the government instructed everyone to ...
In the new series Final Mix, music journalist Yadana Saw chats with local musicians and listens to their latest tracks in the ultimate testing ground: the car. The first episode is with cross-Atlantic country maven Tami Neilson.“There’s before, and then there’s after.”It’s a prophetic lyric on Tami Neilson’s new album ...
With broader testing criteria coming into place, the Government is expecting to discover more Covid-19 cases within the community, Marc Daalder reports The Ministry of Health admitted on Wednesday afternoon that it was likely missing cases of Covid-19 spreading within the community because testing criteria were too narrow. "We still ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is slamming today’s announcement of $25 million — $10 million for local iwi groups and $15 million for Whānau Ora providers — and says that funding based on skin colour at a time when the nation needs to come ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. There were 61 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today, up from the previous day's 58 new cases. Details of how many tests have been completed are now being ...
A non-profit group is signing up qualified health professionals - retired, out of the workforce or part-time - to join a kind-of Home Guard to fill areas of need in the health system during the pandemic. As we enter week two of the Level 4 Covid-19 alert, we need to preserve ...
Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Rāapa/WednesdayToday we’re practising our pronunciation of the letter ‘r’ and in order to do that, we’re going to practise Māori place names. These are probably the words we’ve been taught to pronounce incorrectly the most, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Kearnes, Professor, Environment & Society, School of Humanities and Languages, UNSW Public health messages about COVID-19 have been inconsistent and changed rapidly. Many have called for a unified source of expertise to guide responses to the crisis. However, with the federal, ...
Tim Pankhurst, chief executive of Seafood NZ and former leading newspaper editor, retires this week after 48 years in the workforce. He looks back on a final week like no other. A week ago before the world changed we were fishing at dawn on the shore of the Rangaunu Harbour ...
MPs and economists are calling for greater transparency on the use of welfare and business subsidies, as the Finance Minister outlines the economic challenge ahead for New Zealand.The financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is set to be markedly worse for New Zealand than that from the global financial ...
OPINION:By Laurens Ikinia A sad story has taken place again in the PT Freeport Indonesia gold and copper mine area near Timika in West Papua on Monday with one New Zealander shot dead and seven other workers being severely wounded as reported by Asia Pacific Report yesterday. As ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the comments from Finance Minister Grant Robertson, and National Party MP Gerry Brownlee, calling on councils across New Zealand to look at their books and see what is possible to reduce the rates burden on New Zealanders. ...
What are you going to be watching in April? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Lightbox, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand.Click here to read our listings from March.The BiggiesRun (Season 1 on Neon weekly from April 13)I’m calling it: ...
As millions of Kiwis stay home, power companies say Covid-19 hasn't factored into their annual power price changes, the majority of which kick in on April 1. ...
In these testing times, we’re all spending a fair amount of time on our phones and computers. Here are some simple ways to make that time safer for yourself.As if we weren’t all indoors on our phones enough already, Covid-19 is ensuring that our screen time is going to be ...
As the new season of Kirstie and Phil’s Love It or List It drops, Tara Ward investigates how the gurus can help us with our own interpersonal property dilemmas.We’re approaching the second week of national lockdown, and it’s about now that many of us will begin to have the “love ...
The outside is telling us, ‘I could do that again whenever I wanted. You think about that.’ Read more Lockdown letters here.‘When I’m being a badger I live in a hole and eat earthworms,” the nature writer Charles Foster wrote. “When I’m being an otter I try to catch fish ...
The government is doubling the amount it plans to borrow for the current financial year to pay for its various Covid-19 rescue and support packages. ...
Across the United States the concert halls and theatres are silent. Broadway has shut down. The mighty 3800-seat Metropolitan Opera House is in lock-down. Actors, opera stars and choruses, musicians are on furlough if they are lucky. But the best shows in town remain: the midday news conference by News ...
The Sensible Sentencing Trust (SST) are in absolute shock at the early release of multi-millionaire child sex offender Martin Lawes, after only a mere 18 months into his 4 year and 6 month jail term. SST National spokesperson Jess McVicar said the ...
Our Covid-19 gifs are now available in te reo Māori. Spread the word (while staying at home).The suite of excellent illustrations and gifs created by microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles and illustrator Toby Morris have had an undeniable impact during the Covid-19 crisis. They offer clear communication of sometimes complex concepts, and ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on the Wellington City and Wellington Regional Councils to freeze the funding of their economic and tourism promotion agency after its ill-judged “We Wellington” campaign - wasting tens of thousands in ratepayer ...
Lotta Dann reflects on staying sober in the midst of a global crisis, and shares some advice for those who are looking to cut back. If you’ve seen the endless news reports and social media posts about alcohol, you’d be forgiven for thinking all New Zealanders are drinking away their days ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentPublic health strategy Derek Cheng (Herald): Lockdown ‘not enough’, top professor tells Govt video conference Derek Cheng (Herald): Just when you ...
Spending through Paymark dropped more than 70 per cent on the first day of lockdown, and remained at record low levels through the week to Sunday, March 29. ...
Trump sees 100k US deaths as "very good job" as better than initial forecast of 2.2m; US deaths overtake 9/11; Eight percent of over 50s need hospitalisation. Peter Bale wraps the Covid-19 news overnight.The "deathalyser" keeps climbing: The evil mathematical simplicity of the exponential nature of the novel coronavirus plays out ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Gearing, Journalist, author, broadcaster, Queensland University of Technology I’m trying to work out what to do before I end up in a body bag but that seems unavoidable right now. This was one of the first replies this month ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marissa Parrott, Reproductive Biologist, Wildlife Conservation & Science, Zoos Victoria, and Honorary Research Associate, BioSciences, University of Melbourne Tree kangaroos are so unusual that when Europeans first encountered them in Australia in 1872, they were sceptical. Who would believe a kangaroo could ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project, The University of Queensland With the COVID-19 pandemic causing a great deal of anxiety, we might come to think people are irrational, selfish or downright crazy. We see people showing up ...
Since late 2019, the world has been fighting the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In response to the pandemic, governments around the world have been using data and technology in their efforts to contain the spread of the virus. Access Now puts forward ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Warwick Smith, Research economist, University of Melbourne Understandably, given we are in a crisis, the government has baulked at including superannuation contributions in the A$140 billion worth of $1,500 per fortnight wage top-ups it will be directing to six million Australians. As ...
Business confidence and retail sales collapse as lockdown begins; Infrastructure NZ sees 30 percent of jobs lost in 6 months; Kathmandu shares haltedSurvival mode:ANZ’s latest business confidence survey made for grim reading. The bank said there was very little that was positive in the survey as businesses switch ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Government approach to testing faces serious scrutiny, second Queenstown nurse tests positive, and PM rejects curfew call.The government’s approach to fighting the Covid-19 outbreak has faced a robust bout of scrutiny, both from MPs and experts. It only took one sitting ...
Government could enter the construction market in a way not seen in several generations, Dileepa Fonseka reports Ministers are rushing to prevent the country's construction sector hollowing out under lockdown. However, they've also admitted the state's role in construction will massively expand in a way unheard of in several generations. That could include turning Crown Infrastructure ...
Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand is willing to help thousands of people from overseas get back to their own countries, but doing it under lockdown may take a bit longer. ...
Auckland GP Himali McInnes makes a plea for anyone needing medical care to call their doctor.Last week, I wrote of the Covid-induced frenzy in our general practise waiting roomin Three Kings, Auckland. Anxiety flurried in and out, bringing on its coat-tails the marginally unwell. Patients avoided eye contact ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Open Mike 18/03/2017 
46 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Global response of evapotranspiration ratio to climate conditions and watershed characteristics in a changing environment Greenhouse effect: the relative contributions of emission height and total absorption Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects Climate change induced a ...3 hours ago
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...5 hours ago
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...9 hours ago
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...10 hours ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 11 hours ago
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...12 hours ago
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...13 hours ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...1 day ago
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...1 day ago
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...2 days ago
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...3 days ago
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...3 days ago
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...4 days ago
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...4 days ago
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...5 days ago
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights: In this legal blog we outline some ...5 days ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...1 week ago
According to Newshub, Simon Bridges is open to joining a “grand coalition” with Labour as we hunker down to go into a month long lockdown. The idea is sound. Before now, the role of the opposition was to scrutinise and oppose. In the context of what almost amounts to a ...1 week ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or ...1 week ago
A few days ago I was starting to write something about the pandemic, which now seems unconscionable. It took the form of a letter to an agony aunt:“Dear Deidre, I have an ugly confession. I am quite excited by Covid-19.”This is how the piece went:“I’m not a psychopath, honest. Although the ...1 week ago
I am a pundit, somebody who opines and comments on the news. There are no real qualifications to punditry though having a rudimentary way with words and good general knowledge helps. That is one reason there is a constant oversupply of would-be pundits and why it is quite hard to ...1 week ago
COVID-19 has plunged Aotearoa New Zealand (indeed, the world) into territory that, while maybe not totally unprecedented, certainly hasn’t been seen during the lifetimes of most of us here today. Our borders are closed to non-citizens, we’re being told not to gather in groups of more than 500 outside/100 inside, ...1 week ago
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The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...4 days ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...1 week ago
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...4 hours ago
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Support services have raised alarm bells over the lockdown, saying it could spark more cases of family violence in New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said this afternoon that nearly half of the $27 million allocated for NGOs and community ...2 hours ago
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The housing market continued to perform well through the pre-lockdown period, with properties in all 16 major centres growing in value for the fourth consecutive month. The QV House Price Index data rose 6.1 percent in the year to March, with the average house price rising to $728,276. However, last ...5 hours ago
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Anna Rawhiti-Connell's ode to Director-General Ashley Bloomfield - the balm for our furrowed brows When children ask me what I did during the great pandemic of the 2020s, I will tell them I participated in idolatry so egregious that the Golden Calf would’ve blushed a dusky shade of metallic rose. Every ...6 hours ago
Sports journalist Jim Kayes was a weekend host for the canned Radio Sport channel - and reckons its demise and cuts to sports reporting nationally can in part be put down to snobbery and neglect. It was never my plan to cover sport but a busted knee saw it happen. ...7 hours ago
With broader testing criteria coming into place, the Government is expecting to discover more Covid-19 cases within the community, Marc Daalder reports The Ministry of Health admitted on Wednesday afternoon that it was likely missing cases of Covid-19 spreading within the community because testing criteria were too narrow. "We still ...7 hours ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. There were 61 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today, up from the previous day's 58 new cases. Details of how many tests have been completed are now being ...8 hours ago
The Minister for Infrastructure Shane Jones, says building new roads could help address the looming unemployment crisis. ...9 hours ago
More questions were fired at top government officials in the second Epidemic Response Committee meeting. ...9 hours ago
A non-profit group is signing up qualified health professionals - retired, out of the workforce or part-time - to join a kind-of Home Guard to fill areas of need in the health system during the pandemic. As we enter week two of the Level 4 Covid-19 alert, we need to preserve ...9 hours ago
Tim Pankhurst, chief executive of Seafood NZ and former leading newspaper editor, retires this week after 48 years in the workforce. He looks back on a final week like no other. A week ago before the world changed we were fishing at dawn on the shore of the Rangaunu Harbour ...9 hours ago
MPs and economists are calling for greater transparency on the use of welfare and business subsidies, as the Finance Minister outlines the economic challenge ahead for New Zealand. The financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is set to be markedly worse for New Zealand than that from the global financial ...9 hours ago
As millions of Kiwis stay home, power companies say Covid-19 hasn't factored into their annual power price changes, the majority of which kick in on April 1. ...10 hours ago
Across the United States the concert halls and theatres are silent. Broadway has shut down. The mighty 3800-seat Metropolitan Opera House is in lock-down. Actors, opera stars and choruses, musicians are on furlough if they are lucky. But the best shows in town remain: the midday news conference by News ...11 hours ago
The National Party leader Simon Bridges, says quarantine and more testing are needed to eliminate Covid-19. ...13 hours ago
Spending through Paymark dropped more than 70 per cent on the first day of lockdown, and remained at record low levels through the week to Sunday, March 29. ...13 hours ago
Trump sees 100k US deaths as "very good job" as better than initial forecast of 2.2m; US deaths overtake 9/11; Eight percent of over 50s need hospitalisation. Peter Bale wraps the Covid-19 news overnight. The "deathalyser" keeps climbing: The evil mathematical simplicity of the exponential nature of the novel coronavirus plays out ...13 hours ago
Business confidence and retail sales collapse as lockdown begins; Infrastructure NZ sees 30 percent of jobs lost in 6 months; Kathmandu shares halted Survival mode: ANZ’s latest business confidence survey made for grim reading. The bank said there was very little that was positive in the survey as businesses switch ...14 hours ago
Government could enter the construction market in a way not seen in several generations, Dileepa Fonseka reports Ministers are rushing to prevent the country's construction sector hollowing out under lockdown. However, they've also admitted the state's role in construction will massively expand in a way unheard of in several generations. That could include turning Crown Infrastructure ...15 hours ago
Auckland GP Himali McInnes makes a plea for anyone needing medical care to call their doctor. Last week, I wrote of the Covid-induced frenzy in our general practise waiting room in Three Kings, Auckland. Anxiety flurried in and out, bringing on its coat-tails the marginally unwell. Patients avoided eye contact ...15 hours ago
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11820240
””It is absolutely extraordinary that they are able to get away with paying zero tax in this country. I really like Apple products – they’re incredibly innovative – but it looks like their tax department is even more innovative than their product designers,” Shaw said.”
apple ripping nz of
Why don’t we just have a 10% tax on all money as it leaves the country ,?
Suspect this would infringe our international commitments
So does being a tax haven.
Thanks to the National Party, we are in no position to say jack shit about people who avoid tax.
Tobin tax, about same size as CC charge.
Very good work by Mr Nippert again. John Campbell has also been on the Apple case for more than a year – trying to get some explanation from Apple about their activities in NZ.
According to Nippert, Apple has at least several dozen employees in NZ. It’s NZ sales are handled by its Aussie office – so can claim not to have a business here, I think. Legal but morally dodgy.
But aren’t most of the products made by cheap labour in Asian countries?
But NZ companies tend not to be on the same scale as the likes of Apple. So NZ ultimately is the loser. We’d be better off if all companies, NZ and others, paid a fair share of the tax in countries where they sell products and get some income.
Although I suspect there is some self / corporate interest there – good on Simon Moutter for sounding more engaged in the country’s welfare than our RW Nact Politicians.
Don’t forget any local competitor is stuck with uncompetative outcomes as they pay onshore tax.
Apple’s ripping every country off. That’s why it keeps all of its profits in tax havens.
And, yes, a Tobin Tax is a remarkably good idea if we’re going to keep offshore ownership.
Hi draco, I seem to recall dear leader saying the havens provided $43m to those who administered them, so be relaxed.
The same reason you pay no tax when buying shit from overseas. Tax isn’t applied in the foreign country in most cases.
sorry you are wrong i don’t spend my time trying to avoid paying for all the good things like schools and medical help
Is the TOP tax policy actually a good idea? Or is it just a brainfart from a mouthy millionaire out-of-touch economist that can only see things in terms of dollars?
http://www.top.org.nz/top1
Most of the argument will no doubt focus on the harmful effects on the asset-rich income-poor, such as the elderly who live in areas where property values have skyrocketed. This policy suggests they build up debt to pay their imputed tax, which destroys their security and peace of mind. Or they sell up and move out, which trashes the idea of community. Basically these problems come about from viewing a home as just another capital asset, which economists only value for producing income. The alternative is a capital gains tax, as used in most of the rest of the world. This gets levied at the time of sale, at the time the property has changed from being a home to just another financial instrument.
But this policy also favours businesses with low capital requirements such as Trademe, Infometrics etc over businesses that require substantial capital investment to produce tangible goods. For instance, this 3D printing firm http://www.rapidman.co.nz/ would have needed to invest a huge chunk up-front to start up their 3D printing business. Slamming them with a tax liability on that investment right from the beginning would be a big disincentive to starting up. But long term, it’s the actually tangible goods businesses that are better for the economy.
http://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/3/16/14939624/tesla-billion-raise-uber
Hitting farmers with a capital tax strikes me as a particularly crap idea. It gives them yet more incentive to try to wring yet more income from their very expensive investment. Do we really want to drive more intensification by changing the tax system to favour it?
The TOP proposal also puts a continuous burden on cashflow. This adds another difficulty to companies going though a rough patch, and may put some under that would otherwise survive.
Seems to me a capital gains tax, as used in most of the rest of the world, is a much fairer, less distortionary way of taxing capital. I favour including everything, even family homes (with rollover provisions for family homes). It more fairly captures the income enjoyed by the founders of businesses with low capital requirements that achieve a high sell price because of intangibles such as customer base, brand, intellectual property. TOP’s proposal is light on companies such as TradeMe, Infometrics, Charlie’s, 42 Below, while it would hit hard companies like F&P that need to invest in substantial equipment.
Finally, since capital gains taxes are widely used elsewhere, there’s plenty of other examples to look to and pick what works and eliminate the loopholes from the beginning.
My reading of their tax policy is more as a capital investment policy. The tax is on equity, so is designed to encourage property owners to borrow against their property and to invest in income generating businesses.
A noble aspiration, and a very correct observation of what is wrong with all our wealth tied up in non-productive real estate, and Morgan’s ideas may be a solution to that, but there’s some serious transition issues around how we get there.
Also, on the face of it, a huge structural subsidy (even more of a licence to print money) in favour of the banks.
Encouraging debt can’t be a good thing. I know of a bunch of businesses that went under 2009/2010. Most of them were running on borrowed money. I know a bunch of businesses that survived 2009/2010 with just a bit of belt-tightening. Most of them were debt-free or nearly. The correlation was pretty good.
Let alone encouraging more mortgage debt to avoid paying tax to live in your own home…
Seems to me a better way to encourage investment in more productive sectors is to clean up the financial shenanigans that make non-property investment so unattractive in NZ.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of it for those reasons too. The whole thing looks like a few rather noble ideas with rather poorly thought out execution. But that’s how Morgan operates.
You’re on the button about this problem needing a carrot approach to make productive investment safer than hence more attractive than real estate. It’s the financial markets that need the stick, not the property owners.
“Encouraging debt can’t be a good thing.”
That’s a bit too generic a statement. A lot of new investment is debt funded so any form of encouraging investment is going to encourage debt. The problem occurs when your getting a lot of debt taken on which is chasing capital gains anticipated due to expanding underlying debt levels.
In terms of Morgans policy proposals, I doubt that the indirect measures like tax changes will have much effect. Even a capital gains tax has worked where? If we were serious about stopping the housing bubble in NZ then you need to prevent competition in taking on more debt directly. The LVR ratio is a start but needs to apply property by property (to stop competition between borrowers) and the cap could be on all borrowing, and lower. Also its still tied into the valuations, so make it loan to rental income to serious stop the competition in who can take on the biggest loan at purchase time.
Cleaning up the share market and dodgy practices there would do a lot to improve investment, but it will take a long while to kick in, many people have been scammed in the past and have a long memory.
I too doubt capital gains taxes will do much to slow the housing bubble inflating.
CGT is more an equity argument about those that benefit from a societal environment that allows capital investment to be protected and grow being required to contribute something back to maintaining that society. Instead of parasitically keeping it all in their pocket like they do now in NZ.
I don’t really believe in that fairness arguments. If some people are profiting off of others falling into significant indebitedness, that is unfair and problematic for society even if the government is taking a cut or even a very significant cut. If Capital Gains Taxes actually work then they need to be set at levels where they collect very little revenue because the underlying behavior is being discouraged by them. On the other hand I don’t think I have seen any examples of them working to actually achieve that.
My reasoning around Morgan’s tax policies is that essentially he believes the market is fundamentally pretty rational and so if profit is discouraged by taxation then this behavior will desist. I don’t think the market is anywhere near that rational, there are plenty of analysis saying that essentially many property investors are already losing money with their housing speculation and would get better returns with more productive investments anyway.
“A lot of new investment is debt funded so any form of encouraging investment is going to encourage debt. The problem occurs when your getting a lot of debt taken on which is chasing capital gains anticipated due to expanding underlying debt levels.”
The problem occurs when the interest paid gobbles up profit to the extent that little or no income tax is paid. Banks, however, don’t invest in businesses; they lend to investors, whether proprietors or shareholders, who do the investing. The trouble is that monies borrowed represent a personal benefit to the borrower since he is provided thereby with funds to invest in, and own, a business or property, and of course interest is the cost of that personal benefit, and personal benefits, while normally not tax deductible (this why we have fringe benefit tax), seem to have been deemed deductible in the case of interest.
Getting rid of deductibility of interest for tax purposes would probably mitigate many problems.
Banks do lend to businesses, interest is only deductible for the payer of the interest, so if interest is being deducted before profits are taxed then the business is making the interest payments.
We don’t want investment in productive businesses because they pay more tax to the government (which is pretty much irrelevant). We want that because it avoids the economy being a contest in speculation, which is prone to busts. Getting rid of interest deductibility is unlikely to solve that problem, though it is likely to make borrowing have a higher interest cost which will likely hamper investment in productive business as well as speculation. That kind of measure needs to be carefully targeted at speculative businesses.
“Banks do lend to businesses, interest is only deductible for the payer of the interest, so if interest is being deducted before profits are taxed then the business is making the interest payments.”
Businesses don’t pay interest; the person to whom the monies were lent, ie the proprietor, pays the interest. It doesn’t matter whether the proprietor pays it from his “business” account or from his “personal” account, it is the proprietor who is paying.
The issue is not the effect that non deductibility would have on this or that business. The issue is whether it is fair that someone who puts his own savings into (say) a rental property, and earns a decent profit, pays a respectable amount of tax, while someone who borrows heavily to invest pays very little tax because most of his profit is being eaten up by a personal expense.
> Getting rid of deductibility of interest for tax purposes would probably mitigate many problems.
It would send rents through the roof
A.
too late, they are already sky high.
Oh they can still go higher
of course they can, but will the government be able to continue paying the Accommodation Supplement that would allow Landlords to charge higher rents?
and how long before we have riots in the streets and would that be a good outcome?
Hmm, but maybe that is the intended outcome, destroy a bit of real estate, lock up a few people, insurance pay out, rebuild, charge higher rents.
so how do you like your current society vs the one i just painted?
cause it seems that the ‘burn down the house in which you are living’ is a thing at the moment with certain people on the left and the right.
Steady on, raising rents was mikesh’s idea not mine!!
“Seems to me a capital gains tax, as used in most of the rest of the world, is a much fairer, less distortionary way of taxing capital. I favour including everything, even family homes (with rollover provisions for family homes).”
A capital gain is still capital, but it represents only a small part of the capital that exists.
It is therefore difficult to see how taxing capital gains is “fairer” or “less distortionary”
when other capital is not being taxed.
“Finally, since capital gains taxes are widely used elsewhere, there’s plenty of other examples to look to and pick what works and eliminate the loopholes from the beginning.”
CGTs don’t seem to have “worked” elsewhere. Countries that have them seem to have just as many problems with property as we have here. I suspect the reason most countries persist with them is because they are a relatively easy to collect form of revenue. That they do not have much effect on interest rates probably makes them popular with the banks as well.
CGT doesn’t do much by itself – land tax and stamp duty are much more powerful options.
Great thread of discussion. At Gareth Morgan recent meeting he talked about stamp duty and estate duty that used to be ways of clipping tickets of valuable assets. Seems good idea if not set unreasonably high. Farms shouldn’t have to be sold to pay death duties etc.
It would be fairer to bring down GST to 7andhalf as I envisage, and make up the slack with tax on transferring properties. Any being sold under 5 years ownership, having a good tax on the difference between purchase and sale, only allowing for CPI and reasonable costs. (That way there would be a little correction for the huge difference between CPI and the burst in house prices.)
Further on housing
A piece on the bust of a Toronto housing bubble had me thinking of previous NZ ones.
In 2009
http://www.interest.co.nz/news/44330/opinion-why-golden-oldies-are-wrong-housing-less-affordable-now-1987-and-1975-corrected
and in 2016
http://transportblog.co.nz/2016/07/11/remember-the-last-time-house-prices-crashed-40/
John Key is going to work for this Japanese businessman/golfing enthusiast/philanthropist/priest Handa! Now where have I heard this name before?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11820452
Handa was made an honorary member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2016…
Gee, I wonder who arranged that for him?
This is only connected in that it involves business people playing with their money in NZ to help them to get all of our money of us. Old news bac in 2012 but for lovers of interesting back stories might fill in gaps
Why is urban land expensive in NZ? Because it is just a way to gain Monopoly
money.
https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/tuesday-heartland-moves-over-toxic-nelson-loan-ch-p-127482
The property was acquired by Victoria Properties Consolidated in 2005 for $5.4 million with an optimistic forecast of potential value of $18 million to be gleaned from section sales after rezoning….
About 150 mainly Otago investors have money in the Victoria group, which is managed by Britannia Management, whose directors include National Party director and Canterbury Westland chairman Roger Bridge and financial adviser Craig Myles.
Probably where some of the payout from Hubbard’s South Canterbury Finance debacle went.
trump is a rude man – what possible reason other than that is there for this?
nah nothing stacks up – he is a petulant, pathetic man-child
“”Do you want to have a handshake?” Merkel asked Trump, leaning closer to Trump after the US president failed to respond to the requests.
Trump continued to stare straight ahead and didn’t answer, leaving Merkel high and dry.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/90579146/donald-trump-angela-merkel-hold-first-facetoface-meeting-at-white-house
Whatever he is, he just loooooves sticking it to the marks that voted for him.
http://www.salon.com/2017/03/17/trump-is-cutting-programs-that-help-the-appalachian-voters-who-helped-put-him-in-office/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/donald-trumps-budget-sticks-it-people-who-elected-him
It may be the only way that those people are going to realise that the Republicans are not their friends.
Agreed. Maybe after their Republican Messiah bloodies their collective noses, they’ll feel a little differently. Although, judging by some of the comments Trump’s supporters have made in the past, coherent thought is simply a bridge too far.
Oh, I’m sure that there’ll be a few that will find some way to blame Obama and the Democrats for what Trump does.
The grey matter’s melting.
https://twitter.com/SteveKopack/status/842751054769020928
this was after their meeting and i would suggest that Mutti just did not give him the love he so thinks he deserves.
Also there is that Mutti thing that they orange one has, unless the chick is young, has big boobs and a fine ass he is not interested. All other women, especially ones with guts and smarts remind him to much of his mother. And he can’t bribe his mother into fucking him for a pot of gold, cause shes seen it all before and he aint anything special. 🙂
Nah. How much guts and smarts would it take to go stay with one of three sisters already in the states. Plenty of other Lewis women took off round the same time. Smart move marrying Fred though.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3602299/An-uncomfortable-truth-REAL-story-Trump-s-mother-climbed-penniless-Scottish-immigrant-wife-businessman-revealed.html
it takes a lot of guts to board a ship at seventeen and to move to a new country to work as a domestic, even if you have sisters that already live and work there.
Mother Trump had guts and in the end lived glory, as she did well in the US.
Her middle child however …..
German reporter – Why do keep saying things you know are not true?
They shook hands later.
http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2017-03/angela-merkel-donald-trump-besuch
Christchurch City Council committee keen to introduce city’s own dollar.
The committee is focusing on the Bristol Pound as a potential model.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/90493334/christchurch-city-council-committee-keen-to-introduce-citys-own-dollar
Parents win ‘fight’ to get daughter into Salisbury School
Hekia has been attempting to bully Salisbury School into closure for many years now, by denying girls the best facility in the country for their needs, instead preferring they use a ‘wrap around’ service.
Once again we discover another story of the struggle a family has gone through over a number of years to have their daughter attend Salisbury School.
Finally she has been excepted, Salisbury will change and improve her life and that of her family tremendously.
Salisbury School is NZs most valuable educational facility for girls with complex needs, a wrap around service is not enough for some girls, Salisbury saves lives.
I wish this family all the very best, your girl is going to love Salisbury, so happy you finally got there.
A change of government will help to keep one of the most valuable schools in the country open.
Some wrap around services must be making a fortune, Salisbury school is not about making money, it’s about improving lives. Would be interesting to know who is making money from the wrap around services, someone is.
Have you any idea what ‘wrap around services’ are or are they just double speak for actually doing nothing?
I’m not surprised they’ve been trying to shut down what seems to me to be a great school – they’ve been making it harder and harder for children with additional needs to access suitable education.
For that matter, they’ve been busy screwing the whole education system from top to bottom to suit their own ideological ends – they’ve got to go!!!
I suspect that it’s doublespeak for the average, run of the mill school that suits most children but is detrimental to those that are outside the norm.
This explains wraparound services:
http://www.education.govt.nz/school/student-support/special-education/intensive-wraparound-service-iws/
Salisbury sounds very good
A.
Thanks for that – sounds like a few hours with a psychologist and on yer bike! Charming!
A cynical piecemeal approach that has one advantage from the National Party’s perspective: it’s easier to defund.
Yesah Salisbury School is an incredible place which saves lives.
Sometimes residential care is the best option rather than mainstream school. And the way this school prepares the girls for life is outstanding. Like when they reach a certain age they are moved to little villas to live with each other, on site with staff support, to give them life skills in a supportive controlled environment. Awesome.
They get to experience a strong sense of community, not only in the school, but also in Richmond itself and sometimes that will be the first time some girls have ever felt a sense of community or inclusion.
Hekia has been hell bent on closing Salisbury down, it’s more like a competition to her, the urge to win. People shouldn’t play games like that with the lives of others.
It’s so hard for me to understand why push the wrap around services which haven’t worked for some families, rather than supporting a facility that has been up and running and making a huge difference for decades. So I begin to wonder things like… do her friends have a wrap around service business?
Should some parents not be told about the school from the beginning as an option?
Anyways, Salisbury is a very very good school, huge respect for all the staff whom have made it so amazing over the many years it has been operating, and looking forward to seeing the roll increase in the future, rather than more road blocks, and more suffering from the outgoing government.
> So I begin to wonder things like… do her friends have a wrap around service business?
I don’t think you need to invoke corruption here – ideological blinders and a fairly hefty dose of incompetence is enough
A.
PS _Some_ people do well on wrap around, I understand
Connections?
Rangiora High School has Trust land. The Ministry wants to grab the control off the BOT so they can sell the land. So destroy Principal and BOT.
Salisbury has valuable land. The Ministry wants to grab the control off the BOT so they can sell the land. So destroy Principal and BOT and strangle the entrance for the girls.
Good on Parata! Yay!
Edit:Meant for Cinny
Yes land was a question raised, it’s prime real estate.
The TDC mayor assures us all that it won’t be a land grab.
The land belongs to Rangitane Iwi
Kempthorne wants the school to remain open, and is vocally strong about his support, so many MP’s are as well, Tracey Martin, Catherine Delahunty, Chris Hipkins, Damien O’Connor and others, am so thankful to them for their ongoing support
How ridiculously childish is this POTUS ?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/video.cfm?c_id=1503076&gal_cid=1503076&gallery_id=173026
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Beware of moving from Auckland Council (Corporate) Controlled Organisations (CCOs) to Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).
This upcoming ‘review’ needs to, in my view, make a top priority of returning all public services provided by Auckland Council and CCOs back to ‘in house’ service provision under the genuine, not-for-profit public service model.
Which was never broken before we had two doses of Neo-liberal ‘Rogernomic$’ reforms forced upon the public majority of Aucklanders.
In my view, we also need a huge clean out of ex-private sector businesspeople from ‘public servant’ roles.
How do people from the private sector ‘transmogrify’ into genuine public servants – serving the public and the public interest?
In my view – they don’t.
They’re from Planet ‘Private Profit’ and come from a completely different background and culture
– make money for shareholders – look after yourself and your mates?
Time for some BIG changes!
OPEN THE BOOKS!
CUT OUT THE CONSULTANTS ,
CONTRACTORS and CCOs!
BRING COUNCIL PUBLIC SERVICES BACK ‘IN HOUSE’ UNDER THE ‘NOT-FOR-PROFIT’ PUBLIC SERVICE MODEL!
Penny Bright
‘Anti-privatisation / anti-corruption campaigner’
That’s would be the desired end result but the review should do an unbiased cost/benefit review. If they do that then moving all back in house should be a no-brainer.
The PPP model simply costs too much for limited returns that often makes things worse.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/90495259/Forest-Bird-holding-Environment-Southland-to-ransom-ES-chair
“If Forest & Bird gets its way, marine farming could never be considered…”
While “Forest & Bird Otago/Southland regional manager Sue Maturin said it did not consider marine farming to be appropriate for internationally significant and special places such as Fiordland and the wild pristine waters of Stewart Island, or the marine mammal sanctuaries for Hector’s dolphins in Curio Bay and Te Wae Wae”.
They’re talking about two bays by the sounds of things. Sounds reasonable.
“He was concerned the Wellington-based organisation was “not prepared to compromise” and said court action would cost a lot of money for Southland ratepayers.”
I’m sure all the Southland F and B members and volunteers who work in the area will love that bit.
Weka Interested to know more about 2 Bays… interested in hearing more.. Link Please…
Seems a default setting/response whenever these sorts of questions are raised…
“court action would cost a lot of money for Southland ratepayers.” (or any her Ratepayers… Why is is it that only Ratepayers count when these are National issues! Just like Dairy Intensification!
Northland/Westland/Canterbury/Horowhenua… wherever… Why is it that only Ratepayers, (As I am), only allowed to comment on/have impute into “district” issues”
Surely Marine Farming in Fiordland or Stewart Island, (as part of NZ), or the planet! If it’s unsustainable/ and/or inappropriate,( In some circumstance) (Just like Cows in the McKenzie Country, or Canterbury…) Why is it that these issues can only be allowed/commented on by _”Rate Payers”..
When there is so much apathy locally surely there’s a need for other parties to put their 10 cents worth in. For the Good of All!
Or can the few in Jackson’s Bay, ( or the Westland Council) determine whats Best…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/88099749/From-national-park-to-overseas-Plan-to-export-billions-of-litres-of-West-Coast-water
I only know about Curio and Te Waewae Bays issues from the article (although I have been to both places too). I trust F and B’s judgement. Hopefully Robert Guyton will comment. He would also know if there is a place for non-rate payers to have input.
I also think getting it written into the Regional Policy Statement is critical, because so much time, energy, effort and resource is being wasted having to refight these battles over and over and over.
Locals Rule!
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/326886/few-local-objections-to-shipping-water-overseas-mayor
My concern is that too many people are saying we need to put a price on water. I think we should have a moratorium on all new exports until we sort this out.
If we’re going to keep with a market system then we most definitely need to put a price on it.
Me, I’d like to put science on it and determine just how much water we can use before it becomes unsustainable.
I’m also pretty sure that we’re well into the unsustainable usage now and it’s just getting worse as the farms suck up more water and the water bottlers export it.
“If we’re going to keep with a market system then we most definitely need to put a price on it”
Quite. Which is why I think focussing on the price rather than a moratorium is buying into neoliberal framing. Have the conversation first about water being life, then talk about the limits, then see what if any price is needed. But then I think bottling water for profit is up there in terms of evil alongside Monsanto or chopping down rainforest to make burgers.
“Me, I’d like to put science on it and determine just how much water we can use before it becomes unsustainable.
I’m also pretty sure that we’re well into the unsustainable usage now and it’s just getting worse as the farms suck up more water and the water bottlers export it.”
I also believe we are well past anything remotely sustainable. I’m not sure we could even determine what sustainable is under the current system. Industrial export dairying would have to stop for a start, and no-one even wants to talk about that apart from those of us who have nothing to lose. And Rachel Steward 🙂
It is very little water that the bottlers are exporting. By all means worry about the farms but I really wouldn’t lose sleep over the bottling
Look at the bigger picture. Bottled water is a pollutant because of plastic’s accumulation in the environment (e.g. the Pacific gyre), and because plastic is an endocrine disruptor.
Exporting water has a ridiculous carbon cost. It actively supports the despoilment of local aquifers and watersheds in the places it is being sold. There is a reason people need to ship water from here. It’s daft beyond all reasoning to be moving water from one side of the planet to another using fossil fuels, but even if that were sustainable, it doesn’t get around why people need the water in the first place. Making money off other people’s destruction of the environment is not only amoral, it’s going to back lash against us. You think people with bigger sticks won’t come and take water from us if we let the civilisation get to the point of mass water wars?
“It is very little water that the bottlers are exporting.”
That argument I am not convince about. It’s the overall take from a catchment that counts, and if an aquifer is depleting (e.g. farming), then taking out water for bottling is still a further depletion. We also don’t know what the demand will be going forward except that it’s most likely to increase and may increase exponentially. We should be setting limits now, not doing what we have done with dairy and seeing how far we can push the plunder. From what I understand replenishing an aquifer is not a quick or easy thing, and by the time we get to that point we will be well into direct climate change issues.
We’re already at the point of fucking with the groundwater beyond our ken,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/article.cfm?c_id=16&objectid=11705149
Well, I sympathise with your desire for better water management
But, like all RWNJs, don’t like the idea that there are real physical limits that we need to live within.
I dont have a problem with that idea
That is not the way that you come across with your ‘sympathy’ nor your excusing of water bottlers.
Everyone agrees that the world has real physical limits. The interesting bit starts when you talk about what those limits are, how close we are to exceeding them, and what should be done about it.
My point is that water bottling (as opposed to dairy) takes you only a very little closer to reaching a hard limit.
I understand Weka’s rejoinder however.
A.
That’s not actually true. Many of the conservative bent don’t think that the world has limits. They’re easy to spot as they insist that we can just keep using more and more of the worlds limited resources with consequences.
Bottling water is fine because it uses so little. Owning and running a car is fine because it uses so little.
They don’t seem to understand the effect of multiplication and that it’s not just a single bottling plant and just one car being but many. That the demands upon those scarce resources isn’t just one thing but many and they all have their cost that reduces amount available.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
But very few people understand that. Even, IMO, most economists don’t get it despite it being at the root of their profession.
But what is the limit? Without knowing that how can you say that water bottling doesn’t take us over it?
Every little bit counts.
Watercare aren’t asking for one person to save a lot, they’re asking everyone to save a little which will add up to a lot.
feed your head – great vocal – ‘Grace Slick’s isolated vocals tracks for “White Rabbit.’
why? – just a point – does ‘why’ need a question mark?
anyway – we must look at things from different angles – we can do it with a song and with a few other things as well…
Arrg, not the ear worm!! (great track though).