Someone unemployed with savings is paying more tax than a farmer make $500,000 from a Fonterra dairy payout! Because the farmer was incentivised to borrow to much grow exports, so much so that they had to borrow yet more to pay for weekly groceries. And there’s no debate about how both Labour and National administrations have allowed this? Its like some Australia media-banking complex has been playing farmers and home buyers off against one another to load up on profits and insure that many citizens are indebted, serfs. The harder these people worked the more into debt they got, and the only people who survived the eonomical mauling were out of work bennies or those pocketing the fees to offshore the profits (like John Key). And so the hate against people who are not in debt because their not employed is merely another sign of how upside down the NZ economy is. Its like a Earthquake, where because all the land drops it looks like the river has risen! The farmers are claimed to be the backbone river of our economy, and yet the policies of successive governments were working faster and harder to make sure that the land was falling away faster. The reality is the debt on the economy is flooding the whole economy because of this massive parliamentary bait and switch. Parliament claiming its own competence on the economy because Fonterra was paying out heaps in profits! What a scam, they were writing themselves bonuses left, right and centre! Nice limos and all!
Allowing foreign owned banks to gouge on the hard working farmers and urban employees.
And National, the supposed bastion of business expertise, where taking heaps of donations from the top end of town who were profiting so much from he gouging of us all.
You lost me a bit there zeebop but if you are referring to the media release exposing the fact that the 17,000 dairy farmers paid $26 million in tax while the PAYE wage and salary earners paid $23 billion in tax, then I hears ya.
The entire agriculture, fishing and forestry industry paid just $319 million.
Or to put it another way the average dairy farmer paid just $1,500 in tax in 2009. This is about half of what a pensioner couple paid in tax in 2009.
This leads to many questions and matters that completely undermine several developments in the agricultural sector..
Such as the Fed Farmers constant carping about being the true New Zealanders paying for everything like teachers and doctors and police and etc. They just don’t.
Such as, if the farmers are that unprofitable with commodity prices at such high levels then how on earth can they dare to have the cheek to take more money again from the real payers for New Zealand (the wage and salary earner) for such ideas as irrigation projects? (farms already unprofitable, and on top of that, cannot get private funding for the investment because it does not stack up. I mean, ffs there some bullshit going on)
It’s good current practice for farms to be run as businesses on the profit borderline. They make their big money from capital gains. And they also have an advantage in being able to cover normal living expenses as business costs (ie tax free), like housing, vehicles and fuel, some food, power, phone/internet etc.
It has it’s down sides for sure, and I think the tax burden should be more evenly spread – but we do rely a lot on the primary sector for business activity, employment and exports, so it has to remain viable.
It looks to me like any viability problems they have are far less to do with the tax that they don’t pay, and much more to do with the speculation on land prices.
Surely, land is a cost in a farming business (just like ‘taxes’).
Turning it into the profit centre is just too stupid for words, if you want ‘farming’ to be a business
What your saying there is that, as it’s so unprofitable, we have to keep subsidising the farmers. This is, of course, taking the wealth away from more profitable work and more important community work.
John Shewin (sp?) from Price Waterhouse Coopers and the Tax Working Group was on the radio talking with Kathryn Ryan about it. Basically he said a capital gains tax is problematic because it’s usually only charged when an asset is sold, and this also creates a lock-in effect. A land tax is much better because we could start charging it quickly (although it would need to be phased in over a few years).
Adam Smith, the capitalist’s guru, did not believe in taxing workers at all. he believed it was better to tax the owners of land and capital. Taxing workers was an extra cost on productivity, while taxing owners encouraged efficient use of resources, including monetary capital.
CV problem with the likes of a land tax, is that there are many out there who have min cash incomes. The likes of pensioners, mum and dad (especially after buying energy shares) are struggling to cope with rates, mortgage and the general cost of living, lets just add on another, unless there is a tax rebalancing ;-).
Dairy farming on a technical economic bases does not add up. Those enjoying the idnustry are long timers who had little debt, but once they sell he new owner is now a slave.
In Sydney a mate is paying $1700/week rent yet this does not even cover the land tax for the land owners, and yet in Sydney there is no signs of a property collapse (not yet)the bubble is still expanding.
It’s really easy:
1.) Rates (Payable to loacl government) set as a low %age of income
2.) Land tax (Payable to central government) set at a flat rate (probably about $1) per m^2 per year.
3.) Capital gains tax (Payable to central government).
This make rates and the land tax affordable by everyone (It’s likely that most peoples rates+land tax would be cheaper than present rates) so we don’t have to put silly limits on it. It also brings in immediate revenue for the government and stops speculation and farming for capital gains.
It’s good current practice for farms to be run as businesses on the profit borderline.
Good for whom? Not for the country and not for the people of the country who are being told that their home help is being cut, their special education services are being cut, their training entitlements are being cut.
And not just a capital gains tax, a straight out asset tax is what we need, on net asset holdings over $2M.
A Japanese housewife looks at investing in OZ or NZ, OZ has a Capital Gains Tax.
So NZ whores itself for cheap to attract their investment, then we have to flaunt
the wears a little, boom the bubble, and return those investments with a risk premium.
It could be different, we could actually work harder for the investment, you know
by having competent government which targets unproductivity, like lack of
public transport alternatives, like holding back low level sprawl and build higher.
NZ has huge potential, and huge risks, its just shocking Wellington is on a fault,
Auckland is on a isthmus of volcanoes, and nobody cares to build
sustainable efficient city southwards. Its always more talk of maybe proper
rail in Auckland, well if they don’t want it build in in S.Auckland. Build a
circle line around the Bombay Hills! Do something already, because oil
is quickly becoming a luxury.
PeteG “They make their big money from capital gains”. Speculators of the highest order.
“they also have an advantage in being able to cover normal living expenses as business costs (ie tax free), like housing, vehicles and fuel, some food, power, phone/internet etc.” Makes them tax cheats. You are not able to claim many of those things as expenses yet you and I know they do. It makes them tax cheats.
IRD must know, politicians must know, so it seems it’s an allowed form of tax cheating.
Many small businesses tax cheat as well, for example not declaring all cash sales as income. Many individuals tax cheat too, mates rates, under the table sort of stuff.
The way a speculator makes money is by entering and leaving positions, buy low sell high, farmers are not speculators on land price, they are pansies for speculators. Its like the Fonterra needs more investment now story, where the farmers allowed any farm owner to trade in future calls on profits, allowing the speculators. Now all a invested need do is own and run a dairy farm and buy up all the poor indebted farmers future profits.
Same goes for housing, to win as a speculator you need to buy a home, talk it up, sell it again, buy more. So the speculators who won in the bubble where those that moved further out from the main centres talking up each suburb in turn, buying in cheap, sitting on properties, and selling once the scarcity had forced up prices. Borrowing the whole time and leveraging to the hilt.
Those caught when the music stopped would have large numbers of homes, and huge leveraged debt positions. Nasty.
Farmers are kidding themselves if they thought they’d see much of the speculative profits, since only a few could buy a chain of farms, that’s what Carfer was trying but turns out he didn’t get why, so was caught trying to keep them running rather than selling down debt the moment the oil infused bubble in property came to an end. Now we’re all in free fall, we just have no reach bottom yet.
Oh, and I welcome our new foreign overloads, UK-OZ-US-Japan-China.
I think the situation is appalling. PeteG above refers to farmers making their money via capital gain, which is entirely true… which means…
That farmers are speculators of the highest order, taking on huge unmanageable debt in the hope of increasing property prices. At the exact same time as they lambast urban types for doing similar (though on a much smaller scale). Honestly, I have become increasingly disappointed in the attitude and approach of the farming sector.
They are not paying their way. In an environmental sense, in a tax paying sense, in a smarmy ‘we are the real New Zealanders’ sense.
One of the worst aspects is the speculation and continued price rises of farmland that this has encouraged.
To paraphrase Selwyn Pellett Kiwi farmers have been borrowing more and more money from Aussie banks to buy the same farms off each other. And paying more and more interes to Aussie banks rather than tax to the Government. This is unsustainable and silly.
Bring on a Capital Gains tax or as suggested by CV a land tax.
Thanks vto, I appreciate the link. What else is sad is that in light of how much tax farmers are paying, there is no I repeat no justification for the millions of dollars the Natz are planning to throw at their irrigation systems.
Wouldn’t mind betting that the majority of NZ university students who come from down on the farm, have parents who have organised their finances so that their children qualify for student allowance. Gee they must be an impoverished lot. I wonder what colour the diesel is in their run-around-town SUV.
Hey. About 80% of NZ Debt is private debt. Billions involved. Are there any figures which show if the Agriculture/dairy farms make up significant proportion of that debt?
If dairy farms hold the great proportion of that debt (elephant in the room) then the Budget austerity would be down to dairy farming rather than Mum and Dad spendthrifts. Serious if so?
You could therefore argue that selling all the farms to overseas interests would be benefical in reducing NZ’s private debt issue.
I think though that the larger issue is property speculation across all sectors, and the debt we have as a result of that. Whether capital gains tax or some other mechanism is employed NZ would be in a much stronger postion if we carried less debt at a personal level, and for the most part that debt is incurred in a property purchase.
I would be interested though in seeing total tax take for the sector over a number of years, possible last year could be somethign of an anomoly?
“So do you reckon these guys are farmers or are they property speculators?”
At the moment a growing number of them are both.
My concern is based on the debt level that farmers are carrying and associating that with the debt levels that homeowners are carrying after a speculative property boom, we are in a commodoty boom at the moment and that is likely to reflect in higher demand/pricing fro farmland which will exacerbate the situation we have at the moment. And possible end in a bust if the commodity pricing falls sharply.
“Sure, if you didn’t give a shit about our balance of payments, that would be an argument you could make.”
Sorry that was with tongue firmly in cheek. I think that there is a lot of merit in protecting the ag sector ( it is too big to fail) if necessary from itself. And looking at strategies to limit the demand or cost of agricultural land, Labour i think want to limit land sales >5ha to oversees interests. I think thats a good starting point. I don’t object to farmers making a capital gain over time, but protecting them, and NZ, from a boom bust in land prices is in the national interest.
As far as tax take goes though i do think we should look at the contribution over a numebr of years to get a better understanding of their tax contribution ( or perhaps lack of it)
It isn’t technically difficult to deflate the farm asset price speculation bubble, and get the land back to its core business of making food instead of feeding Australian banks interest and fees.
Mate you’re being completely disingenuous suggesting that if we looked back an extra couple of years we’ll discover that farmers have only started not paying tax this latest year.
How is it disingenous to suggest looking at one year in isolation may not give a thorough picture?
IIRC 2009-10 was a year of devastating drought for the major dairying regions, and we were warned at the time that most farms would run at a deficit for the year.
So you want to only look at revenue in assessing a tax bill interesting..
No acknowledgement that expenses may form a part of a tax calculation.
BTW I am sure that you know that the av$800k payout isn’t bankable profit. And you accuse me of being disingenous.
I will say again that attempting to draw a conclusion based on one years figures ( and ignoring contributing factors) may well be unfair and inaccurate.
I’m still waiting for people to show us the comparable figures from other years then, seeing they are complaining that these figures are such an outlier.
Hmmmm, it appears that we pay and pay and pay but never seem to get the benefits from the payments. We get lots of negatives though – polluted rivers, stream and lakes, disappearing water tables and high food prices.
Interesting summary of some books which I suggest is a case for socialism …
Human beings, Haidt argues, are “the giraffes of altruism.” Just as giraffes got long necks to help them survive, humans developed moral minds that help them and their groups succeed. Humans build moral communities out of shared norms, habits, emotions and gods, and then will fight and even sometimes die to defend their communities.
Sounds to me like the biologists need to be talking with the psychologists. Psychopathy has a tendency to have no conscience but also has a tendency towards excessive selfishness is regarded as an illness. There’s been some discussion about psychopathy being genetic. This would indicate, especially in association with the linked studies, that being selfish isn’t in peoples nature as the RWNJs say. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. This would suggest that we should be passing laws that encourage cooperation between people rather than competition.
In other words, for the last three decades we’ve been following the wrong course – thanks Labour 👿
I remember when I studied zoology in the late 70s just after ‘Sociobiology’ and ‘The Selfish Gene’ were published. I had a chat with a classmate who got really depressed at the implications (i.e., we’re all ‘seflfish’). I said to her then that that was a misunderstanding and that Dawkins misunderstood what he was talking about (I’ve always been very sure of myself). I pointed out that natural selection was a process of replicating genes – you can call that ‘selfish’ if you like – but there’s no reason why natural selection wouldn’t select genuine altruism in individual organisms (i.e., in people). People, that is, can evolve to be genuinely unselfish in the right (social) environment of selection and that could help replicate genes.
She wasn’t really convinced – which was a shame. Still, it’s good to see the science catching up with me after all these years. 🙂
One correction to the info in the link – as I understand it, classic ‘group selection’ is still pretty much a heresy (or, at least, controversial); what isn’t is selection for ‘groupiness’ which, in the right environment, can help with individual (ultimately gene) ‘replication’. That is, it isn’t so much that one group out-competes another in head-to-head competition but that, within a group, being generally cooperative increases one’s own chances of survival (partly because the group is more effective/efficient at various tasks than are lone individuals and partly because, once sociality occurs, you’d better not buck the group too much or too often because others have a lot to lose from a breakdown of the group!). (I could be wrong, though, and should read Sloan-Wilson more closely to check.)
This link and this follow on link (which is the abstract for a paper by Nowak et al. – Nowak is mentioned in your link) on the evolution of ‘eusociality’ (in Nature) lead to the paywall but show that this issue is very much still at the forefront of evolutionary thinking.
NZIR have provided some facts from an organisation that measures international competitiveness and ranks the results;
“New Zealand’s business efficiency dropped two places from 22 to 24.
Government efficiency fell three places, from 5 to 8.”
We know that the plan to increase Government efficiency is to cut back on resources and hope it makes a difference. What is the plan for improved business efficiency, they have a long way to go to catch up with Governments excellent 8th in the rankings?
“Joycie” has made a tactical change re the 10 year Commerce Comm. ‘hands off’ period on Ultra Fast. There is ample scope for opposition parties here re potential broadband price rises given the million plus households with broadband.
God, John key comes across as an arrogant ass in the House, while shouting at people and sneeringly denying the unfairness of the tax switch & pronouncing black is white.
Lanthanide – I noted while listening to some intelligent guru about nz finances yesterday that the idea of the fiscally neutral tax cuts and GST rises blah blah was that the whole premise relied on growth in the economy which hasn’t happened and that is why we are fiscally neutered instead.
On yesterday’s radionz news there was an item on Filipino caregivers being refused renewal of work permits apparently on the basis that they are considered unskilled workers. This underlines a long-term disdain for the work of people who care for other people, from mothers, to caregivers, foster parents, as well as aged care perhaps even teachers!
If the decision makers had to do the job of caregiver to the aged, or some with an intellectual disability for even a week they would find that not only is it hard testing work, but summoning up the reserves of human concern for patients/clients who may be all of difficult, demanding and heavy to move, would leave them exhausted and drained.
The middle class, and in fact,all classes, want good standards when dealing with vulnerable people, but there is not respect for the people who are working to those standards. Anybody can do their jobs is the refrain. Well they can’t, won’t and don’t and these workers deserve more consideration. They are needed now and it is well known that elderly numbers are growing.
Most Filipino women who have a background of appropriate training would have more Skill, Concern for proper treatment of people and Integrity in their little fingers than immigration ‘officiousals’ have in their whole department.
Absolutely. I heard a lot of that interview as well, and while I could be wrong, I think she said that many of these Filipina women are actually trained nurses, who have not managed to get registration in New Zealand, perhaps because of their English.. At least one of the women killed at the language school in the CTV building in Christchurch was exactly that, a Filipina nurse studying English in order to get her registration with the Nursing Council.
Yes Vicky32 I remember that there was a reference to previous training and status in thePhillipines. How sad about the woman being in the CTV building and ironic that she was trying to improve her English at the same time that the immigration’s dalek leader was planning to get them out of NZ.
Just heard the Penguin give us some more of his knowledge.
“If Banks wins Epsom and Act only get 4 percent, it could give Banks a lot of power in the party, particularly as his seat would bring Brash in on the Electorate rule.” Then the Penguin opined that if Banks was to have a falling out and resigned his seat, Act would be gone.” I think not. At the time of the Election is the determining issue. Act list members would remain (but without validity).
Actually, National could work this gerrymander to their advantage. They could get the 2nd party support of Act on Banks’ back. Banks could then resign and force a bye election in Epsom and stand for the National Party. The National party supporters of Epsom could then vote for Banks. He would then return to parliament as a member of the party he really pays allegiance to and everyone is happy. National get an extra electorate member, and have a support party that has got less than 5% support.
John Banks, learnt all he knows as a member of Rob’s Mob, is the ACT candidate for Epsom. “Rob this, and Rob that… was his mantra.” Rob must be turning in his grave right now… Banksy is aligning himself with Douglas, Brash, Richardson et al. What an opportunist Banksy has become.
I think if National and Banks played such a game, they’d be vilified far more than Hone is.
I mean really, it would look like this:
1. Resign National
2. Join Act
3. Win Act seat to get them into parliament
4. Quit act
5. Join National
6. Re-win seat under National
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If you've been watching FYI for a while, you'll have noticed that the police have a bad habit of demanding ID from requesters. They have apparently been repeatedly told to stop doing this by the Ombudsman, but we all know what law enforcement thinks of the law, so thye keep ...
Collateral Damage: For the Green Phoenix to be reborn, the funeral pyre so patiently assembled by its identity politicians over the course of many fractious years – but with growing intensity over the past three – first has to be ignited. The terrible probability, of course, is that, in setting ...
If you follow politics in New Zealand you've likely noticed that the right wing have been going on and on about the Coalition Government failing to reduce poverty. In fact they’ve been incessantly claiming, in the absence of any conclusive data, that poverty has been getting worse.Yesterday, NewstalkZB reported:Mike Hosking: ...
The Herald reported over the weekend that an Auckland business owner is being targeted with asset forfeiture laws over a workplace death:A workplace fatality has seen police use a law usually associated with drugs and organised crime to seize millions of dollars in assets from a business owner because of ...
Just days after talking about how people feel "squeezed" and promising tax and service cuts as a "solution", National is talking about cancelling a rise in the minimum wage if elected: National is considering scrapping the Government's planned minimum wage increase if it wins this year's election, the party's finance ...
Nobody thinks about the next century anymore. That at least is Sci-Fi writer William Gibson’s observation (in this BBC 4 short interview, starting at 1:43:50 ). He calls it “Futures Fatigue”, but isn’t judgemental about it. Gibson notes that in the 20th century speculation about the 21st (and beyond) was common. Now ...
A Labour government desperate for the numbers crawls into bed with Winston Peters. Winston ignores the law and secretly takes money under the table from someone. When it is exposed just months out from an election, he is investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. That's what happened back in 2008. ...
So the Serious Fraud Office has another secret $100,050 National Party donation before the Courts in a major scandal that looks set to quash any chances Simon Bridges had of winning the 2020 election.Yesterday, Newsroom reported:The Serious Fraud Office prosecution of four people over donations to the National Party involves ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Iceberg twice the size of Washington, D.C., breaks off Pine Island glacier in Antarctica Story Highlights: The Pine Island ...
Prof Philippa Howden-ChapmanHousing policy is building up to be the key election issue again. In this blog I reflect on the importance of the role of the New Zealand Government in improving access to affordable housing. I look at what the Government has been doing to increase quality public housing ...
Writing on The Spinoff, Danyl Mclauchlan argues that we have a vacuum in our political system, in that there is no longer an anti-establishment party anymore:I think there’s a vacuum in our political system. There are obvious problems with the status quo but no real critics offering reform. It’s a ...
Stuff today has a piece about the government discovering it has been oversubsidising polluters for a decade under the Emissions Trading scheme:The Government is pledging to urgently fix an issue within the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), after it emerged some polluters are likely being over-compensated with taxpayer-funded carbon credits. [...] ...
The Marlborough District Council, tired of public scrutiny, wants to increase the amount it charges for LGOIMA requests:The cost of requesting official information from Marlborough's government agency could almost double after a jump in "fishing expeditions". Charges could be raised from $60 to $100 an hour for information supplied by ...
When Winston Peters was caught money laundering donations and stalking journalists, the Greens were conspicuous by their silence. It was another example of how getting along with their government partners was eroding their values and their own reputation. It was obviously unsustainable, and so now James Shaw has finally spoken ...
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...
With over 69,000 confirmed cases and 1,600 deaths, here’s your round-up of the latest coronavirus news. New disease and virus have now officially been named On the 11th February, the WHO Director General announced a new name for the disease: COVID-19 which is short for coronavirus disease 2019. The naming ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 9, 2020 through Sat, Feb 15, 2020 Editor's Pick ANALYSIS-Climate change opens up 'frontier' farmland, but at what cost to the planet?Climate change could expand farmland globally by ...
After cross-examination Jones knew he would lose the defamation case he took against film maker Renae Maihi. That’s why he threw in the towel. The weight of evidence was clearly against the old tycoon with the defense presenting fifty articles to confirm Jones’ racist views.Being unable to harass somebody into ...
Sprung! Former NZ First president, Lester Gray, chats with RNZ's Guyon Espiner in the carpark of a Tauranga shopping centre.(Photo supplied anonymously to NZ First and The BFD.)IT’S CLEAR THAT an important aspect of Jacinda Ardern’s political success is her willingness to seek – and take – advice. This ...
Ruth Cunningham, Charlotte Paul, Andrew MoorePublic health responses to infectious diseases such as COVID-19 require us to draw on our common humanity and be explicit about our values. Recognising this will help us make good decisions in difficult situations so that, for example, the need to impose restrictive measures ...
The Helen Clark Foundation has released its report on the housing crisis, and found that house-hoarders are to blame for it:Property investors are to blame for New Zealand's high house prices, a new research paper published by the Helen Clark Foundation says. [...] McArthur said previous attempts to address housing ...
The Abortion Legislation Committee has reported back on the Abortion Legislation Bill and recommended that it be passed with some amendments. Unfortunately, the latter include even more hoops to jump through for those seeking abortions after 20 weeks, including a time-wasting requirement to consult a second doctor. No-one casually seeks ...
Brexit is likely to be a disaster for the UK (how sad, never mind). But now that they're out of the EU, the latter has finaly taken the opportunity to blacklist one of their key tax havens:The Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory, is to be put on an EU ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, New Zealand First Deputy Leader A total delivery of 2,000 new Police Officers has been achieved. New Zealand First Deputy Leader, Fletcher Tabuteau attended the latest police graduation of Recruit Wing 335 in Porirua today. Mr Tabuteau said, “Increasing police numbers and boosting their resources was one of ...
Taupō District mayor David Trewavas has welcomed today’s announcement from regional economic development minister Shane Jones outlining $5.87m of funding for the re-development of the Taupō Airport. The bulk of the investment ($5 million) will come from the Provincial Growth Fund, while the rest will be from the New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has defended multi-million dollar provincial growth fund money for Northland water storage. The New Zealand First leader, along with Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones, were recently in Dargaville to announce up to $12.745 million PGF funding top-up for water storage initiatives in the ...
One of our most immediate priorities upon forming Government was to get people out of sleeping in cars, garages, or on the street and into safe and warm housing. Since then, we've made major progress towards breaking the cycle of homelessness, including expanding Housing First, building more state houses, and ...
Kids learn better with a full stomach. That's why we launched our Lunches in Schools programme, which is already providing free and healthy school lunches to thousands of children so they can focus on what's important - learning. ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP based in Clutha-Southland This afternoon to a crowd of over 100 people in Mataura -- Mark Patterson, New Zealand First List MP based in Clutha-Southland launched a parliamentary petition regarding the aluminium dross issue in Mataura, Southland. The petition asks that the ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Spokesperson for Finance, Fletcher Tabuteau has welcomed Statistics New Zealand’s latest report as a timely reminder of the value that this Coalition Government brings to every day New Zealanders: “This Coalition Government has meant a ...
Today New Zealand First made a pledge to campaign at the election to fund St John Ambulance the 90 per cent it has asked for. Government funding would allow St. John’s to achieve fully funded status. Leader of New Zealand First, Rt Hon Winston Peters publicly declared his determination to deliver ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order Newly released Police data shows once again the number of fleeing drivers have continued to skyrocket with a record 512 incidents occurring in December – almost tripling the number of incidents occurring just ten years ago, says New Zealand First Law and ...
While the Provincial Growth Fund has provided $2 million to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia, Regional Economic Minister Shane Jones said he is greatly concerned that there are “issues” in implementing the projects. The Minister said the immediate solution was to pipe water from a bore ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland NZ First is calling on Rio Tinto to accept its responsibilities to the Southland community and enable the immediate removal of the toxic Aluminium Dross from the Mataura Paper Mill site. New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland, Mark Patterson ...
The Coalition Government has announced that a further $500,000 will be given to help residents in Southland and Otago to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. It follows prior government assistance of $200,000 earlier this month where the Southland Mayoral Relief Fund received $100,000 to support communities impacted by ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones was on RNZ’s Morning Report talking about the recent droughts in the Northland region and what the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is doing to alleviate its impact. The PGF recently announced a funding of $2 million for temporary water supplies to Kaikohe and Kaitaia, ...
Speaking to The Country’s Jamie Mackay, New Zealand First MP and Cabinet Minister Shane Jones talks water storage, plant-based meat imitation, and superstar Hollywood director James Cameron. While water storage may have its critics, Minister Jones defended the scheme by saying: “unless we invest and continue to invest” in this ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones is accusing northern iwi leaders of selling out Māori by voting for ideologically-driven court cases rather than practical steps to increase water supply. “I just think that iwi leaders who think that water issues are going to be solved by perpetually fighting in the ...
A dairy owner in St Kilda, Dunedin was delighted to hear that an attempted robbery of his establishment was foiled by a government-funded security system. Sean Lee was delighted at how well the anti-theft smoke system worked. When a knife-wielding man entered the store, the shop assistant immediately pressed a ...
Customs says it stopped more than three tonnes of illegal drugs coming into New Zealand last year. This includes 1,180kg of methamphetamine, 329kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine precursors, which could have been converted into 246kg of methamphetamine, 739kg and 6469 pills of MDMA or Ecstasy and 60kg of cocaine. Offshore, ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Up to $2 million will be allocated from the Provincial Growth Fund to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia where drought is biting hard, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Drought conditions in Northland have led to ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First welcomes the deployment of an Eagle Police helicopter in Christchurch in what is a step towards fulfilling its long-standing goal to increase the use of police helicopters for the front line, particularly in addressing the scourge of fleeing drivers. Christchurch leads ...
It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...
In a heated debate in Parliament, National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett claimed that “nearly 1600 patched gang members have been added” since the Coalition Government took power. To illustrate her point, she altered a chart used by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to show her government’s progress in housing to instead ...
Speech by the Rt Hon Winston Peters at Parliament’s Opening 2020 "We all need insurance" This year New Zealanders are going to have a clear choice to make That choice is between: Optimism versus pessimism; More progress versus back to the future; Investment versus divestment; Unity versus division. New Zealand ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has slammed the Board of Auckland Airport following the airport's runway closing twice within two weeks due to maintenance. Around 2,000 passengers were affected by last week’s runway closures, according to 1NEWS. Another maintenance closure on January 24 saw two international flights and three domestic flights ...
A milestone has been reached with the graduation of more than 2,000 new Police officers since the Coalition Government took office in October 2017. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the graduation today of Wing 335 marks a surge of 2,023 new officers, and coincides with some significant breakthroughs against organised ...
Government Ministers today celebrated 20 years of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park/ Ko te Pataka kai o Tikapa Moana/ Te Moananui a Toi, and recognise there is much to celebrate and so much more to do to give nature a helping hand. Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage said “New Zealanders care deeply about nature.I want to ...
Prepared remarks on coronavirus by Finance Minister Grant Robertson to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and Massey University. Good morning ladies and gentlemen, The topic of this speech is the Budget 2020 priorities. But, given the considerable interest that I imagine is in the room about COVID-19 coronavirus, I do ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e ngā rau rangatira ma. Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. Ni sa bula vinaka. Namaste Thank you Shamima, Hon. Minister Vuniwaqa, community leaders and Women’s Crisis Centre staff for your warm welcome. It’s an honour and privilege to officially ...
The Government has released a comprehensive response to ensuring New Zealanders get a fairer deal at the petrol pump. This follows the Commerce Commission fuel market study which found motorists were paying more than they should for petrol and includes: Fuel Market Bill drafting, to pass mid-year Industry consultation in ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e ngā rau rangatira ma Tēnā koutou katoa Ni sa bula vinaka As-salaam alaikum It is a privilege to be here today. Thank you for welcoming us to your house of prayer. Thank you for your warmth. Thank you for greeting ...
Taupō Airport is to be upgraded and expanded through a $5.9 million Government funding boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. “Taupō Airport is the gateway to the Central North Island. It is essential for both keeping local people and businesses connected, but also to bring more people ...
The Minister of Housing Megan Woods has confirmed the Government is working with Rotorua Lakes District Council and Te Arawa for the second place-based assessment to better understand the housing and urban issues affecting the city. “Every New Zealander has a right to a warm, safe and secure place to ...
19 new community homes (in addition to 14 opened in December) delivered in Takanini, Auckland 500 people housed by CORT Housing Trust by end of March 2,290 new public housing homes delivered in Auckland (November 2017 – December 2019). Another nineteen new public housing homes are being delivered in Auckland, ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker met today with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to discuss ways to strengthen ties between New Zealand and India. “India is a priority relationship for New Zealand. We share common democratic traditions, growing two-way trade, extensive people-to-people links, ...
Speech to the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) Delhi, India Wednesday 26 February 2020 [CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY] The Indo-Pacific: from principles to partnerships Distinguished guests, good afternoon and thank you for your invitation. It is good to be here at a time where New Zealand needs less of an introduction than ...
Tihei mauri ora Te Whare e tu nei Te Papa e takoto Tēnā korua No reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa Ni sa bula Vinaka It is a real pleasure to be here today, and to have the honour of addressing you all. If you’ll indulge me I’m ...
Improved air quality to support better health and environmental wellbeing is the focus of proposed amendments to air quality regulations, says the Associate Minister for the Environment, Hon Nanaia Mahuta. “Although our air quality is good in most places, during winter certain places have spikes in air pollution, mainly from ...
The remote eastern Bay of Plenty community of Raukokere will receive a Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment of $10.6 million for a water storage facility, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “This is great news for the rural community. The landowner, Te Whānau a Maruhaeremuri Hapū Trust, will use ...
The Lake Ōkaro lakebed has transferred to Te Arawa Lakes Trust, Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti Kelvin Davis announced today. Kelvin Davis joined Te Arawa at Te Papaiōuru Marae in Rotorua to celebrate the reinstatement of Te Arawa Lakes Trust as a key decision maker over the bed ...
New legislation is being proposed which aims to reduce the stress and financial hardship caused by late payments to small businesses. The Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash is considering stricter rules around payment practices between businesses. “Late payments from large organisations to smaller suppliers can be crippling for these ...
A new partnership programme between the New Zealand Police and Fiji Police will focus on combatting transnational organised crime and enhancing investigative skills, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on the first day of her visit to Fiji. The programme will see: · New Zealand Institute of Environmental Science and Research ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama met today in Suva, and renewed their commitment to continue to strengthen Fiji-New Zealand relations on a foundation of shared values and equal partnership. The Prime Ministers acknowledged the kinship between Fijians and New Zealanders, one that has endured over ...
A $19.9 million investment from the Provincial Growth Fund will help develop essential infrastructure for an industrial hub in the Bay of Plenty town of Kawerau, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “The funding will go to three projects to further develop the Putauaki Trust Industrial Hub, an industrial ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing $8.3 million on a roading package for Mahia that will lead to greater and wider economic benefits for the region and beyond, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced at an event in Mahia today. The $8.3 million announced consists of: $7 ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed new reporting showing the Coalition Government is on track to meet its child poverty targets, with 18,400 children lifted out of poverty as a result of the Families Package. Stats NZ has released the first set of comprehensive child poverty statistics since the Government ...
Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter today announced that Bikes in Schools facilities have been rolled out to 20,000 more kiwi kids under this Government. She made the announcement at the opening of a new bike track at Henderson North School in Auckland. “Bikes in Schools facilities give kids ...
Benefit settings rise in line with wages as of 1 April Main benefits will increase by over 3 percent, instead of 1.66 percent, on 1 April with the Government’s decision to annually adjust benefit rates to increases in the average wage. The Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni, said ...
Strengthening New Zealand’s political and business ties with India will be the focus of Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters’ and Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker’s visit to India this week. The Ministers are co-leading a high level business delegation to India to support increased people and economic engagement ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio continues to champion for greater Pacific participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers with the announcement of the Toloa Awards, with 8 recipients of the Toloa Community Fund and 13 Toloa Tertiary Scholarships. “The Toloa Programme encourages more Pacific peoples ...
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has extended the date for people to have their say on proposed changes to improve management of whitebait across New Zealand. Submissions were due to close on 2 March 2020 but will now remain open until 9am on Monday 16 March 2020. “I have ...
The endangered toroa/Antipodean albatross has new international protection for its 100,000km annual migration, thanks to collaborative efforts led by New Zealand, Australia and Chile. Today, 130 countries agreed to strictly protect Antipodean albatross at the Conference of Parties on the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild ...
No sales to under-18-year-olds No advertising and sponsorship of vaping products and e-cigarettes No vaping or smokeless tobacco in smokefree areas Regulates vaping product safety comprehensively, - including devices, flavours and ingredients Ensure vaping products are available for those who want to quit smoking Vaping regulation that balances ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little will travel to Berlin tomorrow to represent New Zealand at a high-level summit on nuclear disarmament. This year, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) celebrates 50 years since it entered into force. “New Zealand’s proud record and leadership on nuclear disarmament is unwavering, so it’s important we are present ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will visit two of New Zealand’s most important Pacific partners, Fiji and Australia, next week. The visit to Fiji will be the first by a New Zealand Prime Minister in four years and comes during the 50th anniversary of Fijian independence and diplomatic relations between our ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little and New Zealand First MP Darroch Ball, have today announced the appointment of the Chief Commissioner of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the location, and the membership of the Establishment Advisory Group. Colin Carruthers QC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of the CCRC for an ...
Māori Development Minister Hon Nanaia Mahuta and Agriculture Minister Hon Damien O’Connor co-announced the first horticultural finalists for the Ahuwhenua Trophy celebrating excellence in the Māori agricultural sector. The three finalists are Ngai Tukairangi Trust from Mt Maunganui, Otama Marere Trust from Tauranga, and Hineora Orchard Te Kaha 15B Ahuwhenua ...
A new kete of resources to strengthen support for students with dyslexia will provide extra tools for the new Learning Support Coordinators (LSCs) as they start in schools, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The Minister launched the kete in Wellington this morning, at the first of three induction ...
The Government continues to make progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the First Reading of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill and its referral to the Social Services and Community Select Committee. “Now is the opportunity for landlords, tenants and others who want ...
Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Hon James Marape will visit New Zealand from 21-25 February, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “New Zealand and Papua New Guinea have a warm and friendly relationship. I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Marape here and strengthening the relationship between our two countries,” ...
Thousands of children have begun receiving a free lunch on every day of the school week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. The Government’s free and healthy school lunch programme is under way for 7,000 students at 31 schools in Hawke’s Bay / Tairāwhiti and Bay of Plenty / Waiariki, extending ...
The Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni today announced a new approach that continues to broaden the Government’s social sector focus from a narrow, investment approach to one centred on people and wellbeing. Minister Sepuloni said redefining the previous approach to social investment by combining science, data and lived experience ...
The Government is strengthening the Protected Disclosures Act to provide better protection for whistle blowers, Minister of State Services Chris Hipkins said today. “The Protected Disclosures Act is meant to encourage people to speak up about serious wrongdoing in the workplace and protect them from losing their jobs or being ...
Nǐn hǎo (Hello in Mandarin). Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (Happy New Year in Mandarin) Néi Hóu (Hello in Cantonese). Sun Nin Fai Lok (Happy New Year in Cantonese) Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Thank you for your invitation to attend this celebration today. I would like to acknowledge ...
Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Pāremata. E ngā mana whenua ki tēnei rohe Taranaki Whānui, Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa – kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi. E ngā mana, e ...
In an apparent change of tune, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expects to raise the topic of climate change with Australian counterpart Scott Morrison tomorrow. ...
The Government says it wants to protect small businesses from getting shafted by big companies who don’t or won’t pay their bills on time. The move can’t come too soon. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Muecke, Clinical senior lecturer in Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Adelaide Humans are physiologically hardwired to love and seek out sweet things. It’s an ancient survival mechanism that evolved to prepare our bodies for periods of fasting when food supplies ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marilyn McMahon, Deputy Dean, School of Law, Deakin University The NSW government has just introduced a bill that will, among other significant reforms, make it easier for a jury to be informed about the prior convictions of a person on trial for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marilyn McMahon, Deputy Dean, School of Law, Deakin University The NSW government has just introduced a bill that will, among other significant reforms, make it easier for a jury to be informed about the prior convictions of a person on trial for ...
By RNZ Pacific Jacinda Ardern has paid tribute to the three Fijians who died in last year’s Christchurch mosque shootings. Ardern spoke today at Lautoka Mosque as part of her trip to Fiji to remember Imam Hafiz Musa Patel, Ashraf Ali Razak and Ashraf Ali, who died almost a ...
The Real Pod reassembles to dissect the cultured fourth week of The Bachelorette NZ with special thanks to Nando’s.This week on The Bachelorette NZ, a burrito bust-up ends in anaphylaxis, Steve chows down on some one-ply, and the Buenos Aires hostel goes full Lord of the Flies. It’s become abundantly ...
Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand, the Catholic Bishops' agency for justice, peace and development, is concerned that the latestchild poverty numbers show that there has been anincrease in material hardship,with 4100 more children living in ...
Dr Bryce Edwards.Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni described this year’s annual benefit increases of 3 per cent as “significant”, and “a way of sharing the wealth”. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also heralded them as the biggest increase to benefits in nine years, if National’s 2015 one-off adjustments are excluded. ...
Is it the kind of headline that will win votes at the general election? “Rock-star reception in Fijian village” followed by a sub-head “Rapturous greeting for Ardern during visit to launch $3m sanitation project”. The reporter (veteran Barry Soper, Newstalk ZB’s political editor) poses the rhetorical question: “Is there any ...
The New Zealand First Foundation received $100,000 in just one week from two rich-listers, whose donations remained secret because the individual payments fell below the disclosure threshold. ...
BusinessNZ says legislation requiring more transparent petrol pricing will probably be well-received, but there are concerns about the market study that prompted it. The Government has announced it is drafting a Fuel Market Bill to introduce requirements ...
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Andrea Watson, Sparrows CEO and founder, and Simon Yarrow, who leads Callaghan Innovation’s ...
LGNZ say a new report from the Deep South National Science Challenge is a reminder for central government policy makers to step up the pace on progressing a national strategy on climate change adaption. LGNZ is the peak body representing New Zealand’s ...
Art schools are seen by many as beacons of liberalism. But is this the reality? Former Māori student Anna McAllister recounts her fraught journey through an Auckland art school.In high school, the only subjects I was remotely good at were the practical arts. I stayed in the art block during ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Madeline Taylor, Academic Fellow, University of Sydney This week’s decision by Norwegian company Equinor to abandon a A$200 million plan to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight surprised both its critics and backers. Equinor says it abandoned the project off ...
Finance Minister sees serious, short-term impact on economy from Covid-19. He says the Government is able to deliver more general fiscal stimulus and sector-specific help if the economic hit is longer and harder. Finance Minister Grant Robertson has given his first comprehensive update on the economic effects expected from the ...
In response to reports that 30,000 New Zealanders earning over $100,000 are taking superannuation, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson Casey Russell says: “It’s clear that many wealthy New Zealanders are collecting superannuation they don’t ...
Fancy a quick trip to Europe without leaving the comfort of your own couch? Tara Ward rounds up the best European drama for your viewing pleasure. Anyone who reckons travel is the only way to expand your mind has never had the pleasure of lying on a couch for three days ...
Child protection social work involves risk. It always will. The right decisions cannot always be made and sometimes it can be a question of choosing between the least damaging alternatives. We have had a long list of child abuse tragedies for over 30 years now – in Aotearoa New Zealand and ...
SFO scrutiny of National and NZ First donations sparked debate about party funding and electoral laws. Now, Transparency International has a warning. ...
Not paying NZ Super out to those on incomes of $100,000 or more would save taxpayers around $608 million. Is it time we shake up who gets paid and what? RNZ‘s Nita Blake-Persen reports.The number of New Zealand retirees getting their superannuation while earning more than $100,000 has topped 30,000, ...
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 contentCoronavirus John Gibb (ODT): Otago academic fears ‘massive’ impact Chris Trotter (Daily Blog): Nothing Xenophobic Or Racist About The Chinese ...
Dr Bryce Edwards.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won power in 2017 on the basis of statements such as “My goal is to eradicate child poverty in New Zealand”. The Government’s progress on child poverty will be under scrutiny at this year’s general election, but progress is slow, and many are claiming ...
New Zealand King Salmon has had a better-than-expected first half, driven by record prices for its fish products. The Marlborough-based salmon farmer's net profit rose nearly 38 percent to $20.8 million in the six months to December, with the average sale price up 6.6 percent. However, revenue of $84.2m was ...
Reform of superannuation is overdue, with new figures showing more than 30,000 superannuitants are earning more than $100,000 per year. This number is growing fast as more people keep working past 65. More than 126,000 superannuitants (17% of the total) are earning ...
Funding to give nature a helping hand and support community conservation projects opens this week, with $5.6m available for community-led projects. “The Department of Conservation (DOC) Community Fund enables us to go further and faster in our conservation ...
Police acknowledge the findings of the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) in relation to decision-making in a sexual assault investigation in Palmerston North. The IPCA found that the decision-making was sound, and there was no conflict of interest ...
Thursday, February 27: Greenpeace has published an open letter calling on the organisers of music festival WOMAD to dump oil industry sponsorship. Todd Energy and Austrian oil giant OMV are on the bill again this year, despite persistent criticism from ...
The clash between urban cyclists and car drivers has been brewing for several years now. But pedestrians have been advocating for their rights for far longer, writesNot so long ago, the journalist Bernard Hickey predicted that cyclists vs motorists will become one of the political issues of our age. “We ...
A2 Milk has delivered a strong financial result, with increased sales in its infant nutrition business and with better than expected profit margins. The specialty milk company's net profit rose 21 percent in the six months to December to $184.9m, with an underlying sales margin of 32.6 percent. Sales rose ...
Air New Zealand's half year profit has taken a larger hit than expected, falling 33 percent amid slowing demand for air travel and increased costs. Its net profit was $101 million in the six months ended December, compared with $150m the year before. Costs rose due to price hikes for ...
You might be trying to reduce your carbon footprint in everyday life, but what about in death? Alex Casey talks to Becs Bartells, founder of Outside the Box about creating the perfect cardboard casket. Becs Bartells often forgets she has an empty coffin sitting in the back of her station wagon, ...
As government services shut their doors in communities and drive people to interact online, the wellbeing of New Zealand's most vulnerable people is being diminished, says the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB). CAB has released the report 'Face to Face ...
New research from justice advocacy group JustSpeak released today shows that structural bias in policing continues to disproportionately harm Māori and demonstrates the urgent need for transformative change across our justice system. Using the Statistics ...
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Someone unemployed with savings is paying more tax than a farmer make $500,000 from a Fonterra dairy payout! Because the farmer was incentivised to borrow to much grow exports, so much so that they had to borrow yet more to pay for weekly groceries. And there’s no debate about how both Labour and National administrations have allowed this? Its like some Australia media-banking complex has been playing farmers and home buyers off against one another to load up on profits and insure that many citizens are indebted, serfs. The harder these people worked the more into debt they got, and the only people who survived the eonomical mauling were out of work bennies or those pocketing the fees to offshore the profits (like John Key). And so the hate against people who are not in debt because their not employed is merely another sign of how upside down the NZ economy is. Its like a Earthquake, where because all the land drops it looks like the river has risen! The farmers are claimed to be the backbone river of our economy, and yet the policies of successive governments were working faster and harder to make sure that the land was falling away faster. The reality is the debt on the economy is flooding the whole economy because of this massive parliamentary bait and switch. Parliament claiming its own competence on the economy because Fonterra was paying out heaps in profits! What a scam, they were writing themselves bonuses left, right and centre! Nice limos and all!
Allowing foreign owned banks to gouge on the hard working farmers and urban employees.
And National, the supposed bastion of business expertise, where taking heaps of donations from the top end of town who were profiting so much from he gouging of us all.
You lost me a bit there zeebop but if you are referring to the media release exposing the fact that the 17,000 dairy farmers paid $26 million in tax while the PAYE wage and salary earners paid $23 billion in tax, then I hears ya.
The entire agriculture, fishing and forestry industry paid just $319 million.
Or to put it another way the average dairy farmer paid just $1,500 in tax in 2009. This is about half of what a pensioner couple paid in tax in 2009.
This leads to many questions and matters that completely undermine several developments in the agricultural sector..
Such as the Fed Farmers constant carping about being the true New Zealanders paying for everything like teachers and doctors and police and etc. They just don’t.
Such as, if the farmers are that unprofitable with commodity prices at such high levels then how on earth can they dare to have the cheek to take more money again from the real payers for New Zealand (the wage and salary earner) for such ideas as irrigation projects? (farms already unprofitable, and on top of that, cannot get private funding for the investment because it does not stack up. I mean, ffs there some bullshit going on)
Such as, …… on it goes.
It’s good current practice for farms to be run as businesses on the profit borderline. They make their big money from capital gains. And they also have an advantage in being able to cover normal living expenses as business costs (ie tax free), like housing, vehicles and fuel, some food, power, phone/internet etc.
But don’t you agree PeteG it is bad for the country?
We get stuff all tax, polluted waterways and increased debt as farmers keep borrowing.
This particular article has convinced me more than ever that a capital gains tax is a must.
It has it’s down sides for sure, and I think the tax burden should be more evenly spread – but we do rely a lot on the primary sector for business activity, employment and exports, so it has to remain viable.
It looks to me like any viability problems they have are far less to do with the tax that they don’t pay, and much more to do with the speculation on land prices.
Surely, land is a cost in a farming business (just like ‘taxes’).
Turning it into the profit centre is just too stupid for words, if you want ‘farming’ to be a business
What your saying there is that, as it’s so unprofitable, we have to keep subsidising the farmers. This is, of course, taking the wealth away from more profitable work and more important community work.
John Shewin (sp?) from Price Waterhouse Coopers and the Tax Working Group was on the radio talking with Kathryn Ryan about it. Basically he said a capital gains tax is problematic because it’s usually only charged when an asset is sold, and this also creates a lock-in effect. A land tax is much better because we could start charging it quickly (although it would need to be phased in over a few years).
Yep a land tax is the way to go (= a form of asset tax).
Adam Smith, the capitalist’s guru, did not believe in taxing workers at all. he believed it was better to tax the owners of land and capital. Taxing workers was an extra cost on productivity, while taxing owners encouraged efficient use of resources, including monetary capital.
CV problem with the likes of a land tax, is that there are many out there who have min cash incomes. The likes of pensioners, mum and dad (especially after buying energy shares) are struggling to cope with rates, mortgage and the general cost of living, lets just add on another, unless there is a tax rebalancing ;-).
Dairy farming on a technical economic bases does not add up. Those enjoying the idnustry are long timers who had little debt, but once they sell he new owner is now a slave.
In Sydney a mate is paying $1700/week rent yet this does not even cover the land tax for the land owners, and yet in Sydney there is no signs of a property collapse (not yet)the bubble is still expanding.
It’s really easy:
1.) Rates (Payable to loacl government) set as a low %age of income
2.) Land tax (Payable to central government) set at a flat rate (probably about $1) per m^2 per year.
3.) Capital gains tax (Payable to central government).
This make rates and the land tax affordable by everyone (It’s likely that most peoples rates+land tax would be cheaper than present rates) so we don’t have to put silly limits on it. It also brings in immediate revenue for the government and stops speculation and farming for capital gains.
Good for whom? Not for the country and not for the people of the country who are being told that their home help is being cut, their special education services are being cut, their training entitlements are being cut.
And not just a capital gains tax, a straight out asset tax is what we need, on net asset holdings over $2M.
A Japanese housewife looks at investing in OZ or NZ, OZ has a Capital Gains Tax.
So NZ whores itself for cheap to attract their investment, then we have to flaunt
the wears a little, boom the bubble, and return those investments with a risk premium.
It could be different, we could actually work harder for the investment, you know
by having competent government which targets unproductivity, like lack of
public transport alternatives, like holding back low level sprawl and build higher.
NZ has huge potential, and huge risks, its just shocking Wellington is on a fault,
Auckland is on a isthmus of volcanoes, and nobody cares to build
sustainable efficient city southwards. Its always more talk of maybe proper
rail in Auckland, well if they don’t want it build in in S.Auckland. Build a
circle line around the Bombay Hills! Do something already, because oil
is quickly becoming a luxury.
PeteG “They make their big money from capital gains”. Speculators of the highest order.
“they also have an advantage in being able to cover normal living expenses as business costs (ie tax free), like housing, vehicles and fuel, some food, power, phone/internet etc.” Makes them tax cheats. You are not able to claim many of those things as expenses yet you and I know they do. It makes them tax cheats.
IRD must know, politicians must know, so it seems it’s an allowed form of tax cheating.
Many small businesses tax cheat as well, for example not declaring all cash sales as income. Many individuals tax cheat too, mates rates, under the table sort of stuff.
Wow ‘allowable tax cheating’
Let’s see what the IRD thinks of your naive concept lol. BTW I heard the IRD was cracking down on restaurants suspected of doing cash business.
The way a speculator makes money is by entering and leaving positions, buy low sell high, farmers are not speculators on land price, they are pansies for speculators. Its like the Fonterra needs more investment now story, where the farmers allowed any farm owner to trade in future calls on profits, allowing the speculators. Now all a invested need do is own and run a dairy farm and buy up all the poor indebted farmers future profits.
Same goes for housing, to win as a speculator you need to buy a home, talk it up, sell it again, buy more. So the speculators who won in the bubble where those that moved further out from the main centres talking up each suburb in turn, buying in cheap, sitting on properties, and selling once the scarcity had forced up prices. Borrowing the whole time and leveraging to the hilt.
Those caught when the music stopped would have large numbers of homes, and huge leveraged debt positions. Nasty.
Farmers are kidding themselves if they thought they’d see much of the speculative profits, since only a few could buy a chain of farms, that’s what Carfer was trying but turns out he didn’t get why, so was caught trying to keep them running rather than selling down debt the moment the oil infused bubble in property came to an end. Now we’re all in free fall, we just have no reach bottom yet.
Oh, and I welcome our new foreign overloads, UK-OZ-US-Japan-China.
Excuse my ignorance vto, but where might I find these figures on the internet?
On stuff http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/5017285/Is-the-rural-sector-paying-enough-tax
I think the situation is appalling. PeteG above refers to farmers making their money via capital gain, which is entirely true… which means…
That farmers are speculators of the highest order, taking on huge unmanageable debt in the hope of increasing property prices. At the exact same time as they lambast urban types for doing similar (though on a much smaller scale). Honestly, I have become increasingly disappointed in the attitude and approach of the farming sector.
They are not paying their way. In an environmental sense, in a tax paying sense, in a smarmy ‘we are the real New Zealanders’ sense.
Someone prove me wrong, please..
Dead right VTO.
One of the worst aspects is the speculation and continued price rises of farmland that this has encouraged.
To paraphrase Selwyn Pellett Kiwi farmers have been borrowing more and more money from Aussie banks to buy the same farms off each other. And paying more and more interes to Aussie banks rather than tax to the Government. This is unsustainable and silly.
Bring on a Capital Gains tax or as suggested by CV a land tax.
I just noticed something truly sad and mirthful at the bottom of that stuff.co.nz article…
At the bottom it has a link entitled “Next Farming Story” and do you know what it is ??? Get this… “Bumper Year for Fonterra Farmers”.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Thanks vto, I appreciate the link. What else is sad is that in light of how much tax farmers are paying, there is no I repeat no justification for the millions of dollars the Natz are planning to throw at their irrigation systems.
Get mad. It’s the only way we’re going to get the system to change so that farmers and their like aren’t bludging off the rest of us any more.
Wouldn’t mind betting that the majority of NZ university students who come from down on the farm, have parents who have organised their finances so that their children qualify for student allowance. Gee they must be an impoverished lot. I wonder what colour the diesel is in their run-around-town SUV.
…apparently their annual subscription to the New Zealand Herald is tax deductible as well … the list goes on.
Hey. About 80% of NZ Debt is private debt. Billions involved. Are there any figures which show if the Agriculture/dairy farms make up significant proportion of that debt?
If dairy farms hold the great proportion of that debt (elephant in the room) then the Budget austerity would be down to dairy farming rather than Mum and Dad spendthrifts. Serious if so?
You could therefore argue that selling all the farms to overseas interests would be benefical in reducing NZ’s private debt issue.
I think though that the larger issue is property speculation across all sectors, and the debt we have as a result of that. Whether capital gains tax or some other mechanism is employed NZ would be in a much stronger postion if we carried less debt at a personal level, and for the most part that debt is incurred in a property purchase.
I would be interested though in seeing total tax take for the sector over a number of years, possible last year could be somethign of an anomoly?
The only anomaly dairy farmers suffered last year was near record payouts.
Sure, if you didn’t give a shit about our balance of payments, that would be an argument you could make.
So do you reckon these guys are farmers or are they property speculators?
“So do you reckon these guys are farmers or are they property speculators?”
At the moment a growing number of them are both.
My concern is based on the debt level that farmers are carrying and associating that with the debt levels that homeowners are carrying after a speculative property boom, we are in a commodoty boom at the moment and that is likely to reflect in higher demand/pricing fro farmland which will exacerbate the situation we have at the moment. And possible end in a bust if the commodity pricing falls sharply.
“Sure, if you didn’t give a shit about our balance of payments, that would be an argument you could make.”
Sorry that was with tongue firmly in cheek. I think that there is a lot of merit in protecting the ag sector ( it is too big to fail) if necessary from itself. And looking at strategies to limit the demand or cost of agricultural land, Labour i think want to limit land sales >5ha to oversees interests. I think thats a good starting point. I don’t object to farmers making a capital gain over time, but protecting them, and NZ, from a boom bust in land prices is in the national interest.
As far as tax take goes though i do think we should look at the contribution over a numebr of years to get a better understanding of their tax contribution ( or perhaps lack of it)
It isn’t technically difficult to deflate the farm asset price speculation bubble, and get the land back to its core business of making food instead of feeding Australian banks interest and fees.
Mate you’re being completely disingenuous suggesting that if we looked back an extra couple of years we’ll discover that farmers have only started not paying tax this latest year.
This has been a known issue for many many years.
How is it disingenous to suggest looking at one year in isolation may not give a thorough picture?
IIRC 2009-10 was a year of devastating drought for the major dairying regions, and we were warned at the time that most farms would run at a deficit for the year.
Yeah, so devastating that the average Fonterra farmer payout in 2010 was over $800K
Maybe they should have “droughts” like that more often eh buddy?
BTW I am sure you know, but tax is assessed annually based on financial years, not on averages over whatever time period you deem convenient.
So you want to only look at revenue in assessing a tax bill interesting..
No acknowledgement that expenses may form a part of a tax calculation.
BTW I am sure that you know that the av$800k payout isn’t bankable profit. And you accuse me of being disingenous.
I will say again that attempting to draw a conclusion based on one years figures ( and ignoring contributing factors) may well be unfair and inaccurate.
I’m still waiting for people to show us the comparable figures from other years then, seeing they are complaining that these figures are such an outlier.
But for some reason, they seem reluctant to.
Any significant law changes happen regarding farm finances over the last decade? No? Then one year is pretty much the same as another.
Oh, except that the farmers got massive subsidies in 2010.
Hmmmm, it appears that we pay and pay and pay but never seem to get the benefits from the payments. We get lots of negatives though – polluted rivers, stream and lakes, disappearing water tables and high food prices.
Interesting summary of some books which I suggest is a case for socialism …
Human beings, Haidt argues, are “the giraffes of altruism.” Just as giraffes got long necks to help them survive, humans developed moral minds that help them and their groups succeed. Humans build moral communities out of shared norms, habits, emotions and gods, and then will fight and even sometimes die to defend their communities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/opinion/17brooks.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212
Sounds to me like the biologists need to be talking with the psychologists. Psychopathy has a tendency to have no conscience but also has a tendency towards excessive selfishness is regarded as an illness. There’s been some discussion about psychopathy being genetic. This would indicate, especially in association with the linked studies, that being selfish isn’t in peoples nature as the RWNJs say. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. This would suggest that we should be passing laws that encourage cooperation between people rather than competition.
In other words, for the last three decades we’ve been following the wrong course – thanks Labour 👿
Thanks for the link jcuknz.
I remember when I studied zoology in the late 70s just after ‘Sociobiology’ and ‘The Selfish Gene’ were published. I had a chat with a classmate who got really depressed at the implications (i.e., we’re all ‘seflfish’). I said to her then that that was a misunderstanding and that Dawkins misunderstood what he was talking about (I’ve always been very sure of myself). I pointed out that natural selection was a process of replicating genes – you can call that ‘selfish’ if you like – but there’s no reason why natural selection wouldn’t select genuine altruism in individual organisms (i.e., in people). People, that is, can evolve to be genuinely unselfish in the right (social) environment of selection and that could help replicate genes.
She wasn’t really convinced – which was a shame. Still, it’s good to see the science catching up with me after all these years. 🙂
One correction to the info in the link – as I understand it, classic ‘group selection’ is still pretty much a heresy (or, at least, controversial); what isn’t is selection for ‘groupiness’ which, in the right environment, can help with individual (ultimately gene) ‘replication’. That is, it isn’t so much that one group out-competes another in head-to-head competition but that, within a group, being generally cooperative increases one’s own chances of survival (partly because the group is more effective/efficient at various tasks than are lone individuals and partly because, once sociality occurs, you’d better not buck the group too much or too often because others have a lot to lose from a breakdown of the group!). (I could be wrong, though, and should read Sloan-Wilson more closely to check.)
This link and this follow on link (which is the abstract for a paper by Nowak et al. – Nowak is mentioned in your link) on the evolution of ‘eusociality’ (in Nature) lead to the paywall but show that this issue is very much still at the forefront of evolutionary thinking.
NZIR have provided some facts from an organisation that measures international competitiveness and ranks the results;
“New Zealand’s business efficiency dropped two places from 22 to 24.
Government efficiency fell three places, from 5 to 8.”
We know that the plan to increase Government efficiency is to cut back on resources and hope it makes a difference. What is the plan for improved business efficiency, they have a long way to go to catch up with Governments excellent 8th in the rankings?
“Joycie” has made a tactical change re the 10 year Commerce Comm. ‘hands off’ period on Ultra Fast. There is ample scope for opposition parties here re potential broadband price rises given the million plus households with broadband.
http://business.scoop.co.nz/2011/05/18/joyce-gives-up-on-ufb-regulatory-holiday/
Yay! I’m so glad! That was by far the stupidest provision to include in there.
I could have bought into a 3-year holiday, during the significant initial roll-out stage. But any longer than that was sheer lunacy.
Good job Labour & Greens!
According Clare Curran it was the Maori Party but what they managed to get is actually worse.
Right, sounds like a bait and switch. They replaced the provision with another one that will have almost the same outcome.
God, John key comes across as an arrogant ass in the House, while shouting at people and sneeringly denying the unfairness of the tax switch & pronouncing black is white.
The budget papers say the tax switch was:
1. Broadly fiscally neutral, and
2. GST raise was more-than-compensated for everyone with tax cuts.
Key doesn’t care about reality, he has the budget papers with the maths on it that prove him right.
Lanthanide – I noted while listening to some intelligent guru about nz finances yesterday that the idea of the fiscally neutral tax cuts and GST rises blah blah was that the whole premise relied on growth in the economy which hasn’t happened and that is why we are fiscally neutered instead.
On yesterday’s radionz news there was an item on Filipino caregivers being refused renewal of work permits apparently on the basis that they are considered unskilled workers. This underlines a long-term disdain for the work of people who care for other people, from mothers, to caregivers, foster parents, as well as aged care perhaps even teachers!
If the decision makers had to do the job of caregiver to the aged, or some with an intellectual disability for even a week they would find that not only is it hard testing work, but summoning up the reserves of human concern for patients/clients who may be all of difficult, demanding and heavy to move, would leave them exhausted and drained.
The middle class, and in fact,all classes, want good standards when dealing with vulnerable people, but there is not respect for the people who are working to those standards. Anybody can do their jobs is the refrain. Well they can’t, won’t and don’t and these workers deserve more consideration. They are needed now and it is well known that elderly numbers are growing.
Most Filipino women who have a background of appropriate training would have more Skill, Concern for proper treatment of people and Integrity in their little fingers than immigration ‘officiousals’ have in their whole department.
Absolutely. I heard a lot of that interview as well, and while I could be wrong, I think she said that many of these Filipina women are actually trained nurses, who have not managed to get registration in New Zealand, perhaps because of their English.. At least one of the women killed at the language school in the CTV building in Christchurch was exactly that, a Filipina nurse studying English in order to get her registration with the Nursing Council.
Yes Vicky32 I remember that there was a reference to previous training and status in thePhillipines. How sad about the woman being in the CTV building and ironic that she was trying to improve her English at the same time that the immigration’s dalek leader was planning to get them out of NZ.
x2+ wage rate for care givers in Australia. Nuff said?
No-gratitude-just-your-car-thanks
I thought this was a story about the worlds banks.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/5018810/No-gratitude-just-your-car-thanks
Lo
Na, the world banks wouldn’t have been worried about getting caught.
Just heard john key talking about the budget on’t radio the day before the budget.
“Labour this Labour that Labour Labour Labour Labour Labour Labour” after that I got bored.
Yeah, you get the impression he is less concerned about what his own government is screwing up on now.
John Key – much better in opposition.
That is almost worth a billboard.
On Mora’s Afternoon
Just heard the Penguin give us some more of his knowledge.
“If Banks wins Epsom and Act only get 4 percent, it could give Banks a lot of power in the party, particularly as his seat would bring Brash in on the Electorate rule.” Then the Penguin opined that if Banks was to have a falling out and resigned his seat, Act would be gone.” I think not. At the time of the Election is the determining issue. Act list members would remain (but without validity).
Actually, National could work this gerrymander to their advantage. They could get the 2nd party support of Act on Banks’ back. Banks could then resign and force a bye election in Epsom and stand for the National Party. The National party supporters of Epsom could then vote for Banks. He would then return to parliament as a member of the party he really pays allegiance to and everyone is happy. National get an extra electorate member, and have a support party that has got less than 5% support.
John Banks, learnt all he knows as a member of Rob’s Mob, is the ACT candidate for Epsom. “Rob this, and Rob that… was his mantra.” Rob must be turning in his grave right now… Banksy is aligning himself with Douglas, Brash, Richardson et al. What an opportunist Banksy has become.
I think if National and Banks played such a game, they’d be vilified far more than Hone is.
I mean really, it would look like this:
1. Resign National
2. Join Act
3. Win Act seat to get them into parliament
4. Quit act
5. Join National
6. Re-win seat under National
You got it in one. Okay your point 5. National don’t select you and put up their own man.
6. Re-win seat under National.
Just watched Back Benches and I must say if Jami Lee Ross was the answer, then what the f*** was the question?
Which politician missed their calling as a greasy used car salesman?