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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When the Justice Committee reported back on the Administration of Justice (Reform of Contempt of Court) Bill, free speech advocates breathed a sigh of relief. As originally introduced, the Bill reitered the ancient offence of "scandalising the court" - basicly, a special sedition law protecting judges from criticism. The select ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. Since then - crickets. Which raises the obvious question: are they actually going to do this, ...
Back in March, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act. 285 people submitted on it. Now, Stuff has trawled through those submissions, and the case for reform is strong:The Justice Ministry asked Kiwis what they thought was ...
National's prisoner voting ban has gone down as one of the worst laws in New Zealand history. Passed after a farcical debate (including this farcial speech from ACT MP Hilary Calvert), it has subsequently been found to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act by the High Court, Court ...
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...
by Daphna Whitmore US social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt spoke on 1 August in Auckland to a crowd of around one thousand people. He is best known for his bookThe Coddling of the American Mind which examines the new climate of trigger warnings and acute sensitivity of Gen Z. ...
What an extraordinarily depressing experience it is to be compelled to watch, at 12,000 miles distance, the contortions and machinations of the British political class as they set about their determined attempt to overturn the decision taken by the British people that they wish to leave the European Union. The ...
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...
by Don Franks Way back when British guitar virtuoso Joe Brown was a beginning session guy he got to back a visiting American artist. Young Joe was an able technician but had yet to learn some points of professionalism. Part way through “Five foot high and rising” Joe tired of ...
Since scientists started studying climate change, they have warned that it will reduce food production. And now, its happening:The climate crisis is damaging the ability of the land to sustain humanity, with cascading risks becoming increasingly severe as global temperatures rise, according to a landmark UN report compiled by some ...
The Abortion Legislation Bill just passed its first reading, 94-23. Its a far bigger margin than I expected, even allowing for the Winston factor, and it reflects the overwhelming support there is in this country for reform. but that support isn't a new thing - it has existed for literally ...
The Justice Committee has called for submissions on the Referendums Framework Bill. The Bill does what it says on the label - establishes a framework for referenda. Things you may want to address in your submission: Whether the bill should apply only at the 2020 election, or whether it should ...
The Thompson and Clark / MBIE spying scandal continues to result in fallout, this time in the form of a report on the implementation of MBIE's "Operation Exploration", its internal operation to enforce the infamous Anadarko Amendment which criminalised protests against the oil industry. MBIE's enforcement operation was tainted by ...
So, Winston Peters is defending his last-minute demand for a referendum on abortion by claiming he was "blindsided" by the bill. Really? The bill is a government bill. It has been working through the cabinet approval process since December last year. As part of that process, NZ First was consulted, ...
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...
As Mayor of Hutt City, I feel compelled to speak out about the consequences of political party involvement in local government. We live in a democracy and people have the right to join a political party. However, I am fundamentally against councillors ...
National’s Election promises are similar to 2017 statements BUT…. • Recognises compliance is the number one issue for small medium business (SMEs); ...
Aug. 26 (BusinessDesk) - The National Party is floating a cut to New Zealand's 28 percent company tax rate among a suite of possible tax changes it would promise going into the 2020 election. ...
The New Zealand Maori Council has been provided with the soon to be released coronial data on suicide in New Zealand. The fact is the suicide rate has risen again and is out of control. The Executive Director of the New Zealand Maori Council (and former ...
Family First NZ is welcoming the Government’s intention to tackle the harms of pornography, and are also continuing to call for a truly independent Expert Panel to investigate and provide solutions for families. ...
"For too long central government has layered additional responsibilities onto local government with little consultation or acknowledgement of the essential work councils do. Combined with the lack of support and funding, this top down attitude ...
Joining local Green candidates at their campaign launch on Sunday at the Highbury Whanau Centre Green Party Co-Leader Marama Davidson will say, “I’m very proud to join Green candidates Teanau Tuiono, Renee Dingwall and Brent Barrett in calling ...
The Campaign for Better Transport ( CBT ) is pleased to hear the government has announced the start of train services from Hamilton to Papakura but is concerned about some of the features of the proposed service. ...
Family First NZ is supporting a call by the Police to raise the drinking age, which echoes previous calls by the NZ Medical Association, but says that other factors around price, availability, penalties and addiction services must be part of the ...
West Papua solidarity activists met yesterday and resolved to call on the Prime Minister to step up to help resolve the escalating crisis in West Papua. ...
Landmark Report Released into Maori Aging and Disabilities “Manaaki Pakeke” – New Zealand Maori Council calls for a policy shift and greater focus The New Zealand Maori Council has released a comprehensive policy statement challenging the ...
MANATŪ TAONGA MINISTRY FOR CULTURE AND HERITAGE MEDIA RELEASE 25 August 2019 Privacy breach identified with the Tuia 250 Voyage Trainee website Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage is investigating a serious digital privacy breach involving ...
‘Original Sin’ of Land Confiscation at Ihumātao is a wrong that can be put right by Government says Justice & Peace Commission of Catholic Diocese of Auckland ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a press conference on August 19 that her government is likely to impose new restrictions on prisoners’ rights to send letters. She said the law could be changed in “weeks.” ...
Heart-warming images of House Speaker Trevor Mallard cradling a baby in Parliament have been welcomed around New Zealand, but the Public Service Association warns most families can only dream of such support in the workplace. ...
Applying New Zealand’s international human rights commitments, particularly those in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, can help in resolving the situation at Ihumātao, Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt says. ...
Climate campaigners impersonating bank staff have taken to the streets this week to expose ANZ Bank’s sponsorship of the fossil fuel industry. In the series of satirical actions in Wellington, Dunedin, and Auckland, the ‘bank staff’ promoted ...
Auckland Action Against Poverty joins the Children’s Commissioner , The Green Party , The New Zealand Drugs Foundation , Child Poverty Action Group and other organisations in the calls for an immediate end to the drug testing benefit sanctions. ...
Negotiations between Port Otago workers represented by the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU) and the Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) and management failed today and the unions have issued notice of an overtime ban from Saturday 7th September. ...
Queenstown Lakes District Council’s comments that it has applied for a consent to pollute waterways to avoid 'prosecutions by the Otago Regional Council' are unacceptable,’ Fish & Game New Zealand Chief Executive Martin Taylor says. ...
On March 15, the real world impact of online hate became abundantly, horrifically clear. As a shooter opened fire at two Christchurch mosques, the online image board 8chan anticipated, celebrated and amplified his killing spree. ...
Friday, 23 August: Government delegates from around the world, including New Zealand, are meeting in New York for the third of four meetings at the United Nations to agree a Global Oceans Treaty that could help to protect 30% of our oceans by 2030. Greenpeace ...
The excuses about a reportedly unwanted $57,000 payrise for Dunedin City Council CEO Sue Bidrose are laughable, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. ...
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance has launched the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” committing to no more than 2% annual rate hikes over the next Council term, and has written to all Mayoral and Council candidates asking them to sign. The pledge will ...
This Saturday, Pakuranga Hunt Day at the Ellerslie Racecourse will see anti-horse racing protesters demonstrating at the corner of Ascot Avenue and Greenlane East. ...
Mayoral candidate John Tamihere will meet with Pacific Island leaders and community elders today at Puhunui Reserve in South Auckland to commit to a Pasefika Cultural Centre. ...
Cruel and invalid Forced Swim Tests carried out at Victoria University of Wellington, will be exposed at the University Open Day today, so prospective students can be warned about the flawed and unethical research being conducted at the institute. ...
The organiser of the annual YWCA Equal Pay Awards has expressed her disappointment with the latest Gender Pay Gap figure for New Zealand workers. The figure rose slightly from 9.2% in 2018 to 9.3% for the quarter ended 30 June 2019. ...
The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners (COLFO) is urging firearms owners to pass on information to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques now that the period for submissions has been extended to 27 September. ...
An application was filed in the Employment Relations Authority in Wellington today, seeking an injunction to prevent the Board of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation from removing the President from office. ...
The Government’s commitment to support literacy and numeracy training in the workplace is a strong signal from Government on recognising the importance of upskilling, reskilling and increasing productivity alongside their commitment to address the challenges ...
“The infrastructure sector sees a major role for the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga in lifting the nation’s sagging infrastructure performance,” says Paul Blair, incoming CEO of Infrastructure NZ. ...
The AA is calling on the Government to bring forward critical highway projects while time is spent properly developing the plans for a rapid transit system in Auckland. ...
Between 2015/16 and 2017/18, DHBs spent $280 million treating patients due to adverse drug reactions, reveals the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union in its latest briefing paper on health productivity . ...
The Pay Equity Coalition Auckland (PECA) is pleased the gender pay gap has decreased slightly. Statistics released today show the gap is now 11.9%, nearly 2 percent less than last year. ...
The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners (COLFO) is urging firearms owners to make sure they pass on any information they have to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques before submissions close tomorrow (Friday). ...
The big electricity companies consider solar energy “disruptive” and want pricing to suppress it. In contrast, advocates of local energy say that solar, energy efficiency, and other local energy solutions are the cheapest ways to reduce carbon emissions. ...
The Earthquake Commission and Shine Lawyers are delighted to announce that EQC has reached an agreement with the Gibling family, agreeing to cover the cost of repairs of remaining earthquake damage on their property. ...
Four months into the inquiry, the Royal Commission is gathering significant information and continues to receive valuable submissions from the public, from current and former State servants, experts and community groups. ...
While Fish & Game New Zealand is pleased to see Federated Farmers Environment Spokesperson Chris Allen say that 'we all want good, fresh water', he conveniently overlooks some key facts. ...
What: Wellington demo “Save the Amazon Forest/Salve a Amazônia!” When: Friday, 6 September 2019 from 12:30-13:30 Where: Embassy of Brazil in Wellingtona ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grahame Dowling, Honorary Professor, University of Technology Sydney One of my banks invited me to a customer lunch a few weeks back so that it could announce its commitment to the new Banking Code of Conduct. Here was a chance for it ...
In the space of days a waitress was racially abused in Auckland and a deaf student mocked by his peers in Canterbury. In both cases there were apologies. In both cases those apologies fall short, writes Christine AmmunsonWhat a stink week. Within days and in two different cities, we had ...
Record low borrowing costs are a precious opportunity for business owners who now need to make savvy decisions about what to do with the cash.The experts may have been caught off-guard when the Reserve Bank opened fire on interest rates earlier this month, but the fact of the matter is ...
For years, New Zealand has bemoaned the gap between much of our television drama and the cutting edge out in the world. That gap might finally be closing, writes Duncan Greive.He’s just a minor character, eating an ice cream. It doesn’t seem all that revolutionary, but in the context of ...
Ruby Porter on the first novel by acclaimed Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong. I came across Ocean Vuong’s poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds last year. I read it twice in one day. I was staying outside of New York, at the time, and taking the train in each morning. I ...
A War Story is one more attempt in a long line of art to make sense of 9/11 – this time from a uniquely Kiwi perspective.The coordinated terrorist attacks on September 11 2001 cut a razor-sharp divide between the relatively carefree time before and everything after, bleeding into ...
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 content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Privacy breach at Ministry for Culture and Heritage Audrey Young (Herald): How latest privacy breach ...
Auckland mayoral rival John Tamihere is pitching himself as a low-cost candidate but the incumbent Phil Goff says Mr Tamihere lacks a basic understanding of finances. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elyse Methven, Lecturer in Law, University of Technology Sydney As the state election loomed last year, the NSW government rushed through a new crime targeting drug suppliers. A person who supplies a prohibited drug for profit can now be prosecuted for homicide ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julia Talbot-Jones, Lecturer, Victoria University of Wellington Last week, voter enrolment for the 2019 local government elections closed in New Zealand and concerns about low voter turnout resurfaced. During a panel discussion run by Auckland Council, the idea was raised to pay ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Dunk, Research Fellow, University of Sydney Last week, one of the world’s leading medical journals declared the medical community must act now to limit the health effects of climate change. In a stark editorial, readers of the New England Journal of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Goss, School Education Program Director, Grattan Institute Australia’s young high achievers are turning their backs on teaching. They want to make a difference in their careers, and they are interested in teaching, but when it comes to the crunch they choose ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carl Grodach, Professor and Director of Urban Planning & Design, Monash University Since 2000, planning authorities in Australia have overseen a massive rezoning of inner-city industrial land to make way for mixed-use residential development. They claim central industrial space is obsolete in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lara Owen, PhD Candidate, Monash University Last week, menstrual pad brand Libra launched their Blood Normal commercial in Australia, running it during prime time television shows including The Bachelor, The Project, and Gogglebox. Australia is a little late to the party: Blood ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Govt rejects idea to ban petrol car imports in 2035, firefighters say they’re facing a workforce crisis, and Tamihere pledges rate freeze.A strange sort of stoush erupted at the end of last week around petrol and diesel car sales. On Friday, Newsroom reported ...
Kiwi boxer Troy Garton, who defied medical advice to produce one of the most remarkable performances in NZ sport, now has her sights set firmly on the Tokyo Olympics. ...
Victoria University of Wellington's Anne Goulding discusses the paradox of New Zealanders wanting to safeguard our personal data, while frequently and freely giving it away. ...
Lisa McMillan is an adrenaline junkie. Instead of skydiving or driving race cars, she collects rooms full of naked strangers. Josie Adams went along to the Naked Dinner and found it stimulated all the wrong hormones.In a tealight-lit lounge in a rented Symonds Street flat, I milled around with 23 ...
Brazil’s rainforests are ablaze, and even from the distance of New Zealand, many of us are losing sleep. For the climate and for humanity, we can do something profound and simple, writes Kena DuignanI’ve asked my dad to look after my kids yesterday so I could write this, after a ...
Meng Foon has been a fixture in Gisborne local government for more than two decades. Today he starts a new role, as race relations commissioner. Alice Webb-Lidall heads over to his Gisborne home for dinner, to find out what he’ll miss as mayor, and how he’ll approach his new jobThis ...
In the final of our series on the loss of faith in free market economics we ask New Zealand business leaders how they’re grappling with the almighty power of a technology that barely existed 20 years ago. Hands up who’s read the Financial Markets Authority’s website. Come on, be honest.No, of ...
Is New Zealand in danger of becoming a bio-tech backwater because of our strict GE rules, or should we retain them to sell our clean image overseas? ...
ANALYSIS:By David Robie Indonesia’s harsh policies towards West Papua ought to be scrapped. Whatever happened to the brief window of enlightenment ushered in by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in 2015 with promises of a more “open door” policy towards foreign journalists and human rights groups? They were supposed ...
The House - The grammar of being an MP is harder than you might think. MPs in Parliament choose their words with care, and it just got more complicated. ...
As a format it predates almost all reality TV, and that’s precisely why it works in 2019, writes Duncan Greive.There’s something deeply comforting about watching Celebrity Treasure Island. It is a very pure form of escapism, largely because it explicitly recalls a world without the internet, and before everything started ...
Residents in Los Angeles and Orange County warned to check for symptoms after an infected NZ teen visited theme parks including Disneyland and Universal Studios earlier this month.Californian health authorities have issued warnings to residents and visitors after a New Zealand teenager was found to have spent five days in ...
When you crave fresh, bright flavours but summer veges seem far away, throw together this simple salad.Growing up we often ate this salad, or one very similar to it. My mum is a fantastic cook and this dish is one she still makes to this day – though I must ...
Analysis of New Zealand media headlines reveals a lot of people slamming a lot of other people.Slamming is at epidemic levels in New Zealand news. Drawn from just the last month, we present a selection of slamming.On July 27A union boss slammed David ClarkOn July 29Police slammed a dangerous photographerOn ...
Vana Manasiadis wrote a collection of poetry in the wake of her mother’s death. In this essay, ahead of her appearance at the Going West festival, she argues that as a nation Aotearoa needs to learn to make space for mourning. When Mum died in Athens, I cried loudly and publicly ...
The giant hand that captivated, delighted and disgusted the nation is now settling into its new Wellington home. For City Gallery Wellington’s blog, Spinoff arts editor Megan Dunn talked to Ronnie van Hout, the man who made Quasi.“Quasi is in the wrong place,” wrote art critic Warren Feeney in 2016, ...
At school camp, the children are banned from having phones, laptops, lollies, chocolate, money, cotton clothing or independent thoughts. They, are, however, allowed home baking – but it’s gotta be hearty. How hearty are you? We are packing for a school camp. If you’re thinking that the middle of winter is ...
Phil Goff’s rival has already pledged an 0800-Jacinda homeless hotline and an 18-lane harbour bridge. What’s next? The two most important people in the 2019 campaign for the Auckland mayoralty faced each other down on Wednesday night across the desk in the NZME debate: Bernard Orsman and Simon Wilson. Correction: it ...
Split Level View Finder: Theo Schoon and New Zealand Art is the exhibition that sparked a protest over issues of cultural appropriation and institutional representation. Theo Schoon is a divisive historical figure. But is his art any good? Martin Patrick reviews.British novelist L.P. Hartley once wrote that “the past is ...
Ahead of debuting her solo show at New Zealand Fashion Week, Korean-NZ couture designer Cecilia Kang talks about growing up ‘feminine’, being influenced by the LGBTQ+ community, and why an ‘administrative error’ at Fashion Week left her so shaken up. ‘I like something big,” says Cecilia Kang, gesturing to the giant ...
The Labour Party is distancing itself from one of its members who is strongly pro-Beijing and has caused controversy in the Chinese community by standing for local office in Auckland. ...
Faced with staff shortages, equipment failures, cancer risks, and a jump in critical calls that can leave them traumatised, some firefighters are wondering if it’s time to hang up the hose. Gareth Shute reports on the dissatisfaction inside Fire and Emergency New Zealand.The state of our nation’s fire service is ...
Open mike 18/05/2011 
My wife and I have had dogs for the whole of our 52 years of married life – and that has meant sharing our lives with our little furry friends. Because we usually spend a good part of our evenings watching television, it also means that our dogs have learned ...1 day ago
. . Former Police, Corrections, and Justice Minister in the previous John Key government, Judith Collins, has been ridiculed on social media after posting a comment on Twitter that was patently untrue; . Wrong!! National did not remove Prisoners’ ability to vote. Parliament voted through a Private Member’s Bill ...2 days ago
Speaker Trevor Mallard was left to look after Jones, while his usual caretaker, Winston Peters, underwent surgery. A truly adorable scene from Parliament yesterday has gone viral, after Speaker Trevor Mallard cradled an extremely drunk Shane Jones in his arms while the House was in session. Loud “awwww”s could be ...3 days ago
Western media have defended their decision not to cover the fires so as not to give them any oxygen. Social media outrage continues to grow around the sentiment that mainstream western media is devoting too little coverage to an ongoing series of fires in the Amazon rainforest, and in doing ...3 days ago
A Long Time Ago, In A Parallel Universe Far, Far Away: The political journalist scratched his head in confusion. Only then did he notice the name of the building: ‘The Jacinda Ardern Presidential Library and Public Resource Centre’. Making his way inside to the information desk, he asked the librarian ...3 days ago
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Nothing from me tody - I'm off to Christchurch to pretend to be other people for a weekend. Normal bloggage should resume on Tuesday. ...3 days ago
Spark is bracing for a customer backlash as rugby fans all across the country struggle to get a picture on their wireless router. With the Rugby World Cup fast approaching, an elderly Taranaki couple are furious after being told that they still won’t be able to watch the tournament, even ...4 days ago
Several explosions have been reported across Auckland, as well-meaning environmentalists have already begun purchasing too much petrol Starting from next week, customers will no longer need a car to purchase petrol directly from the pump, a development that two major fuel providers are billing as an opportunity to help fight ...4 days ago
A new study claims to find that a mother’s exposure to fluoridated water during pregnancy may decrease the IQ of male children – but is it correct? (Photo: Getty Images) Anti-fluoride campaigners are promoting ... 4 days ago
by Jan Rivers More than 30 years ago a Commission of Inquiry was held in New Zealand to investigate, amongst other things, whether women with cervical cancer were aware that they had been part of a research project and whether they were properly informed of the treatment options ...6 days ago
Everyone Wants To Be Fuhrer: When fascist groups are discussed, the image conjured-up in the minds of most New Zealanders is one of pathetic misfits. This negative impression is reinforced by the latter’s idiotic embrace of the swastika. Even in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the baleful legacy ...6 days ago
In the previous two posts, I laid out the context and set the theoretical framework to answer a question: whether indigenous economies should take the LEAP. This final part outlines ways to conceive of practicing mana motuhake within the existing legal system by carving out special jurisdictions that enable Indigenous ...1 week ago
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...1 week ago
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...1 week ago
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Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...1 week ago
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...2 weeks ago
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...2 weeks ago
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...2 weeks ago
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...2 weeks ago
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...2 weeks ago
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ... 2 weeks ago
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...2 weeks ago
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...2 weeks ago
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...2 weeks ago
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...2 weeks ago
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...3 weeks ago
As Mayor of Hutt City, I feel compelled to speak out about the consequences of political party involvement in local government. We live in a democracy and people have the right to join a political party. However, I am fundamentally against councillors ...34 mins ago
Log prices have improved slightly, after falling to their lowest level in four years. ...7 mins ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grahame Dowling, Honorary Professor, University of Technology Sydney One of my banks invited me to a customer lunch a few weeks back so that it could announce its commitment to the new Banking Code of Conduct. Here was a chance for it ...44 mins ago
In the space of days a waitress was racially abused in Auckland and a deaf student mocked by his peers in Canterbury. In both cases there were apologies. In both cases those apologies fall short, writes Christine AmmunsonWhat a stink week. Within days and in two different cities, we had ...47 mins ago
The New Zealand sharemarket fell on opening in what is likely to be the first taste of the bumpy week ahead for global markets. ...3 hours ago
The National Party plans to scrap 100 regulations and a number of the current government's policies if voted into power next year. ...3 hours ago
The National Party plans to scrap 100 regulations and a number of the current government's policies if voted into power next year. ...4 hours ago
Lines company, Chorus, has seen its full year net profit drop, hit by lower revenue and increased interest costs to pay for the roll-out of fibre. ...4 hours ago
University law revues can be clever, satirical, and entertaining. Not this one, some say. ...10 hours ago
In this week's MediaRoom column Mark Jennings looks at the big changes at Sky TV. ...10 hours ago
Kiwi boxer Troy Garton, who defied medical advice to produce one of the most remarkable performances in NZ sport, now has her sights set firmly on the Tokyo Olympics. ...10 hours ago
Victoria University of Wellington's Anne Goulding discusses the paradox of New Zealanders wanting to safeguard our personal data, while frequently and freely giving it away. ...10 hours ago
If the Government gave everyone an extra $1000 to spend, would we all be better off? Bernard Hickey looks into the theory of helicopter money. ...10 hours ago
Conservationists say a bill aimed to save freshwater fish fails to protect thousands of eels from being minced in hydroelectricity dam turbines. ...10 hours ago
Investigations into alleged offending on aid project in Vanuatu find new "persons of interest" - including an NZ citizen. ...10 hours ago
Is New Zealand in danger of becoming a bio-tech backwater because of our strict GE rules, or should we retain them to sell our clean image overseas? ...11 hours ago
ANALYSIS: By David Robie Indonesia’s harsh policies towards West Papua ought to be scrapped. Whatever happened to the brief window of enlightenment ushered in by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in 2015 with promises of a more “open door” policy towards foreign journalists and human rights groups? They were supposed ...21 hours ago
As a format it predates almost all reality TV, and that’s precisely why it works in 2019, writes Duncan Greive.There’s something deeply comforting about watching Celebrity Treasure Island. It is a very pure form of escapism, largely because it explicitly recalls a world without the internet, and before everything started ...1 day ago
Residents in Los Angeles and Orange County warned to check for symptoms after an infected NZ teen visited theme parks including Disneyland and Universal Studios earlier this month.Californian health authorities have issued warnings to residents and visitors after a New Zealand teenager was found to have spent five days in ...1 day ago
Vana Manasiadis wrote a collection of poetry in the wake of her mother’s death. In this essay, ahead of her appearance at the Going West festival, she argues that as a nation Aotearoa needs to learn to make space for mourning. When Mum died in Athens, I cried loudly and publicly ...1 day ago
The giant hand that captivated, delighted and disgusted the nation is now settling into its new Wellington home. For City Gallery Wellington’s blog, Spinoff arts editor Megan Dunn talked to Ronnie van Hout, the man who made Quasi.“Quasi is in the wrong place,” wrote art critic Warren Feeney in 2016, ...2 days ago
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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?