General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

Fresh from the dumpster fire that was the economic management approach of the last Government, last week a phoenix emerged, and its name was Chris Hipkins. Chris Hipkins, after six years of trashing the economy, emerged with energy renewed to say, “I have a new approach to the task, and its name is more taxes.” That’s his prescription for the New Zealand economy: to slam a new capital gains tax (CGT) on all those New Zealanders who have saved hard, who have invested, and who have worked hard to build up a nest egg, a rental property, a business. Chris Hipkins’ message to them: we’ll punish you for your effort with a new tax.

You cannot trust Labour on tax. Everyone who has worked hard in this economy is in their sights, because when they mismanage the economy and they run out of money, they always come after yours. The funny thing last week was, of course, the whole policy got leaked, because not only is there civil war in Te Pāti Māori; it turns out there’s civil war in the Labour Party too. There’s a host of them who want the tax to be bigger and bolder and brighter, so they hadn’t quite got around to finalising the details when the policy got leaked. I found it really amusing, colleagues, to see how upset some of their members are that I would have the temerity to point out that this policy will impact businesses, this policy will impact KiwiSaver funds, this policy will impact everyday mums and dads.

I don’t know whether it’s fair for me to say that Labour are actively misleading New Zealanders about their CGT, because I suspect that, actually, they don’t have a clue about their own policy. They don’t actually understand it—so, listen up. Let me spell it out. When you say, members opposite, it won’t impact businesses, answer me this: how do you levy a tax on buildings and land and not impact a business, when it is sold, that includes buildings and land? The simple fact is that you are putting a tax on that business. The Labour Party still hasn’t answered how this isn’t a tax on KiwiSaver. Just go and have a look at what KiwiSaver funds are invested in. It turns out they invest in commercial property in New Zealand. When you tax it more, you are cutting the returns of New Zealanders in their KiwiSaver accounts.

We’ve had all of these questions asked about the details. Valuation day—which, apparently, is going to be on 1 July 2027, but they can’t tell us how they’ll value the properties, how much it will cost, and who will be doing it. Apparently, it’s all fine, because they’ll sort it out when they get into Government. Well, they don’t have time to do that, because there will be no way they can get that detail worked out in time for legislation to be passed. It’s just classic Labour—light on detail.

The real thing here is what’s being left unsaid by Labour, which is that, actually, they are opening the door with a capital gains tax, with the true desire in their hearts to expand it even further. You saw that crystal clear with Mr Hipkins, didn’t you? When asked, “Will you introduce any other new taxes?” and given the absolute opportunity to rule it out, what did he do? He said, “Oh, well, there’ll be more to come.” There’ll be more to come! For all those New Zealanders who have been working hard, Mr Hipkins’ message for you and your economy and your job and your family’s savings is: “I want to tax it.”

We have to ask ourselves this: what kind of a country do we want to be? I want this to be a country that backs hard-working people. I want to back their aspirations, their efforts, their hard-won savings and achievements. Labour wants the opposite. They want a tax on people who have done the right thing—on those people who’ve saved up, built a nest egg, built a business. This is what Labour always do. They mismanage the economy, and then they make other people who do the right thing pay for it—and that’s before we talk about what the Greens want to do and what Te Pāti Māori want to do. It’s chaos on the other side. The phoenix has emerged. It’s not enough to moan anymore; now they want to make it worse. We say no.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Te Pāti Māori, first of all, wants to commemorate the Pāhuatanga day. Today, 144 years ago, reminds us of the violent invasion that happened at Parihaka, on 5 November 1881, when Crown troops stormed on a peaceful Māori community that was leading the world in non-violence, resistance, and selfdetermination—

SPEAKER: Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt the member, but the discussion that’s going on in the Government benches is far too loud. You want to have a conversation, go out into the lobbies. Start again for Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, I’m sorry.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER: Kia ora, e te Pīka. A hundred and forty-four years ago today, there was a violent invasion on Parihaka. On 5 November 1881, Crown troops stormed on a peaceful Māori community that was leading the world in non-violent, self-determinant resistance. Parihaka for us was actually a place of vision. It was about just peaceful. It was about a united nation. Our ancestors were collectively building a future grounded in aroha, in peace, and in mana motuhake, showing a way through colonisation and horrific capitalisation.

Parihaka developed an economy rooted in whenua and collective responsibility and care. There were communal gardens. There was cooperative trade. There was shared labour. There was a real independent Māori economy that didn’t rely on some of the aged colonial systems that made individuals rich only. The people of Parihaka understood that prosperity must never come at the cost of land or the dignity of others. Had the Crown not invaded Parihaka, we today may have had an Aotearoa model for a regenerative circular economy where food security, energy, and housing were locally controlled and community-driven.

That is part of Te Pāti Māori’s economic vision, where policies are Māori-led, where the iwi economy is actually respected and it’s contributing, where we have Māori banking systems, where we have the ability to raise capital for Māori resources removed out of the way, and community-based energy solutions that reflect principles of self-reliance and community opportunities.

This is what we wanted to talk about today: how Parihaka led a social movement of peace and unity. It welcomed everyone, Māori and tangata Tiriti, who sought refuge from violence and injustice. It modelled restorative justice, manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, long before these became State policy terms. It showed that true leadership does not come from force but from moral courage and compassion. If the vision of Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi had been allowed to thrive, Aotearoa today would be a society where decisions were made through consensus, not dominance, with social systems of inclusivity and future focus.

Te Pāti Māori’s policies for Whānau Ora, Māori health transformation, living wages, pay equity, free education, constitutional reform through Matike Mai Aotearoa all uphold these same values. We stand for a nation where communities design their own futures; where wellbeing, not wealth, is measured for success. The Matike Mai movement is the modern expression of that vision. It offers a pathway to constitutional transformation promised by Te Tiriti. It’s an opportunity where Māori and the Crown, side by side, are able to talk and negotiate political restoration. That was spiritually envisaged in Parihaka.

Culturally, Parihaka was the pulse of Māori innovation. It nurtured language, spirituality, collective knowledge. It was a place where karakia and kōrero guided governance and where children were raised to see peace as power. Had it been left untouched, Parihaka could have been an intentional centre of indigenous thought, peace, education, and cultural exchange. Te Pāti Māori carries that cultural aspiration forward—our commitment to te reo Māori, Māori media, protection of mātauranga Māori. We fight for that restoration of our land and our oceans.

Had the invasion of 1881 not occurred, Aotearoa might have grown into a country led by partnership and peace, not control and not confiscation, with shared governance models that are rooted into Te Tiriti o Waitangi, with Māori and tangata Tiriti co-designing national systems of economy, education, and justice. The principles of Te Whiti and Tohu might have guided how we care for the vulnerable and respected the difference. Our kaupapa of mana motuhake, oranga whenua, reo, wairua, and whānau—our fight for an Aotearoa hou—is a continuation of Parihaka’s peaceful resistance.

We believe that by returning to the values of Parihaka, we can heal our nation: economically through redistribution, socially through care, and culturally through truth. Pāhuatanga is not only a remembrance of injustice; it is a call to action to finish what the legacy of Parihaka began, the building of an Aotearoa where peace, equity, and tino rangatira are not only dreams but they are daily realities.

Today, I stand in honour of all of those who believed in this nationhood, who stood in passive resistance against some of the worst atrocities and violence ever known and seen in mankind. I hope that one day we can be a place that not only reflects those values but truly aspires to achieve it. Nō reira, kia ora koutou katoa.

What a month—months, plural—it’s been for Te Pāti Māori. Right now, they’re like a bad episode of a reality TV show. Rather than Everyone Hates Chris, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, it’s more like “Everyone Hates Rawiri”, “Keeping Up with the Kapa-Kingis”, and “The Real Housewives of the Waipareira Trust”. I was going to make a joke about Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, but man of the people John Tamihere is already one of those.

A couple of things last week revealed New Zealanders should never put their faith and confidence in the mess of parties opposite to govern this country ever again. One was the ongoing civil war inside Te Pāti Māori, and we’ll wait and see how that transpires. The second, and the more important and the more substantive issue, was the release of what Chris Hipkins tried so hard not to call a capital gains tax. After two years of labyrinthine internal debate between the “policy council”, Phil Twyford and Helen White and David Parker, and all of the hard left of the Labour Party, and the ongoing backwards and forwards between the hardheads in the caucus and the softies on the backbench who want to go hard on a wealth tax, we’ve ended up with, basically, something that pleases nobody, least of which New Zealanders, which is this halfway house capital gains tax that Chris Hipkins spent much of the first week trying to say was “narrow”.

Every time someone asked him a question, he said, “Oh no, it’s narrow.” Is it a capital gains tax? “No, it’s a narrow tax”, every time someone asks him—“No, it’s narrow, very narrow, very narrow.” Except it affects commercial property. Now, people go, “Oh, commercial property—oh, that’s all good, commercial property.” Except when you think about the corner dairy, which is commercial property; the packhouse for the Kiwi fruit orchard, which is commercial property—when you start thinking about the factories, the logistics hubs, the warehouses, the GP surgeries. Actually, when you think about it, other than the sort of digital nomads who’ve got a laptop, it’s actually quite hard to imagine a business in New Zealand that doesn’t use buildings or land—all of which will be taxed. On 1 July 2027, a couple of years away—less than a couple of years away—everyone’s going to have to go out and get a valuation. If you sell your business, you’ll have to work out what the proportion of the business is that is the commercial property arm of it and how much that’s increased in the last few periods.

Oh, this is the other thing: don’t take account of inflation. That’s not allowed to be taken into consideration, which is actually how most capital gains schemes work, and then apply the capital gains tax on top. What does that mean? As the Minister of Finance says, KiwiSaver is affected, mum and dad landlords and businesses are affected, businesses up and down the country. Chris Hipkins has the temerity to say, “No, no, no, it’s narrow. It’s not a tax on business.” Almost every business in the country will be affected, but he says, “Don’t worry, don’t worry—it’s all under control. Vote for us and we’ll let you know the details after the election.”

That was the real kicker. The real kicker? It was like, “Trust us”—having driven the economy into the ditch in the first place through high debt and high spending and high taxation, he turns around and says, “Don’t worry, it’s all under control. Vote for us and we’ll let you know the details later.” The arrogance, the contempt, the disrespect for the voter, that they would expect New Zealanders to vote for a capital gains tax that even they can’t articulate properly to the New Zealand people. As a former political leader who I greatly admire said, “If you don’t understand it, don’t vote for it.” That’s exactly what I think the New Zealand people will do.

But “Don’t worry,” Chris Hipkins says, “We’ve learnt the lessons. We’ve listened. We’ve learnt the lessons from the last time we were in Government.” Except their first two policies contain very little detail, and to the extent they do contain detail, they are bad policies for New Zealand. Every day that goes by, they demand more spending, more tax, and more debt. That is precisely the toxic cocktail of policies that the last Government left this country in. I put it to the House: has the Labour Party learnt the lessons when everything in their record and their policies to date indicate the exact opposite? We say no.

Well, ACT is fixing what matters in this Government, and, for our children, nothing matters more than a good education. Education sets the direction of a young person’s life. It determines opportunity, confidence, and, ultimately, the future of New Zealand. Sadly, our education system hasn’t been living up to this responsibility. For the past six years, under the Labour Government, our education was in a steady decline. One of the very reasons that I am here in Parliament is because during COVID, I saw the state of the education and the quality that my child was being sent home with. Having to teach a Year 2 student how to do basic mathematics was completely outrageous, and it opened my eyes.

These concerns are now being addressed by this Government. Not only have we put the basics back in place—literacy and numeracy, and making sure that these are at the forefront—we heard yesterday under a new announcement just announced that student achievement will be the paramount objective for school boards, and they will not be bound to a Treaty mandate. This is highly important for our schools. They no longer will be having to wrestle between a Treaty obligation and making sure that our kids are achieving high standards. I get hundreds of emails and comments from concerned parents about their kids’ education and the fact that their kids are having to karakia three times a day but are unable to do the basics at school. It has turned into more of a cult than it is culture.

The new curriculum will be better for our children and, ultimately, better for all New Zealanders. The new social sciences curriculum is the biggest win for ACT in this Government. It delivers on our coalition commitments to restore the balance to the New Zealand’s history curriculum and teach facts, not feelings. The old Labour-designed system turned classrooms into a barn battleground of ideology. Its so-called big ideas divided New Zealanders into the victims and the villains. Those days are over. Under the new curriculum, students will actually learn about not just New Zealand history; they’ll also learn about ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, the industrial revolution—issues that are wider beyond our shores. They will actually learn about democracy, freedom, and the ideas that have driven human progress and the free society that we live in today. I was shocked when one of my sons’ 12-year-old friends didn’t even know about World War I or World War II but could recite a karakia three times a day. Like, come on, there needs to be balance here. We need to think sensibly.

Our kids will see not a story of oppression, but they’ll see a story of human achievement. They’ll learn about the beauty and discover the freedom of the great ideas that have shaped our Western civilisation—ideas that have lifted billions out of poverty and built this modern world that I think a lot of people on the other side of this House have forgotten. It’s the very reason that we are sitting here today. For too long, young people have been taught to feel ashamed of their history and where they came from, not to be uplifted by their history, and that changes right now.

We’ll also be teaching our kids about financial literacy. Education is becoming useful again. For years, we had a system that produced students who could recite political slogans, but they couldn’t even add up their money in the bank. From their earliest years, children will now learn about money. They will learn that it’s limited, that choices matter, and that budgets help make decisions. Something makes me think that the other Government don’t want kids to know about budgets and money, or they may lose some voters. Let’s be honest: a few members opposite could have benefitted from those lessons themselves. Financial literacy is about real life. It’s about responsibility, independence, and understanding the value of work and saving.

This is the difference ACT is making in Government. We’re replacing indoctrination with education. We’re giving opportunities. We’re saying yes to charter schools; yes, that kids learn differently; yes, that some kids want full Māori immersion; some kids want to be in a sports college or a sports institute. We’re replacing guilt with grievance and curiosity with critical thinking, and we’ve replaced division with a shared sense of what being a New Zealander means, because that is the Kiwi way.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker.

Hon Member: Āmene.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: Yeah, āmene. Today we’ve got the stats out on our most recent unemployment figures for New Zealand, and they are a stark reality. The record reached today is a nine-year high for New Zealanders, right now. The worst part of the 160,000 people who find themselves without a job, under this Government, is the fact that our young people are the ones that are impacted the most. Of those who are without a job, it is actually 15 percent of those under 24 who do not have employment. At a time in New Zealanders’ lives when there should be opportunity for learning, opportunity for taking up skills, there is none for our young people, and that is the deepest concern.

When we heard Nicola Willis and Christopher Bishop stand up and make their case this afternoon, did we hear one idea about what there are for jobs for young people? Did we hear one of their plans to look at how we’re going to increase opportunities for the youth in New Zealand? Did we have one single policy on how we’re going to stop 200 New Zealanders leaving our shores every single day? All they could talk about was Labour policies, because what Labour has is a clear plan for our future: to invest in our future, to invest in our people, and to make sure they stay here. That’s what is, sadly, lacking from those members opposite—absolutely no vision about what we do for young people here in New Zealand.

The response they have given—there has been one policy so far. The policy is that 18- and 19year-olds will no longer be eligible to receive the jobseeker and, in fact, if their parents are means-tested and the combined income is over $65,000, they are ineligible to receive that support. What I don’t understand—and maybe some of the other debaters this afternoon can enlighten us—is what happens to driver licensing for those young people who need to find employment? What happens to their statistics and their details from the Ministry of Social Development? They are vanished from the records, because if they are not there, then how do the support services that enable them to get driving, to get trained, and to get employed work? How do those services work? They are the very questions that many NGOs and many support groups across our country are now scratching their heads, wondering how we turn our unemployment statistics around when this Government’s plan is to simply vanish 18- and 19-year-olds from being able to receive the support they need to get a job.

But wait, there’s more, because, typically, when unemployment is high, what happens is people take that opportunity to learn, to take up an apprenticeship, to train in a new area, to look at ways that they can improve their skills because employment isn’t currently available. But this Government has taken the opportunity to cut those services at the very same time they drive up unemployment. It is once again our young people that bear the brunt of that force. We see right across the country 550 courses cut in New Zealand; 900 full-time jobs gone, and those training courses.

I was in Tokoroa last Friday, and not only has that small rural community faced two significant closures for wood manufacturing, with significant unemployment as a result, but on top of that, their local trade training, Toi Ohomai, is losing 60 full-time teacher equivalents that are training people. What a time. What a time to cut trade training and to stop people from picking up a new skill, at a time when this Government has witnessed and driven 20,000 construction jobs overseas—gone from New Zealand—and caused the downward spiral of our construction industry. They are cutting apprenticeships by making it harder for people to learn a trade. Once again, when they’re looking for jobs, it’ll be migration they use, not the skills and the talent right here in New Zealand—not backing our young people to pick up a trade, to be able to learn some skills that can grow our economy, grow our local economies, grow our communities, and make them stronger.

That sums up why neither of the first speakers on that side could offer up one ray of hope for our young people here in New Zealand, because they want them to be disappeared off the benefit register. They want them gone. They don’t want to count them. They don’t want to pay for them. They don’t want to know about them. On this side of the House, we back our young people. We want to train them, we want them to stay here, and we want them to have a hope, right here in New Zealand.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Let’s talk about banks—and I think I’ll make it exciting for you. The recent banking inquiry has concentrated on increasing competition, but there is more work to be done.

Excess profits—let’s start there. There is $8 billion per annum going across to the Aussie investors—not our retirement savings; theirs. This is the modern-day equivalent of the Vikings coming for your treasury. Remind me—why did we sell the BNZ and the ASB? Now we’re in this situation. Wow. Let’s get into a bit more.

Westpac just recently had $1.2 billion in profit—13 percent in tough times. ANZ’s profit nearly doubled, with just under $2.3 billion in—in their words—a tough year. Oh, how tough it must have been! What do they do to achieve this? More customers, better service, better productivity, increased investment in software maybe? Oh, well, let’s not think about that. The UBS, an investment bank—yes, they invest in banks—called the ANZ profit “alpha profits”. Yeah, there’s a reason why they call it that. The Commerce Commission called the “big four” a cosy oligopoly, where CEO salaries are more than what most of our fintechs could dream of in terms of capital. It’s a cosy oligopoly concentrating its profits from mortgages, not commercial banking. Why? Mortgages are low risk and very profitable. It’s been calculated that on average, mortgages in New Zealand cost us 1 percent more than in Australia. Why is that?

Over the life of a mortgage, an average loan will cost New Zealanders, on that basis, $500,000 extra. How about those interest rates? How are we doing with those? Well, net interest rates are at the moment approximately double the official cash rate (OCR). Really? That’s right. It’s a 100 percent mark-up. I can figure that out. Even the best fixed interest rates are around 80 percent higher than the OCR.

What are we doing about this? Kiwibank is touted as the answer to our competitive woes, and it was set up to provide greater support for Kiwi businesses. Well, really, in my view, it’s just a smaller, much smaller, “me too”. Judge them by what they do, not by what they say. So far, not good. There’s a lot to be done there.

Let me move to scams, which were mentioned earlier—Myanmar. The banks have been very quick to make positive statements around implementing confirmation-of-payee systems to address fraud. This is over a decade behind other jurisdictions, and have they updated their software systems on the back of excess profits to protect us from scams? Hmm. Has there been recompense to the victims who have lost their life savings as a result of inadequate banking software and systems? Do we seriously believe that these same banks are going to get ahead of extremely sophisticated organised crime groups funding terrorism? Really? This is woeful.

The institutional arrangements are not a system here; they’re like a fire swamp. For those of you who remember the cult movie The Princess Bride, it’s like entering the fire swamp: man-eating giant rodents, sinking sands, and fire swamps at every turn. That’s what you’re navigating: a series of disconnected institutions—banks, the Banking Ombudsman, media, the Financial Markets Authority, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Department of Internal Affairs, Justice, lawyers, the Serious Fraud Office, and Police provide for a maze that you may never leave. Victims are confronted by painfully slow deliberation, obfuscation, and blame shifting. Gee, this is not a good picture, is it?

But never fear: New Zealand First is here. Thanks to the excellent work by Minister Costello to address organised crime, alongside forthcoming work that New Zealand First has been doing in addressing scams in the banking sector, we are on to this.

Banks are afforded a social licence to operate. Profitability is not enough. They must go beyond legal compliance to act in ethical ways. Banks have encouraged all of us to bank digitally. Now we are facing an artificial intelligence digital tsunami. Perhaps some of the vast profits that we have witnessed should now go towards protecting consumers.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity to speak in the general debate. Over the last few weeks, Labour set out the first steps in its very clear plan and goal to realise New Zealand’s full potential. We want more investment, more innovation, more good jobs in every community up and down this beautiful country of ours. Our plan is about backing aspiration. It’s about investing in our ideas, our businesses, and our people so our future is made right here in New Zealand—a New Zealand where our kids want to stay, where they can build good lives here at home and not feel forced to look overseas for opportunities.

Right now, we’re at risk of losing all of that. Every day, more than 200 New Zealanders pack up and leave to find work that should be available here at home. Christopher Luxon stood in front of New Zealanders and promised to fix the economy and the cost of living. Instead, it’s getting worse. This Government’s decisions are causing tens of thousands of talented New Zealanders to head offshore and ply their trade elsewhere. National’s economic credibility has taken a massive hit. The economy shrank by nearly 1 percent in just three months, while our competitors in the countries we like to compare ourselves to are growing and continuing to grow.

It’s clear on this side of the House that this Government has no plan but are strong on excuses. Today, it was revealed that the number of people unemployed is the highest it’s been for 30 years. Businesses are closing at rates higher than—in fact, 2,700 in the past year alone, the highest in a decade. This decline isn’t just something you read about in an economic report; no, it’s the lives our people in this country are living. People feel it when they are filling up their car, when families are paying more at the supermarket, and when people can’t afford to see a GP. Sitting around the kitchen table, whānau are looking through their bills, trying to make it all add up, wondering how they are going to plan for the future.

It’s clear that while families are trying to create survival plans, this Government has presented the country with no plan. Christopher Luxon’s only answer is to start selling off our assets and open the door wider to foreign investors, giving away our future instead of building it. Labour has a better way: we’re proud of Kiwi ingenuity and we’ll invest in it, creating good jobs, backing local businesses, and keeping talent here at home.

New Zealand is in a moment of urgency and extraordinary opportunity. We have a skilled workforce, great ideas, and a proud history of innovation, but decades of under-investment and shortterm thinking have, sadly, held us back. Productivity is very clear in this country: it has stagnated. We are too dependent on commodity exports, meaning only one part of the economy can race ahead while the rest fall behind. Wages are low even as people work some of the longest hours in the developed world.

The New Zealand Future Fund is the first step in Labour’s plan to back our own potential; create good, secure jobs; and grow our wealth so people can build their future here at home and not overseas. For too long, great Kiwi ideas haven’t had the backing they deserve. Too many of them have been forced offshore, bought by foreign investors, or never realised at all, taking jobs and opportunities with them. The New Zealand Future Fund will fix that. The future fund will invest in—

Hon Mark Patterson: You stole it from us!

Hon PEENI HENARE: —New Zealand’s people, ideas, and industries, making life more affordable. And while New Zealand First will say we took it from them, they’re in Government and still can’t do it.

We want to also be clear: part of our plan is a capital gains tax. A simple, targeted capital gains tax on property profits made after 1 July 2027 is also part of the plan. Right now, too much of our wealth is locked up in property instead of backing Kiwi ideas, Kiwi jobs, and Kiwi innovation. These aren’t my words; these are Christopher Bishop’s words. This Government agrees but are doing nothing about it. A capital gains tax will help unlock that money and get it working for our economy, investing in businesses that create real opportunity. What it’ll also do is invest in good healthcare. We are saying to New Zealanders, “If you vote for Labour and you get us on to the Government benches, we will give our families—every person in this country—three free GP visits.”

The Minister of Education today said that three sides in Māori is a tapatoru. Well, this is a tapawhā roa. Tapawhā is a square; tapawhā roa is a rectangle. We want to say to New Zealanders right up and down the country, “With this, you can access better healthcare, three free GP visits for every New Zealander, and a plan this country deserves.”

When I was a little boy, my favourite song on my favourite 45 record went like this: “I’m a little fire engine. Flick is my name. They won’t let me put out fires. Isn’t that a shame? Someday I’ll be big and strong and fight every flame.” That song was ringing in my ears as New Zealanders last week watched the shambles that was Labour’s capital gains tax announcement and their leader then racing around doing his best to douse out the flames. Chris Hipkins was desperate to hose down speculation that the Green Party would demand even more taxes in any future coalition negotiations. And they would—they would. In fact, the Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick wasted no time describing Labour’s capital gains tax (CGT) as a mere starting point.

Introducing a 28 percent tax on all profits made after the sale of commercial or secondary residential property made Kiwis’ blood run cold. What gets whacked with Labour’s new tax? The investment flat helping pay your kids’ uni costs, yes. Mum and Dad’s small rental in Timaru, yes. The $900k bach in Gisborne, yes. How about this? How about the $550k rental in Hāwera? Yes. Labour’s hurried CGT now poses many more questions than answers. That’s not just National’s assessment; that’s according to many tax experts, economists, and commentators.

Here’s the first credibility fail for the Labour Party. The $700 million raised on average per year will not be enough to fund free doctors visits for all 5.3 million New Zealanders three times a year, plus all the other health initiatives they’re promising with their CGT grab. That’s not even factoring in the rising demand when “free” is written on every doctor’s front door. The computer simply says no.

With $700 million not cutting it, that only means one thing—it only means one thing. More new taxes and more debt will be required. Make no mistake: Labour’s capital gains tax is a Trojan horse to a much, much bigger tax grab. To fund all their promises, Labour, Greens, Te Pāti Māori will not only need a CGT; they will need a wealth tax, they will need an inheritance tax, they will need a higher top tax rate, and much, much more debt. Read the Greens’ alternative budget. It’s eye-watering stuff, with a CGT just their starting point.

Enter Deborah Chambers KC, with her column titled “Bugger off: why taxing property feels like punishing thrift”. She wrote, “For many New Zealanders, property isn’t a luxury, it’s the only realistic savings plan. That’s why many successful economies like Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong don’t have a capital gains tax. They attract capital. A capital gains tax,” she wrote, “hits the psyche. It tells ordinary New Zealanders that saving, investing, and taking risk will be punished.”, wrote Deborah Chambers KC.

The policy leaked from within the Labour Party showed us that not everyone in Labour is happy nor convinced, nor were they in 2023. Chris Hipkins, on 12 July 2023: “I am confirming today that under a Government I lead there will be no wealth or capital gains tax.” Labour can’t be trusted on tax.

With Labour not able to answer most questions, it came down to the media bringing in the experts to try and explain and make sense of it. What we do know is that hundreds of thousands of individuals and small businesses would be liable for a tax if the Labour - Greens - Te Pāti Māori Government was ever elected next year. Yet, astonishingly, Labour thinks it’s fine to fill in the details after the election. Let me repeat that: Labour is refusing to reveal key details of the tax until after the 2026 election. All Labour knows is how to tax Kiwis and dream up new ways of spending Kiwis’ hardearned money.

This is exactly the same recipe that landed New Zealand in this mess and that this Government continues to clean up. Like a possum in the headlights, Flick the little fire engine has proven he’s not big enough or strong enough to fight every flame, and, thankfully, Labour will never get out of the station again. Isn’t that a shame!

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. This is a quote from a person you may know, Mr Speaker: “People who need housing and social support are more important than who owns the houses.” Those are the words of Sir Bill English, in a report that came out about public housing called Owning Less to Achieve More. Yes, that is the same Bill English who led the review of Kāinga Ora, our nation’s public housing arm. Some think it’s a review and some see it for what it really is, which is the deconstruction or the dismantling of Kāinga Ora—things to be expected of the very same person who sold off 10,000 of our nation’s public homes, which happened to correlate with an increase of homelessness at the time.

Aside from the fact that the Kāinga Ora review that Sir Bill English led relied on flawed information, there are some major flaws in the Government’s logic when it comes to public housing. The thing is, the Government that we have today, compared to the last National Government we had, are a lot sneakier when it comes to public housing and getting rid of it. Last time, it was just simply “Sell it off. We don’t care. We don’t care what it looks like.” This time, it’s “Why does the Government need to run and own and manage public housing?” That’s besides the fact that they actually are still selling public housing, by the way. In this term alone, they have sold 444 public homes, 232 public homes are on the market, and that’s on top of the 3,500 public homes that they have already cancelled.

Why should the State own and manage public housing? Why should the market not be left to run and own public housing? It’s the common catchcry of privatisation, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter who runs or who owns a service or an asset, as long as the service or the asset is delivered. That’s the common catchcry of privatisation. The obvious reason why the State should build and maintain public housing is because we have the money, we have the balance sheet, we have access to capital in a way that is cheaper and easier than other entities and organisations to borrow to build that housing.

The second reason is because of productivity and role modelling. We know that only 2 percent of our entire housing stock is accessible, despite the fact that we have a population where over a quarter of all people are disabled. We know that a decent chunk of our carbon emissions come from energy efficiencies in homes and in housing that isn’t suitable, and we can role model what sustainable and accessible housing looks like, because, let’s be real, the market doesn’t have an incentive to do that. The market has always been and will always be driven by one thing and one thing only, and that is profit. The market doesn’t have social or environmental obligations. The market doesn’t feel a sense of responsibility for the suffering that happens when you deny people a home.

There’s no point arguing that community housing providers should provide public housing instead of the State, when the Government is only willing to work with and fund five community housing providers out of the hundreds that exist in Aotearoa.

The market doesn’t care about people in need; it cares about people with money that want to feed their insatiable greed. Kāinga Ora was always going to be public enemy No. 1 when it came to this Government, because this Government’s economic strategy relies on rich people trading houses amongst each other. It’s not about jobs, it’s not about industry, it’s not about productivity. It’s their typical laziness when it comes to the economy.

The mission of right-wing Governments in the playbook around the world is to funnel as much public funds into the hands of private greed as they can, and that is exactly what we have seen from this Government. We have seen our money being funnelled into the hands of tobacco companies, to landlords, and to oil and gas mining companies. With Kāinga Ora being the biggest landlord in Aotearoa, it is no surprise that they are public enemy No. 1 when it comes to this Government wanting to dismantle them so that their mates who are landlords can make profits and so that everybody has to rely on the private rental market.

It’s no surprise that National Governments insist on calling it social housing when it has and should always be called public housing. It is housing that is owned by and for the people, and so it should remain. It is not about profit and it is not for greed.

Let’s talk about Labour’s capital gains tax (CGT). It is the wrong tax, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. It will not build a single extra home for New Zealand, it will not lift productivity, and it will make it harder for New Zealanders to save, to invest, and to grow.

Trust and competence come first when it’s about running the country. Labour’s plan, first of all, was leaked—it was leaked before it was even ready. Key design choices are still to come. Look at this: “not to be revealed until after election”. No clear valuation day rules, no certainty for small business goodwill or fit-outs, no credible guidance for family workshops—no nothing. Any political party who wants new tax should bring detail to the people before asking the people for a mandate.

Track records also matter. During the COVID period, the Labour Government spent $66 billion. I have another image: public breakdown shows $31 billion—that is 47 percent—went into a range of initiatives, and yet we have nothing to show for it in this country. That’s $31 billion of hard-earned taxpayers’ money spent on a wide range of initiatives. Now the country actually has a debt of over $120 billion, which we are paying $9 billion in interest costs for every year—just on interest—to service the debt. This is hard-earned taxpayers’ money—more than Police, Corrections, Customs, Defence, and Justice combined. All of these combined are still not quite enough to pay the interest on our country.

If Labour is to handle the money from their capital gains tax, New Zealanders have the right to ask the questions: where are they spending the money that is expected to be mismanaged? What is really on the table? Labour is now pitching for a tax that, in practice, will bite businesses and investment properties. Economists and experts have now come out to give their understanding and reading on the very, very, very thin Labour tax policy. One of the economists that I listen to, Ed McKnight, has spelt it out: the first-year revenue assumes only 6,000 to 7,000 investors will sell, and that capital growth is modest. Now, this is not a broad capital gains tax, and, effectively, it’s only a real-estate investor tax. On the claim that everyone has one, that is so not true: only about 10 to 14 percent of New Zealanders actually own an investment property. When Labour says that everyone is doing it, it is simply very misleading.

International comparisons also don’t support Labour’s capital gains tax. Yes, some economies have CGT, but some don’t, and some of economies, the most competitive, investor-friendly economies—for example, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong—do not have capital gains tax. In fact, they work so hard to attract and keep capital. Wouldn’t it be better for Kiwis and for New Zealand to be more like Switzerland and Singapore? We know we can. We know that we are so much better. Capital gains tax doesn’t stop house prices rising, either. Look at some data: since CGT was announced in many countries, house prices in Australia increased on average by 6.7 percent a year; in the UK, 8 percent a year; in Canada, 6.7 percent a year; in the USA, 5.4 percent every single year. CGT is not the solution to stop house price increases.

Let’s bring it home with some examples: a mum and dad in Timaru will now be taxed under Labour; a small investment flat in South Auckland will now be taxed by Labour; a family engineering firm in Hamilton which is ready to sell a workshop to upgrade into a bigger site will now be taxed under Labour; a couple who have quake-strengthened a very tired building in Christchurch will now be taxed under Labour; a cafe owner in Palmerston North who wants to exit and retire will now be taxed under Labour.

A little personal note, actually: it’s my mother’s birthday today—happy birthday, Mum—but I do want to say, Mum is working so hard to help take care of my young children, who are four and five, so that I can be here working, like most ethnic and Kiwi families in this country, who work so hard at one job, two jobs, three jobs, so that we can have a good life in New Zealand. I do not agree with a capital gains tax and—last two seconds—Labour needs to work with the Greens, and this is only the beginning to more capital gains tax.

Don’t you like it when Labour tries to rewrite its own history? Labour’s like an arsonist who then complains about the fire brigade’s efforts to extinguish the fire. Let’s run through Labour’s track record and what they left this Government.

Firstly, COVID spending of $66 billion that went on for far too long and too far. Debt in this country increased 2.5 times between the six years that they were in Government to $155 billion. Deficits—we inherited deficits on an annual basis of $10 billion. Productivity growth, as the other side likes to call it, was negative under the previous Government. The number of staff in Government increased by a whopping 18,699 people—that’s 34 percent under the previous Government. Inflation, as we know, reached 7.3 percent. Yet what did we get for that extra spending? Nothing. Worse outcomes in health, education, infrastructure, law and order, and transport. The only thing that was booming under the previous Government was house prices.

Now, Labour’s policies—let’s turn to their policies, for which my colleague Cameron Brewer here has got a great metaphor: it’s a Trojan horse. It’s a sugar-coated trap. It’s a gift-wrapped grenade waiting for the New Zealand public. Let’s go to the capital gains tax, which apparently is narrow, but it keeps creeping and creeping even larger and larger. We don’t know how much it’s going to cost, and even Labour doesn’t know how much it’s going to cost. They won’t tell us until after the election. We cannot trust Labour on tax.

Sam Uffindell: On anything.

DAN BIDOIS: On anything. Let’s go to the Future Fund: $200 billion sounds good—it’s nowhere near Singapore’s model—but, again, we have no idea how it’s going to be funded. Where is that money going to come from? Right now, that $200 billion is being funnelled into other areas, outcome areas, and yet we don’t know a single dicky bird of where that $200 billion is going to be cut from. I don’t think they really know anything about their policies. Their costings are poor, and we’ll leave it at that.

I want to turn now to National, because National is the one left holding the mop after the party. We are the firefighters called in to douse someone else’s fireworks. This side of the House is working as fast as we can to improve things for New Zealand.

Let’s talk about our record: inflation down to 3 percent, the OCR down to 2.5 percent, fulltimeequivalent numbers down 5 percent since the election, crime rates down over 20,000 since the election, wait times for elective treatment down, wait times for first specialist of treatments down, and the tax to GDP ratio down, all under this Government in the last two years.

Now, we know that times are tough for many New Zealanders right across this country, but there are green shoots and positive things to come.

Hon Dr Deborah Russell: Lots of Roundup being poured on them.

DAN BIDOIS: What’s going up—and “What’s going up?”, Deborah Russell wants me to ask. Growth in the economy is growing up. Education results are going up. Business and consumer confidence is going up. Optimism in the future of our nation is going up.

Sam Uffindell: Elective surgery.

DAN BIDOIS: Elective surgery is going up.

Mike Butterick: Export income.

The export income is going up, my colleague here says. There is great news in green shoots all around.

The alternative to our approach is what? Tax more, borrow more, and spend more—tax more, borrow more, spend more. After two years of being in Opposition, that is all the Opposition have come out with today. On this side of the House, we are optimistic. We are going for growth, because that is the only way that we can lift the productive capacity, lift incomes, and make sure that your kids, my grandkids, have a great future in this country.

We have announced the most progressive tax policy change that New Zealand has made for about 40 years—the most significant change is being made for 40 years. It is a targeted tax on investment property and on commercial property, and what have we heard in response from the Government? Mistruth, disinformation, and, frankly, hysteria about what it might entail. What I want to do today is set the record straight.

We have proposed a capital gains tax. It will not apply to the family home. Why? Because we know how important people’s homes are to them and because we know how important that sense of security is. Like most capital gains taxes around the world, our capital gains tax will not apply to the family home. No, it will not—that is not going to happen.

Our capital gains tax will not apply to KiwiSaver. When a person takes their savings out of KiwiSaver, there will be no capital gains tax on their KiwiSaver—no, that is not going to happen. Why? Because KiwiSaver is a productive asset that helps to grow a person’s own security and that helps to grow the economy. There will be no capital gains tax on a person’s KiwiSaver.

There will be no capital gains tax on the sale of a business—it’s really straightforward. Why? Because businesses are productive assets that help to grow the economy. No capital gains tax on a business—that is not going to happen—and that is because it is important to our productivity.

There will be no capital gains tax when a small business that wants to grow sells its building in order to move to a larger one. There will be no capital gains tax on that, so that is a really straightforward answer. Most businesses actually lease their building. Most businesses lease, but where a small business owns its own building, where it is growing and it needs to move to a larger building, there will be no capital gains tax on that transaction. Why? Because we know that a productive asset needs to grow. We are not taxing productivity. There will be no capital gains tax on the sale of a building by a small business.

There will be no capital gains tax on the sale of a farm. Why? Because a farm is a productive asset. We want farms to continue to grow and continue to be productive for New Zealand—no capital gains tax on the sale of a farm.

There will be no capital gains tax on inheritances. We know that many people get an investment property because they want it for their children. Where that property is left to their children, there will be no capital gains tax—it’s a really straightforward rule.

What about the case of a family home which is used partially for a business, such as a dairy—the question that that side of the House brings up continually. Business people are familiar with the way that apportionment works. There will be no capital gains tax on the home that is part of that business. It’s straightforward, and any accountant knows how to do it.

We have had a whole series of questions raised by that side of the House and we have said always that back in 2018, the Tax Working Group worked through a series of technical issues to do with a capital gains tax. We are following the rules set by the Tax Working Group, with some of them modified somewhat, and we are also using the rules set up around the brightline test. These are familiar rules. They are easily applied around the capital gains tax. It is a targeted tax, and what we are doing is encouraging Kiwis to invest in productive businesses.

This new tax is about raising revenue to pay for healthcare, but it is also about directing investment to the productive economy. Stop the hysteria, National, and get real.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.