In any case, I presume that Labour would be asking questions like this in their surveying, and made the call because it was unpopular (because everyone assumes they will be affected).
I know from polling around the last election, the wealth tax was quite popular. Perhaps it’s not popular among key demographics that Labour are targetting. Or there are other reasons they don’t want to support it. Seems like if it was done carefully it could be a vote winner, but I guess also Labour is trying to take a very conservative approach to this election.
Actually, one theory is that they’re worried that if they support a CGT or wealth tax, National/ACT would get a shitload more donations from people/organisations that have they money and a vested interest in their wealth staying tax free.
National already gets 10x the donative that Labour gets. I’m not sure how more money can help.
I think the problem is Labour are not universally popular this election, so every vote counts. If the policy is popular with people who will vote for Labour anyway, that doesn’t matter. It’s only important to know if the policy is popular with people who would otherwise vote National.
It can help because those wealthy actors start to become very active. Not necessarily just about donations.
And yes, it’s a close election, every vote counts, so playing for the centre makes sense. But there’s more than one way to win (or lose) the centre, and I don’t think that ruling out CGT etc. is necessarily a great strategy in that respect.
Within an hour of seeing this post, National was sending out an email about how you can’t trust Labour on tax and how a CGT will be back on the table when negotiating a coalition agreement.
I’m subscribed to about half a dozen different party email lists and no one sends out emails with the frequency of National (seriously must be 5x as many as all the others put together), and they are always so angry.
In recent NZ political history (say ~20 years), has NZ politics become noticeably more combative?
I see a lot of articles and things around how American style politics has been making its way here, but I haven’t really followed politics here with any real intent (partly due to age, partly due to cbf-ness).
Seems all the arguments National make in the last few years is just going look what the other guys are doing, that’s terrible, we’ll be doing the opposite of that.
I would say yes, world wide politics is getting more combative.
I think access to information and misinformation are some key drivers. In the past people could vote for the people that helped them. Now politicians (and others) can speak messages to millions all over the world, and the rise of social media means only the more emotional pieces are shared. At the same time all the politician’s past actions and stupid comments are searchable. That naturally leads to divisiveness and an us vs them rhetoric.
I wonder if this will continue to make the respective parties policies more radical, increasing the gap between the “Left” and "Right’, and in a country like NZ, work to kill off the other parties and make it a two party race like the states.
We won’t get a two party race unless we change our parliamentary system. The states have a setup that means you have to vote for a big party or you won’t get any representation. MMP lets us have smaller parties in parliament with some influence. This makes it worthwhile voting for them.
But with that said, that still allows for our parties to become more radical.
Do you think that as the main parties get more radical / not radical enough, we will see some of these smaller parties gain more prominence? Or are the two too well established.
Yep, they go on and on about how we need to stop the division etc etc, but it’s pure projection. National and act are mainlining anger, outrage and fear into their bases for political gain and protection of the wealthy.
I know from polling around the last election, the wealth tax was quite popular. Perhaps it’s not popular among key demographics that Labour are targetting. Or there are other reasons they don’t want to support it. Seems like if it was done carefully it could be a vote winner, but I guess also Labour is trying to take a very conservative approach to this election.
Actually, one theory is that they’re worried that if they support a CGT or wealth tax, National/ACT would get a shitload more donations from people/organisations that have they money and a vested interest in their wealth staying tax free.
National already gets 10x the donative that Labour gets. I’m not sure how more money can help.
I think the problem is Labour are not universally popular this election, so every vote counts. If the policy is popular with people who will vote for Labour anyway, that doesn’t matter. It’s only important to know if the policy is popular with people who would otherwise vote National.
It can help because those wealthy actors start to become very active. Not necessarily just about donations.
And yes, it’s a close election, every vote counts, so playing for the centre makes sense. But there’s more than one way to win (or lose) the centre, and I don’t think that ruling out CGT etc. is necessarily a great strategy in that respect.
Within an hour of seeing this post, National was sending out an email about how you can’t trust Labour on tax and how a CGT will be back on the table when negotiating a coalition agreement.
I’m subscribed to about half a dozen different party email lists and no one sends out emails with the frequency of National (seriously must be 5x as many as all the others put together), and they are always so angry.
In recent NZ political history (say ~20 years), has NZ politics become noticeably more combative?
I see a lot of articles and things around how American style politics has been making its way here, but I haven’t really followed politics here with any real intent (partly due to age, partly due to cbf-ness).
Seems all the arguments National make in the last few years is just going look what the other guys are doing, that’s terrible, we’ll be doing the opposite of that.
I would say yes, world wide politics is getting more combative.
I think access to information and misinformation are some key drivers. In the past people could vote for the people that helped them. Now politicians (and others) can speak messages to millions all over the world, and the rise of social media means only the more emotional pieces are shared. At the same time all the politician’s past actions and stupid comments are searchable. That naturally leads to divisiveness and an us vs them rhetoric.
With that said, I have no practical solutions.
I wonder if this will continue to make the respective parties policies more radical, increasing the gap between the “Left” and "Right’, and in a country like NZ, work to kill off the other parties and make it a two party race like the states.
We won’t get a two party race unless we change our parliamentary system. The states have a setup that means you have to vote for a big party or you won’t get any representation. MMP lets us have smaller parties in parliament with some influence. This makes it worthwhile voting for them.
But with that said, that still allows for our parties to become more radical.
Do you think that as the main parties get more radical / not radical enough, we will see some of these smaller parties gain more prominence? Or are the two too well established.
Yep, they go on and on about how we need to stop the division etc etc, but it’s pure projection. National and act are mainlining anger, outrage and fear into their bases for political gain and protection of the wealthy.
That seems like a win win for labour then. They can say “we won’t implement a wealth tax” and National can say they will so they cover all the bases.
I’m sure Labour’s largest donations would also be affected if they were pushing capital gains
I’m not sure that would be true. If you’re rich and donating to Labour, most likely you are not doing so in the hope they become National.
Everyone likes the idea of a wealth tax as long as it is paid by people other than them.