Robertson: CGT awaits coalition consensus
At least some of the proposals made by the Government’s Tax Working Group will be adopted so long as there is coalition agreement, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says.
In his first big economic speech of the year, before a room of Auckland business community members at Eden Park yesterday, Robertson tackled the capital gains tax issue head-on.
The Tax Working Group, which released its report last week, was given the job of suggesting ways to create the fairest and most balanced tax system, Robertson said.
‘‘What they came back and told us was by and large the New Zealand tax system works well.’’
Despite this the group made a wide range of recommendations to address fairness and balance, one of its boldest being support for a capital gains tax.
Robertson stressed that the Government was not bound to take up the recommendations but he expected at least some would be adopted.
‘‘I’m sure there are things in there that we will be able to accept and adopt. We now have a job to work through them to see what will add to fairness and, being frank, what is possible to gain consensus on in a coalition government,’’ he told Stuff after his speech.
The coalition Government, consisting of Labour, the Green Party and NZ First, would now assess the recommendations before releasing a full response to the report in April.
China was one of the first topics broached by Robertson in his speech at the business breakfast, called Finance 2019 and co-hosted by Massey University and the Auckland Business Chamber.
He said New Zealand had a long and good relationship with China but admitted challenges arose at times ‘‘and we can’t shy away from those’’.
Exporters had also encountered issues around softening demand and regulatory issues in China, he said.
There have been suggestions New Zealand’s relationship with China has become strained since the Government Communications Security Bureau blocked Chinese technology company Huawei from Spark’s 5G rollout.
This month an Air New Zealand Boeing 787 heading to China was turned away because of a reference to Taiwan on on-board documentation.
And fishing company Sanford said it had faced ‘‘administrative issues’’ with its salmon exports to China.
Robertson said the Government was watching the United States-China trade war closely. New Zealand had been relatively unaffected by the tensions between the superpowers but there were signs that countries involved in China’s manufacturing supply chains were already being affected.
‘‘We believe in a rules-based trading system and we need one that operates well with the two largest players getting along.’’
He expected China to respond swiftly to its slowing economy.
‘‘Even the mere hint of a slowdown will be responded to.’’