Ardern rules out wealth tax

WELLINGTON: With two campaign days left until polling day, Labour leader Jacinda Ardern has drawn a line in the sand by ruling out a wealth tax for as long as she is prime minister.

It is the same commitment she has undertaken on ruling out a capital gains tax (CGT) and keeping the age of superannuation eligibility at 65.

It will be a particularly hard pill for the Green Party to swallow, as they came up with the wealth tax because of Ardern’s stance on a CGT.

National Party leader Judith Collins remains insistent the Greens’ proposed tax on net wealth over $1 million would be implemented under a LabourGreen government.

The issue will feature in tonight’s final leaders’ debate — though it is unclear how much the debate will swing votes, given that 1.4 million people, or 41% of enrolled voters, had already voted by 2pm yesterday.

Yesterday, Ms Collins announced a policy in Hamilton to establish a seniors commissioner to advocate for pensioners’ health, a position that Ms Ardern said she agreed with while she campaigned in Christchurch.

But that was where any agreement ended.

Ms Ardern called Ms Collins’ comments on the wealth tax a ‘‘desperate tactic’’, while Ms Collins told Ms Ardern to stop ‘‘namecalling’’ and admit the prospect was ‘‘very real’’.

Green MP Chloe Swarbrick added fuel to the fire yesterday, saying it was ‘‘really disingenuous for Labour’’ to rule it out because it was ultimately voters who decided the strength of each parties’ postelection mandate.

Asked if the Greens might refuse to support a Labourled Government, Ms Swarbrick said there were ‘‘ongoing discussions all the time and I can tell you there is a variable of different opinions — and it would be bad if there wasn’t. That’s freedom of thought’’.

Greens coleader James Shaw has also said the party’s poverty plan, which includes the wealth tax, would be brought to the negotiating table, but that did not necessarily mean it would be adopted.

Ms Ardern was not concerned about a Greens walkout, suggesting it was not likely because Mr Shaw has said the party has no bottom lines.

‘‘I’m not going to get into whatever discussions are being had by backbench MPs,’’ she said of Ms Swarbrick’s comments.

She was asked if she would resign if she implemented a wealth tax — the promise she had made about raising the age for superannuation.

Ms Ardern said there was no need to make such a promise about ‘‘a hypothetical’’ because it would not happen.

‘‘I won’t allow it to happen as prime minister.’’

In Hamilton yesterday, Ms Collins talked up National’s temporary tax cuts, which would deliver $3000 to the top quarter of incomeearners on the average wage or higher.

She then fired a shot at all Green MPs, telling the meeting of seniors that the Greens believed tax was love — a comment made by coleader Marama Davidson — because they never paid much tax before they became MPs.

‘‘Most of them are unemployable, I would have thought,’’ Ms Collins said afterwards when asked to clarify what she meant.

Ms Collins also batted away questions about whether her MPs were undermining her after MP Mark

Mitchell said obesity was ‘‘more complex’’ than just personal responsibility.

Ms Ardern said the comments appeared to show that not all of Ms Collins’ team agreed with her, and repeated Labour’s line that National is no longer the party of John Key and Bill English.

‘‘Under the leadership of John Key and Bill English, they did take a science and evidence base to this issue.

‘‘It is another area you can see this is not the same National Party it once was.’’

The Greens wrapped up their day with a rally in Auckland, where they appealed to voters to take a longerterm view.

‘‘The climate change, biodiversity and inequality crises existed well before Covid19,’’ Mr Shaw said.

‘‘Now is the best chance we’ll get to tackle these challenges, but to make that happen, the Greens must be a part of the next Government.’’

Act New Zealand leader David Seymour spent the day in Christchurch, where he said the Government’s Canterbury rebuild had left the city in two halves.

‘‘You’ve got the bit in the middle that the Government took responsibility for and tried to centrally plan, and then you’ve got the very vibrant outside where everybody has moved to get on with free enterprise,’’ he said.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told a public meeting in Auckland there was no substitute for experience. He talked up his time as Acting Prime Minister and as Foreign Affairs Minister, including helping tens of thousands of New Zealanders return home during the Covid crisis, as examples of how NZ First had made the Government better.

An appeal by the media to name the two people charged with fraud in relation to the NZ First Foundation was dismissed. — The New Zealand Herald