2020 election: dismissing wealth tax talk ‘not credible’ – Shaw

The Green Party would expect to have wealth tax negotiations with Labor if they start negotiations after the election, says Green’s co-leader James Shaw.

He also defended the party’s stance on agriculture, saying the Greens would seek to fund farmers’ transition to sustainable methods and those who are already doing so would not have to pay.

The Labor Party has consistently ruled out any new unannounced taxes in addition to its proposed higher tax bracket and a tax on digital services, and leader Jacinda Ardern specifically rejected a wealth tax should it start negotiations with the Greens after the elections.

Shaw told the RNZ Morning Report that he would expect to have negotiations on a wealth tax.

“Yes, I know. I don’t know how those negotiations are going to go, of course, that depends on the elections on Saturday … you have to give the voters the opportunity to express their opinion,” he said.

Recent polls suggest that Labor would need the support of the Greens to form a government, and Shaw said wage earners were losing out compared to asset owners, who were profiting amid the economic recession and pandemic.

“Right now we are in a situation where government revenues are decreasing because the economy is contracting, at the same time that expenditures have obviously increased significantly.

“House prices were up 15 percent from the same period last year, the New Zealand Stock Exchange had a record close three to four weeks ago and at the same time, a drop in median salary was seen for the first time in history.

“People who work for a salary or a salary and who pay taxes on them are being hit as a result of the economic recession, while asset owners see the value of those [assets] inflate because of … stimulus money in the economy. “

He says there may be other ways to achieve this without a wealth tax, but “that’s what we have to do, you need to have an election and then you have to sit down and speak at the government formation stage and say ‘what it might be possible here. ‘”

“I don’t think it’s credible not to have a conversation about fairness within the tax system and the amount of revenue that the government needs to raise in order to get through this crisis and then be able to pay off the debt associated with that.”

Freshwater reforms, nitrogen levies, and agriculture

Shaw says that most farmers want to transition to more sustainable forms of agriculture in the coming years and it is not unreasonable that they are asking for support to do so.

“Margins are very tight on many farms, so they don’t have a lot of cash available to do things like implement freshwater reforms and reduce greenhouse gases, and so on.

“The package that we are adopting in this election is based on the idea of ​​a support package of $ 300 million; I would add it to the $ 700 million that we have invested in the last 12 months for freshwater reforms, and that is over. . billion dollars of support to farmers to help make those changes and the vast majority of them that is what they want to do. “

He says the proposed nitrogen limit would not affect the vast majority of farmers, and any income it collects would go directly to supporting farmers.

“The nitrogen rate that we are proposing is set at a very low rate simply to send a price signal for people to be a little more efficient at using nitrogen fertilizers.”

He says that the average dairy farmer right now would pay about $ 1,500 under the tax.

“The idea is not to increase income, if you do, 100 percent of that goes to support farmers with the transition … if they become more efficient, there is no fee.”

RMA reforms

Shaw says the Green Party is not opposed to changes to the Resource Management Act, but would like to ensure that recommendations to maintain environmental protections are carried out.

“The review that came out a couple of months before the elections was a very good job, and it proposed to maintain and, in fact, strengthen the environmental results. What we want to ensure as part of the next administration is that those proposals that are in that report they are maintained and moved to the new law. “

He said there was no need to trade environmental values ​​with the economy.

“The Greens have always argued that these things don’t have to be tradeoffs for each other and that actually a kind of clean green economy, by definition, is one that is more productive, with higher wages and with more technology.”

“I think that tradeoff is old-world thinking … the kind of status quo we’ve left behind and really … you just need to think a little more creatively about the kind of economy we want.”