Capital pains

The Tax Working Group’s fulsome push for a CGT has Labour on the back foot for now, as shown by the PM’s temper flashes, question dodging and strange desire to explain her ‘small business experience’.

And it has revealed a hard truth for Labour, as noted by political journalist Richard Harman on his website Politik. That is, “the future of any CGT depends on NZ First”. Harman writes that while the party publicly says it isn’t conducting any formal process to decide its policy position on CGT, its supporters are making their thoughts known loud and clear, at public meetings and on the party’s Facebook page, “mostly opposing a capital gains tax”.

“This may explain what is fast becoming obvious -- that Peters is carefully avoiding any suggestion he might support the tax.”