Science and fact above bullshit every time.
"Ask questions" - ah that old trope. Leading questions and ignoring the answers.
Politics 🗳️ NZ Politics
- Thread starter wizard of Tauranga
- Start date
"Ask questions" - ah that old trope. Leading questions and ignoring the answers.
NZWarriors.com
Haha yeah that's fecken ridiculous. Back to means testing as the answer then.
Bernard Hickey is completely on point:
TL;DR: Carers and parents of disabled children fear a funding freeze announced this week to help pay for tax cuts will leave those at home with diabetes more vulnerable to ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome because of the de-funding of new insulin pumps and glucose monitors.
Carers of disabled people report a widening array of essential services and devices needed to keep them all safe, able to communicate and rested are being blocked from funding by Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People, including:
One carer described their fears about what might happen to their child after funding ends for the sensors.
Simmonds is not in Cabinet and signed off on the changes herself last Thursday. She then justified them on Tuesday by referring to carers using the money for holidays, haircuts and pedicures. The changes were not formally announced until the details emerged in a ministry email to suppliers.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis told Stuff this week the decision and announcement titled Purchasing Rules and Equipment and Modification Services (EMS) Update had surprised her and was clearly concerned about the reaction.
The difference is Richardson faced a genuine fiscal crisis and used it to reshape and denude Aotearoa-NZ’s social safety net. She flew to New York with her Treasury Secretary Graham Scott in January to beg Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s not to slash the Crown’s sovereign credit rating two notches, assuring the ratings agency she planned swinging spending cuts to return the Budget to surplus and start repaying foreign-currency debt that threatened to bankrupt the country if our currency slumped and interest rates jumped.
Back then, New Zealand’s public debt was mostly denominated in foreign currencies and prone to explosive increases in interest costs whenever interest rates rose and the New Zealand dollar fell. It meant that by 1990 more than 10% of export receipts had to be used to service the debt, which was denominated in short terms vulnerable to not being rolled over and with variable interest rates. New Zealand’s net Government debt in 1991 was over 52% of GDP, which was then nearly three times as high as Australia’s net debt/GDP and almost double the levels of the United States.
Fast-forward 33 years and Willis has also talked of Labour handing her ‘fiscal cliffs’ ‘budget timebombs’ and committing ‘fiscal arson’ to justify spending cuts, but the difference is Government has no foreign currency debt and borrows for long terms in New Zealand dollars via Fixed Interest Securities, which are bonds that pay a set interest rate until the bond matures. It means that changes in interest rates and the currency over the life of the bond make no difference to the Government. It has shifted the exchange rate and interest rate risk to the pension fund or bank that bought the bond.
Also, the level of New Zealand’s net debt is not only lower at 20% of GDP than the 52% reached in 1991, but is less than half Australia’s currentl level of 40% of GDP and less than a fifth of the United States’ level now of 102%.
The difference is Richardson’s swathes of cuts to the social safety were forged in the midst of a true fiscal and financial crisis for the Government, whereas Budget 2024’s cuts to disability services, school building programmes, public transport subsidies and potentially thousands of jobs is being done to mostly pay for tax reductions worth millions each year for rental property multi-millionaires.
Ka kite ano
Bernard
Paying for tax cuts by not funding insulin pumps and glucose monitors for disabled kids
Ministry confirms funding pulled for new insulin pumps & glucose monitors, raising carer fears of 'Dead in Bed syndrome'; Simmonds didn't tell Cabinet of funding halt designed to help pay for tax cuts
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesTL;DR: Carers and parents of disabled children fear a funding freeze announced this week to help pay for tax cuts will leave those at home with diabetes more vulnerable to ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome because of the de-funding of new insulin pumps and glucose monitors.
Carers of disabled people report a widening array of essential services and devices needed to keep them all safe, able to communicate and rested are being blocked from funding by Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People, including:
- devices to help autistic children and adults communicate such as special boards and tablets;
- diabetes monitors that allow carers to sleep through the night without having to worry about sudden death from a slump in glucose levels;
- Insulin pumps; and,
- Eye gaze systems to help non-verbal people who can’t move be able to communicate.
Pain of disabled funding freeze deepens
The pulling of funding for continuous glucose monitor (CGM) sensors that have to be replaced every fortnight at a cost of $100 each is particularly concerning for parents and carers, some of whom are also now not being funded for the accommodation costs of respite. See this RNZ backgrounder for more on the sensors, along with this Starship explainer for parents of children who use the sensors. See more here from Rebekah Graham via Dr Bex’s Substack, X and The SpinoffOne carer described their fears about what might happen to their child after funding ends for the sensors.
A spokeswoman for Whaikaha, Sharon Williams, confirmed yesterday the monitors could no longer be claimed for.
Messy and painful decision, and backlash
The suspension of new funding for disability services and devices without cabinet approval has blindsided both those in the disability communities and a coalition Government anxious to avoid being painted as overseeing a mean and nasty exercise in paying for tax cuts for landlords by cutting services for the most vulnerable.Simmonds is not in Cabinet and signed off on the changes herself last Thursday. She then justified them on Tuesday by referring to carers using the money for holidays, haircuts and pedicures. The changes were not formally announced until the details emerged in a ministry email to suppliers.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis told Stuff this week the decision and announcement titled Purchasing Rules and Equipment and Modification Services (EMS) Update had surprised her and was clearly concerned about the reaction.
Simmonds was repeatedly questioned in Parliament yesterday as to why she had not made a request for extra funding. Hansard
Then vs now
Nicola Willis’ big tax-cutting Budget for 2024 due on May 30 is shaping up as the heir to Ruth Richardson’s ‘Mother of all Budgets’ in 1991, which traumatised a generation and cost the National Finance Minister her job two years later.The difference is Richardson faced a genuine fiscal crisis and used it to reshape and denude Aotearoa-NZ’s social safety net. She flew to New York with her Treasury Secretary Graham Scott in January to beg Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s not to slash the Crown’s sovereign credit rating two notches, assuring the ratings agency she planned swinging spending cuts to return the Budget to surplus and start repaying foreign-currency debt that threatened to bankrupt the country if our currency slumped and interest rates jumped.
Back then, New Zealand’s public debt was mostly denominated in foreign currencies and prone to explosive increases in interest costs whenever interest rates rose and the New Zealand dollar fell. It meant that by 1990 more than 10% of export receipts had to be used to service the debt, which was denominated in short terms vulnerable to not being rolled over and with variable interest rates. New Zealand’s net Government debt in 1991 was over 52% of GDP, which was then nearly three times as high as Australia’s net debt/GDP and almost double the levels of the United States.
Fast-forward 33 years and Willis has also talked of Labour handing her ‘fiscal cliffs’ ‘budget timebombs’ and committing ‘fiscal arson’ to justify spending cuts, but the difference is Government has no foreign currency debt and borrows for long terms in New Zealand dollars via Fixed Interest Securities, which are bonds that pay a set interest rate until the bond matures. It means that changes in interest rates and the currency over the life of the bond make no difference to the Government. It has shifted the exchange rate and interest rate risk to the pension fund or bank that bought the bond.
Also, the level of New Zealand’s net debt is not only lower at 20% of GDP than the 52% reached in 1991, but is less than half Australia’s currentl level of 40% of GDP and less than a fifth of the United States’ level now of 102%.
The difference is Richardson’s swathes of cuts to the social safety were forged in the midst of a true fiscal and financial crisis for the Government, whereas Budget 2024’s cuts to disability services, school building programmes, public transport subsidies and potentially thousands of jobs is being done to mostly pay for tax reductions worth millions each year for rental property multi-millionaires.
Ka kite ano
Bernard
NZWarriors.com
The easiest payments are universal, removes admin costs. You could scoop up the universal payment with increased taxation on people that do not require it, effectively cancelling it out.
Same structure would work if we had a UBI.
Totally agree. Or don’t apply for it if you don’t need it or get the money and donate it. Some friends of my parents didn’t need the Super for themselves so they set up KiwiSaver funds for their four grandchildren and the Super gets paid to there.
Super is universal, but you do still have to 'apply' for it via MSD. I don't mind that plan either - but it also shows why the already rich get a massive leg up over others.
NZWarriors.com
@Rizzah I had an interesting talk with a neighbour this afternoon. He’s now with the Commerce Commission but used to work for the IRD. He was one of the team who established the calculator for the proportionality of mortgage deductibility and help establish the policy for it.
I asked him the question you raised this morning about should landlords who top up there rental properties not be considered investors but speculators. He had a fair bit to say about it.
They were told they were never to mention investors or speculators when talking about landlords. He also said, that when Labour MP’s and ministers were asked questions about investors or speculators, they always only referred to landlords in their answers whether they were answering questions in the house or by the media.
The reason? Speculators have a tax code which means they can claim expenses including mortgage interest deductions. Any reference by the government or the IRD in calling any landlord a “speculator” would mean they wouldn’t be bound by the mortgage deduction changes and could claim the interest of their tax bills.
So while you and other may think of landlords as speculators, Labour and the IRD would never call them that.
I asked him the question you raised this morning about should landlords who top up there rental properties not be considered investors but speculators. He had a fair bit to say about it.
They were told they were never to mention investors or speculators when talking about landlords. He also said, that when Labour MP’s and ministers were asked questions about investors or speculators, they always only referred to landlords in their answers whether they were answering questions in the house or by the media.
The reason? Speculators have a tax code which means they can claim expenses including mortgage interest deductions. Any reference by the government or the IRD in calling any landlord a “speculator” would mean they wouldn’t be bound by the mortgage deduction changes and could claim the interest of their tax bills.
So while you and other may think of landlords as speculators, Labour and the IRD would never call them that.
Maybe not speculators but certainly believing that their top ups over the years will be outstripped by capital gain. That has always been the case but some people got into the market around 2014 and values and rents soared till about 2021. Last time I saw such movement was 84 - 87, followed by a big bust.Stuff
www.stuff.co.nz
Does the revelation that most housing 'investors' have to top up payments mean that the bulk of 'investors' are actually speculators.
By definition they are a speculator.
NZWarriors.com
Joe also told me this afternoon of how frustrated IRD staff were with the legislation first being in the mortgage deductibility rules, it was full of holes and a lot of the IRD’s recommendations were just ignored. The act was latter amended to remove these loopholes….. but in some cases, the changes came too late.
One of the worst ones dealt with a landlord by a single property with two dwellings on it…. one to be used as a family home and the other to be rented out. Because the original building consent was for the two houses and there was no legal title (lot and dp) separating the two houses, banks would provide a mortgage over the property and not separate one’s for the two dwellings.
Prior to the changes Labour brought in, the property was valued and the houses proportioned for how much the houses would have been worth if sold separately. So, if the property was worth $1.,000,000 and the family home made up 60% of that value, the mortgage interest deductibility would be set at 40%.
But, in there haste to change the law, Labour removed that from the old legislation but didn’t include it in the new. This meant that anyone buying one of these properties was about to claim the mortgage deductions not just on the rental property but also of the family home.
Even worse, if they swapped houses with the tenants before two years was up, they got a refund and were then able to claim the entire interest mortgage without any deductions.
While the amended law stopped new landlords being able to claim interest mortgage reductions over the entire property, there’s still around 15 landlords currently getting mortgage interest deductions of their tax bills not just for a rental property but also for their family home.
And here's Jordan Williams of the Taxpayer's union also conveniently getting quoted on behalf of the "Ratepayer's alliance" - somewhat taking the piss in names - https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckl...f-planning-powers/3UYT6PTFLNHDZEWYLYBITWTXGA/
NZWarriors.com
Are we talking... Atlas?
Just asking? Jordan Williams is enough.
It suits their narrative to call everything a crisis, when it's not. It suits their narrative to run everything down.
It suits their narrative to blame bloating and big government when the borders have seen over 150000 people enter the country in one year.
They want to run things down. The aim is to privatise and sell off. We've been here before. It's despicable and is already costing people their livelihoods for no good reason other than ideology, greed and wealth extraction.
www.rnz.co.nz
If Labour had implemented something like fast tracking we would have heard the howls from space.
It suits their narrative to blame bloating and big government when the borders have seen over 150000 people enter the country in one year.
They want to run things down. The aim is to privatise and sell off. We've been here before. It's despicable and is already costing people their livelihoods for no good reason other than ideology, greed and wealth extraction.
The unprecedented power the government is handing three of its ministers under its new Fast Track Approval Bill
What is the Fast Track Approval Bill and why do experts say it's a step beyond even the Muldoon era?
www.rnz.co.nz
If Labour had implemented something like fast tracking we would have heard the howls from space.
NZWarriors.com
What can we do about this insidious astroturfing and spreading propaganda? Not much probably, free speech etc.
Utterly, utterly corrupt.It suits their narrative to call everything a crisis, when it's not. It suits their narrative to run everything down.
It suits their narrative to blame bloating and big government when the borders have seen over 150000 people enter the country in one year.
They want to run things down. The aim is to privatise and sell off. We've been here before. It's despicable and is already costing people their livelihoods for no good reason other than ideology, greed and wealth extraction.
The unprecedented power the government is handing three of its ministers under its new Fast Track Approval Bill
What is the Fast Track Approval Bill and why do experts say it's a step beyond even the Muldoon era?
If Labour had implemented something like fast tracking we would have heard the howls from space.
Well yeah, quite. People are pissed off with the mainstream media for many reasons - I am because they toe the line and generally favour the right.
It doesn't take much investigative journalism to at least start calling this shit out.
Particularly this nasty piece of work from the Act party -
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtNvbCW3ris
NZWarriors.com
Because capital gains taxes don’t seem to have the results overseas claimed they would. Labour, under Helen Clark, wanted one to help make housing more affordable and reduce rents. Yet, Australia have had one since Keating introduced it and they’re still having a housing crisis and rent crisis. Others say that it will help reduce inequality but have First Nations living standards increased compared to other Australians?
There also the point that a Capital Gains Tax is more expensive to collect and administer than the likes of an Inheritance Tax, or PAYE or GST. This means more money would be absorbed by the IRD before it gets to the Treasury.
Think of it this way. A businessman is owed $1,000 each by two customers. A five minute phone call costs the businessman a few dollars of his time to collect the money in full later that day. The second person disputes the account, makes promises to pay and doesn’t, several emails and phone calls later and the businessman takes him to the Disputes Tribunal where he finally agrees to pay it in installments of $20 per week.
Eventually, the businessman receives $1,000 from both people but getting from one has taken a lot more effort and time (and money as while he’s trying to recover the money he can’t earn money from other clients) than the other client.
I also don’t think people realise that a CGT will reduce their KiwiSaver and other managed funds balance as a CGT will impact their returns as a large portion of that is made up from the gain in value in shares…. and that gain will be taxed. At the moment, it’s only things like interest and dividends received which are taxed.
That said, one day a form of tax on wealth (either a wealth tax or CGT) will be introduced. Like I said the other day, both politicians and the public’s greed means it won’t be done what I consider the best way… a combination of inheritance tax and gift duty.
Speeding up recovery: fast-tracking projects to boost jobs, build houses
Fast-tracking important projects is one way the Government is creating jobs, building houses, backing the construction sector and speeding up our economic recovery. Read more
www.labour.org.nz
wait, is this what you’re talking about?
