Tax debate and a cost of living crisis: Why Labour’s Chris Hipkins needs to spring into action - Shane Te Pou

THREE KEY FACTS

• Labour leader Chris Hipkins has claimed that NZ runs the risk of “wealth flight”.
• Hipkins says the party’s tax policy is still a live discussion.
• National responded in Parliament this week by describing tax as “comfort food for the Labour Party”.

Shane Te Pou (Ngāi Tūhoe) is a commentator, blogger and former Labour Party activist.

OPINION

Spring brings a sense of renewal and hope - the promise of better times ahead.

In te reo, kōanga means spring. In the Māori lunar calendar it’s the time for new planting - a time to work hard, with an eye on collecting the fruits of your labour in the future.

We might have just seen the earliest green shoots of that revival this week, with Labour leader Chris Hipkins coming out and stating what is obvious to anyone with eyes or ears: Aotearoa needs a new deal. We can’t simply keep doing what we have done in the past and hope that we can get away with it.

Our public services are being starved of funding, yet needs have never been greater. It takes a special kind of talent to claim that you are investing record amounts in health services while hospitals are closing because they don’t have the staff.

To take $3 billion of taxpayer money, give it to landlords like me, yet blame the state housing provider. To waste over $500 million by not buying ferries while writing IOUs for roads that our mokopuna will have to pay for.

So, when Chris Hipkins appeared on TVNZ’s Q+A and said that we needed to have an honest kōrero about tax, the size of government, and our debt, it was music to my ears. It was refreshing to hear a politician who didn’t dissemble on a topic but was straightforward with the public.

We do need to have an honest debate about these issues.

We are getting older as a population and our kids are leaving the country in greater numbers. We do need to change.

To do that, we need an economic plan and taxation that work hand in hand to deliver a better country. We need to understand how we are going to make a difference for whānau across New Zealand.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins came out and stated what is obvious to anyone with eyes or ears: Aotearoa needs a new deal. Photo / Jason Dorday

Sadly, this is where Labour has come unstuck in the past.

Elected in 2017 without a clear vision of what it would do in government, that led to working groups, huge aspirations - and little clarity about what was to come first.

The time for that planning and work is now. Spring is here in Tāmaki Makaurau, even if it’s still winter in Wellington for the Government. There is plenty for the opposition to get stuck into by simply pointing out the errors in the current Government’s programme.

However, when we have a kōrero with people around the motu, they don’t have a burning reason to vote out the Government yet. The appetite is there, but it needs feeding.

That means telling us what a better Aotearoa looks like and what the compelling case for change is. Right now, every credible economist is telling us that unemployment is going to keep rising, that energy, rent, and other costs are going to keep rising because we don’t have competition, and that we are going to see higher levels of child poverty in the future.

Labour has to get back to its roots and start talking about how it’s going to make life better for people in places the market forgot - places like the Winstone Mill, where 230 families no longer know how they are going to make ends meet.

School attendance levels will be the least of the problems for that community. Unemployment in that area will hit hard and long; it will be generational.

Hipkins needs to quickly get his caucus and party onside, then travel the motu to hold old-fashioned town hall meetings, listen to the people, and show some leadership.

Part of the kōrero also needs to be a commitment to investing in social and economic infrastructure - not just in the big cities but within the regions. The plan does not need to be huge, it needs to be meaningful and disciplined. Working folks are realistic people.

We hear a lot right now about the need to give businesses certainty, and this Government has responded. It’s made it certainly cheaper and easier to fire people. It’s certainly consulting on stripping away more rights from workers. However, there is a huge gap for a party that sets out how it’s going to create more certainty for mums and dads, kids, and communities.

Waiting for this Government to simply become more unpopular and defeat itself would be a mistake. It would also be a mistake to get into a self-indulgent squabble about tax - particularly wealth taxes that probably can’t be collected.

The opportunity is in front of us if we set out the right plan. People have to trust that their money will be spent well and that they will be able to see those improvements in front of them.

Next year marks the 90th anniversary of the first Labour Government in New Zealand. The one-term United-Reform Coalition that came before Michael Joseph Savage’s Government attempted to solve the country’s economic problems by cutting public spending, which made the Government hugely unpopular.

It was ejected by the public in favour of a party with a plan to deliver a brighter future for everyone. As Mark Twain famously said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”