Archives for October 2020 | Josie Pagani

JOSIE PAGANI

STRAIGHT AND TRUE

Election 2020: If not now, when?

If not now, when?

I bet they wish they'd been a bit more ambitious. Instead, they have boxed themselves in with water-tight commitments - no wealth tax, no capital gains tax, no increase in the age of eligibility for Super.

Josie's post-election column in the New Zealand Herald is here.

Election 2020: A call I never expected a Labour leader to make

I never thought I'd hear a Labour Prime Minister promise no tax on wealth while she's in charge, but hold the line of banning cotton buds. In my normal universe, the Green party would be demanding a bottom line on those cotton buds, and Labour would be making no such promise.

They've entered the final week of campaigning implicitly promising to choose more inequality, not less.

Previously Jacinda Ardern ruled out taxing income gained from increases in the value of owning stuff like rental houses, shares or gold and diamonds.

She has also promised to resign if a wealthy, healthy and fit, employed 65 year old receives a cent less superannuation as a 66 year old. And in a low point of the leaders' debates she supported taxpayer subsidies so that the most affluent families in the country could grow crystal gardens at a private fee-paying green school.

Josie's final pre-election column in the New Zealand Herald is here.

Election 2020: put a fork in it. They're done

Labour is miles ahead. The Greens and Act are going to easily crest the 5 per cent threshold.

Campaigns tell us whether parties are ready. National's campaign tells us they don't deserve to govern. They won't.

Josie's column in the New Zealand Herald is here.

Election 2020: Minor party leaders' debate

Josie joined Tim Dower on Newstalk ZB to review the televised debate featuring the minor party leaders.

Election 2020: Labour becoming Green

Why, though, is Labour morphing into the Green Party?

It was an extraordinary moment to hear a Labour leader support handing over $12 million to a private green school that teaches the children of the 1 per cent to grow crystals and "activate their DNA", whatever that means. You can't be against inequality and poverty, then promise more money for the most affluent Greens. Truth is, the Labour leader is most animated in these debates when promising to declare a climate-change emergency, or spend its proposed tax increase on a hydro energy project in Lake Onslow, instead of on struggling schools and health.

It's hard to distinguish the Greens from Labour in this election

Read Josie’s election column in the New Zealand Herald here.

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