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Dickens: CGT backdown shows Ardern and Key are one and the same

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Thu, 18 Apr 2019, 2:34PM
"I am now finding it hard to find any concrete evidence that this government is fundamentally differing from the previous two governments." (Photo / NZ Herald)

Dickens: CGT backdown shows Ardern and Key are one and the same

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Thu, 18 Apr 2019, 2:34PM

So no Capital Gains Tax.

An old French philosopher once said: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"

It means the more things change the more they stay the same.  We have a Labour led coalition government that came in with a coalition partner saying that capitalism had failed.  They called themselves a transformational government and this year was the year of delivery. The spooked  the busness sector with a minimum wage rise and a halt to future oil and gas exploration and gave beneficiaries a payrise and then……

Nothing.

Labour law reform stymied.  Immigration is back on the rise. Teachers pay dispute deadlocked.  The Zero Carbon Bill marooned in a rising tide of scepticism.  Vulnerable children on the rise.  Mental Health and State Care Abuse reports still eons away. 

Quietly this week Grant Robertson reiterated the Budget Responsibility Rules so there will be no spending greater than revenue.

I am now finding it hard to find any concrete evidence that this government is fundamentally differing from the previous two governments.  Pragmatic, poll driven compromisers.  Ardern and Key are two sides of the same coin and not wildly different in action but only in rhetoric.

And that doesn’t worry me.  I’ll just get on with being the best I can be and so should you.

Meanwhile, Auckland’s underground rail development just blew it’s budget by a billion and could be late in completion.  Gee what a surprise.  Who didn’t see that coming?

We can’t cry over blown budgets because we’re too far gone now and in 20 years’ time we’ll be thankful for the infrastructure and I’ve always said what a pity we didn’t do this in the 50s.

But the Auckland mayor now has to find 500 mill.  He wants to keep his promise not to increase the rates.  So he’s got a plan.

That plan may include selling or leasing the council’s 4500 city carparks.  Now I first greeted this with some despair as those carparks are the last affordable ones in town and then I stopped and wondered why they volunteered this idea so quickly.

Is it part of their plan?  Give the car parks to private industry and watch the prices shoot up into the stratosphere and the result?   Force more people out of their cars.

Depending on which way you stand this is either a genius idea or a new level of social engineering evil.  And it’s even more brilliant when you realise a lot of people who complain that Council’s are in too many businesses that should be in the private sector can’t complain unless they want to be seen as self-serving hypocrites.

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