So another ham-fisted announcement from the Labour Party.

In fact, it wasn’t even an announcement. Because of a leak, it was forced this morning to confirm its plan to include a capital gains tax in its policies for next year’s election.

Which looks to me like a very watered-down, scaredy-cat version of a capital gains tax that won’t impress many.

Because, if they were serious, they’d apply it to everything. None of these exclusions. Which I’ll get to.

Another fly in the ointment - aside from all the exclusions and the leak - is what the money from the tax would be used on. Three free doctor’s visits a year for all of us.

Which I think would create more problems than it would be worth.

So, if Labour forms the next government, it will introduce a capital gains tax that, if it’s to be believed, would only apply to what seems like a very short list of things.

There’d be no capital gains on the sale of the family home and there’d be no capital gains on the sale of farms. But there would be a capital gains tax on the sale of rental properties and commercial properties.

So the farmers would be happy and the landlords - residential and commercial - would be brassed-off.

There would also be no capital gains tax on KiwiSaver, shares, business assets, inheritances, and personal items. Which, Labour says, would mean 90 percent of us not paying any tax on any property we own and all of us getting three free doctor’s visits a year.

That’s because the revenue from this new tax would be funnelled straight into the health system

But has Labour really thought it through? Because, as soon as you start telling people they can go to the doctor for free three times a year, what chance do you think they’ll actually be able to get an appointment with everyone doing the same?

What’s more, Labour says “one in six New Zealanders cannot afford to visit their doctor when they are sick.” So why aren’t they targetting those people?

Why would you give free doctor’s visits to the five-out-of-six who can afford to go to the doctor?

That’s why this tax proposal is Labour’s second-worst policy idea in the last few years, coming a very close second to the non-sensical, last-minute GST-off-fruit-and-vegetables idea it cooked up before the last election.

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