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Jack Tame: No CGT is 'enormous failure' for PM

Author
Newstalk ZB ,
Publish Date
Wed, 17 Apr 2019, 6:24PM
Should Jacinda Ardern have done more to sell a Capital Gains Tax? (Photo / File)

Jack Tame: No CGT is 'enormous failure' for PM

Author
Newstalk ZB ,
Publish Date
Wed, 17 Apr 2019, 6:24PM

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's decision not to introduce a Capital Gains Tax may come back to bite her. 

She says Cabinet could not reach a consensus, and says she still believes such a tax would have made a difference, but a Government that reflects the majority of New Zealanders has not been able to find support for this proposal.

Ardern says the Labour Party has campaigned on this for three elections but it's now off the table.

She has pledged that under her leadership, Labour will no longer campaign for or implement a capital gains tax.

Speaking on The Huddle with Larry Williams, Jack Tame says that this is an "enormous failure" for the Prime Minister

"You have a Prime Minister who is sitting at 51 per cent in the preferred PM poll. The leader of the Opposition is currently sitting at five per cent. How many times since the Tax Working Group released its recommendations have we seen Ardern out there selling a CGT. I haven't seen it once because she hasn't been!"

Tame says that Ardern is the most charismatic Labour leader in decades, but that she has not been brought into the argument. 

"If she had come out as soon as the Tax Working Group released its recommendations and said 'this is fantastic, this is how it's going to transform our country, this is what it's going to do for the majority of New Zealanders', then she would have had a much better chance of going into those recommendations and said 'I've managed to drum up support, people are getting my message, people support some form of Capital Gains. Not once has the Prime Minister come out."

Tame says that he has done more to support the tax then the Prime Minister has done. 

Blogger David Farrar says that the blame can not be laid entirely on Winston Peter's shoulders.

"The Prime Minister said 'we're never going to campaign on this again'. That's got nothing to do with Winston. That's the Labour Party saying 'we think this is unpopular'."

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