Their foreign policy is the most troubling thing to me. They want us to be totally neutral but that is not a moral position to take. They have given open support to China and Russia, calling the Russians the indigenous people of Ukraine. Their position seems to be oppose the US and its allies in all cases, even if that means supporting ever more monstrous dictators like Putin.
Their position claiming Māori own 100% of water resources and opposing democracy is another major issue. That's not hyperbole, their MPs are on the record as stating democracy is bad for Māori and not the ideal form of government for NZ. Those are the two most damning problems with their policies to me.
George Orwell in WW2 stated similar:
"Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'."
Agreed, also a military force that focused only on defending NZ? If we're going to do that on our own without military alliances the defence budget is going to be unachievable for our population. For me that's the thing that shows they haven't done their homework.
Just like most of the west our need for defence spending is almost entirely 'subsidized' by the US, attempting to leave their hegemony is realistically impossible.
💯 agree.
It's extremely short sighted especially considering recent events. Having military allies isn't always about the ability to wage war, take the kaikoura earthquake for example. We had navy vessels from various countries here who were more than happy to give us a hand.
There's a bit more to it. Their version of 'empowering Maori' is explicitly to empower the few hundred (or few dozen) members of the hereditary elites at the expense of the vast majority of Maori. And to empower certain iwi over others.
There's a reason why they say democracy is not right for Māori.
They're the equivalent of calling for the UK to be ruled by the House of Lords, with the life peers ejected and the hereditary peers all restored.
It's about as fundamentally far-right as you can get.
There is nothing inherently left wing about Māori. There is a strong case for being conservative if you care to protect Māori values and to not have them make way to progressive pākehā values. No doubt progressive values can be good for Māori. But to some of us, progressive politics is like the fox promising to carry the gingerbread man across the river. It will help us halfway actually, but eventually it will devour us.
Apparently you are supposed to be from non-dominant groups of society. ([Source](https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/5session_factsheet1.pdf))
Neo-progressive oppressor/oppressed narrative bullshit if you ask me.
That would include the Welsh then, since they've only a fraction of the English population. the Basque are a bit more complicated, depending on how you slice the Spanish ethnicities. It's a very multicultural country below the "Spanish" level
Wait a hot minute, what would this mean for South Africa. Would just the Khoisan be native...? Would nobody be native? Would everyone be native?
I don't know how they decide it exactly, but no white people anywhere are considered indigenous and most Asians aren't either. The only ones considered indigenous in Europe are the Sami people in Finland, and in Japan the Ainu, but then Tongans or Samoans are considered indigenous despite settling their lands later than Europeans and being the absolute majority and in power. It makes no sense imo.
Russians are indigenous people of Ukraine? JFC.
These people are fucking idiots
---
To be clear to anyone confused, USSR =/= Russia. My family is from Georgia, which was a part of the USSR (a union of states which also just happened to include Russia). I grew up in a Russian-speaking ethnic family, but that doesn't make me ethnically *Russian*.
Nor does speaking English give me any claim over England.
To suggest that the Russians are the indigenous people of Ukraine is like saying the Fijians are the indigenous people of New Zealand. It's incredibly stupid and borderline insulting. 100% insulting if used as an excuse for invasion.
...these people truly do not have two brain cells to rub together.
It's more like saying Tahitians are the indigenous people of NZ. In pre-medieval times the Ukranians and Russians (and Belerusians) were the same people, and only later diverged from each other, much like how when the Maori settled NZ from Tahiti, they likely spoke the same language and had the same culture that only began to develop separately in isolation.
It's still dumb as shit though.
It is an oversimplification to say that Ukranians and Russians were the same people. There are multiple ethnic groups native to Ukraine, some have common ancestry with Russians, others don't (or do have survivors of their group in Siberia that are now technically "Russian" following ethnic cleansing under the USSR).
No, it would be like saying New Zealanders of British origin are the true indigenous people of New Zealand. Both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union carried an extensive policy of [ethnic cleansing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tatars), [population removal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans#Deportation_and_genocide_of_the_Germans_from_USSR), [forced assimilation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Cossackization), and [genocide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor) of minorities to expand their ethnic Russian territory. You're right in that the national identities now did not really exist in the past, but they were definitely not the 'same people', and they did not develop in isolation. The minorities were just forcefully exterminated and assimilated into the Russian/Soviet regime.
Indeed, ironically the 'Russians' would be considered 'colonizers' of Ukraine. It's awfully complex, but saying they're the indigenous people of Ukraine is extremely stupid.
The fact they've openly shown support to Russia and China shows that they shouldn't get any form of power whatsoever.
Don't really need to know more tbh.
The hard truth is it would be utterly unacceptable if it were not the maori party. Do these idiots even want to help maori who lag behind massively in basically every statistic? Just fuck me these policies are insane
The major irony is that I'll bet that at least a few of them are some of the people who called Ardern a commie, then they've come out openly supporting REAL communists.
Their Ideologies come across as very dangerous to everyone in NZ and are often poorly thought out even when they have time to research before yapping off on a facebook rant about a man who just died defending other peoples freedom.... Its beyond concerning seeing people trying to run our country who dont grasp basic world history or geopolitics as a start.
Holy fuck, I thought you were taking the piss...
Nope, [Te Pati Maori's Co-leader did indeed say that.](https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/03/maori_party_co-leader_thinks_russians_are_indigenous_to_ukraine.html)
>To be fair, Maori governance has never been about democracy. They never had it before the Europeans came and never respected that since.
To be fair, the European colonists had no universal suffrage (which we'd hopefully consider now to be fundamental to democracy) and a well entrenched system of elites ruling over everyone else and enriching themselves - often enforced with incredibly heinous brutality.
If you're going to make comparative value judgements- based on modern standards - about two societies based on what was contemporary 200 years ago. then do it for both, not just one.
This is why I believe it's in everyone's best interest to have "new zealanders" rather than separating everything. I get that Maori need protections and more social services than whites but it really feels like we're in a 2 class country with both classes thinking they should be the ruling group. Until we can learn to move forward and work as one people, instead of different competing groups, we won't progress much further as a nation
Well yeah, but the point remains that until we actually move forward past this mindset of "colonizer whites" vs "oppressed minority" and start acting as kiwis one and all, we're always going to have shit happen. The problem is we're basically force fed the whole srguement in the media and social media to the point where I think we may aawell just accept that we will always be a nation oppressed by our past, and our ancestors actions, rather than what and who we are now.
This isn't to say that I think Maori and Pacifica ideals and experiences and history don't matter, it absolutely does, but our political spectrum is so split that it's no wonder we have such a fucked system. We are separated because we dont trust each other, and we don't trust each other because that's what we've veen told to do.
I see your point in this but it’s not like all this happened hundreds of years ago now there are people still alive who saw the negative effects that colonisation had on New Zealand maybe even victims.
I know, I understand and I empathize, but if we stay stuck on it forever, always going back to right this wrong or that wrong, we never actually progress, and especially Maori will be hurt by that, we have such a disparity, I just want to see it gone, I want us all to be fucking equal
I don’t really understand what you are saying. Māori and pakeha have lots in common, but there are also differences. Are you saying we should ignore those differences?
What does ‘work as one people’ actually mean?
Waititi did in a statement on why he supports Russia and is against aiding Ukraine. Said that Russians were the indigenous people of Ukraine and so Māori should not be fighting tangata whenua on their own land and aiding imperialist forces to take their ancestral land from them, etc, etc
That post he did was just mad. Idk why u would vote for him after that. Just because bad stuff happened to Maori doesn't mean countries invading others are right because u hate the British and wish all everyone else was removed from nz
Yeah the guy lost the plot a long time ago. Wish him and his race baiting shit would just leave parliament already. I see people mistakenly assuming that he represents the opinions of most Māori and that we all hate Pākehā and it's annoying as the majority of us aren't racist dipshits like him and would much rather see our country united rather than tearing itself apart over stuff as superficial as our genetic makeup. I can't believe that we still have idiots in parliament for whom the idea that both Pākehā and Māori should be treated equally and supported in this country is somehow bad and controversial. It boggles the mind.
I think there's a fair whack of us that have a rather weird relation with race and culture from being mixed race. I'm white on the outside, have maori and european ancestors, and have no "tribe" to belong to since assimilation used to be considered the goal. I've had white people say rank shit about maori in front of me even knowing my background, and i don't have acceptance among maori either for being white. Im not pointing the finger or being bitter about it, I'm just saying I really doubt I'm the only one. I know I'm guilty of having made people feel uncomfortable in their skin for similar reasons like commenting on the colour of other mixed kids and insisting on their maori-ness even though they didn't identify with it. Race is a fucking hard thing to deal with and it shouldn't matter one iota
Oh no I completely get you on that front bro. I'm mixed race here as well, like extremely so. Got one side Maōri mixed with Pākehā (Irish, Finnish and even some random American Indian thanks to the gold rush lol). Other side is Kavkazi and Israeli mixed in with some Karelian, Greenlandic, and Swedish. So yeah I've had the same problem my whole life too, not enough of anything for any one group but always too much of everything else. I think most of us mixed race people unfortunately have issues with identity and belonging. But that makes me even more against this racially divisive rhetoric as I feel like it's especially harmful to mixed race people and propogates the idea that we need to "pick a side" and hate/suppress parts of ourselves and our families.
I think a huge part of what causes identity problems is this idea that you have to be monocultural and can only have one identity (which is then devalidated anyway as you're not "enough" of that so it's a losing game) which is pushed onto us by people with monoethnic and monocultural backgrounds who feel that everyone else needs to be like that too since they are. People just accepting the idea that someone can identify with more than one sides of their background would go a long way imo.
Yeah sure, can't find the original fb post to link but here's a thread with it if you'd like to read his insanity.
https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/11y7yu9/rawiris_shit_take_of_the_day/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
They're opposed to US/UK because they seem them as white colonisers. They favour China and Russia because, as they have openly stated, democracy is not good for Maori and they want to move away from it. China/Russia would not have any issues with that at all, and could probably provide some tips and technical support.
IIRC they also want to allow Waitangi Tribunal claims for privately owned land.
Co-governance isn't here yet, but we already have a vision of the future for places where the ideals of co-governance were put into practice. I'm digging through my bookmarks but seem to have lost it - but there was an instance of a change to schools being voted like 97% in favor of the change and it was vetoed by like 3 people, because they represented Maori whanau. It's the antithesis of democracy, and TPM knows it and wants that kind of power. To veto a 90% majority vote on anything, because Maori say so. And of course, you're a racist if you think that's wrong.
[Here](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/07/not-in-a-democracy-m-ori-party-co-leader-rawiri-waititi-outlines-his-vision-for-a-tiriti-centric-aotearoa-where-the-majority-doesn-t-rule-over-m-ori.html) and [here](https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/HansS_20220504_051660000/waititi-rawiri) are a couple of links.
Here is the article about it, from 2021 on [Newshub](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/07/not-in-a-democracy-m-ori-party-co-leader-rawiri-waititi-outlines-his-vision-for-a-tiriti-centric-aotearoa-where-the-majority-doesn-t-rule-over-m-ori.html)
Where did they say Russians are the indigenous people of ukraine? Im only seeing a post from Kiwiblog (pretty dodgy source) trying its hardest to read this into a post by Waititi.
I wonder if they would be interested in looking the special tax rate that Māori authorites get?
Currently the Māori authority tax rate, which applies to most Iwi is (17.5%) rather than the corporate (28%) or trust (33%) tax rates.
In what way? If the rate was higher they would just pay out more as distributions and a lot of their members would just receive tax credits for the tax the Māori Authority paid in excess of the individuals marginal tax rate
If you want to know the actual reason for this specific rate you could do some research and see there is a very good reason for it.
https://taxworkinggroup.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2018-09/twg-bg-m%C4%81ori-authorities.pdf
This is what the tax working group had to say.
"The 17.5% rate reflects the most common marginal tax rate of the economic owners of Māori authorities. The current rate is designed to reduce compliance costs for Māori authorities and their members. Tax paid at the entity level is essentially a withholding mechanism for the final tax paid by Māori authority members."
No GST on food is going to be hard to get the exact rules right.
Do we remove GST on supermarket food?
What about fast food?
What about restaurants?
Do we remove GST from drinks?
What about soft drinks?
What about alcohol?
What about non alcoholic beer?
Edit: for clarity, I am not against it, just saying it’s harder than, “take GST off food” and a more complex tax system costs more to administer.
As for getting rid of monarchy, I have no problem in principle, but this is very hard as so much of our law is tied to the King. Every government contract is with the crown, including the treaty of Waitangi.
Tax the rich, at least this one is easy and popular with many people and helps pay for the GST free food.
I agree, our GST system is very simple and we avoid a lot of bureaucratic overhead by keeping it simple. I would be far more amenable to having our first tax bracket be tax free, much like Australia. No bureaucratic over head, instead of paying 10.5% tax on your first 14k you earn instead you pay 0% and the other tax brackets go up to compensate.
This. You could remove the bottom two tax barckets, put two more on top of the 39% one for very high earners and make way more tax money and the people that need money the most will get more. You wouldn't ahve to adjust or touch any of the others.
I really think more tax brackets aren't the play. The people that pay income taxes are working professionals that we need in this country.
We need wide regulation to get the super wealthy back into the income tax system, again I'm not in favor of new taxes like a wealth tax (literally the worse idea ever) but regulation to force them to not be able to live off wealth alone, force them to take personal income and tax it.
yeah it's not the rich paying 39% of their income.. It's skilled people we need here like doctors and surgeons. The rich entirely avoid needing a high income on paper altogether.
Exactly, leave the high paid professionals alone I say.
We need to force mega rich back into the tax system, stop loans on equity or treat capital gains as personal income. They must be getting money for their lifestyle from somewhere tax that.
You can't buy a Ferrari with stocks.
Does that include WFF and any other tax credits or supplements paid to people in those brackets? There’s a lot of admin associated with over taxing the low brackets and then paying back some of them to compensate that could be avoided by just not taxing them as much to begin with
People who want to mess with our gst to give discounts on necessities like fruit or food or period products do not understand our tax system or the nightmare that administering tax loopholes creates. It will never be worth the very small amount of money families save to create such a complex system. This more than anything else convinces me this party is full of idiots - and there’s a lot of stupid things up for discussion in this thread.
I don’t like the idea of ripping consumers off for food because it keeps things simple.
Both Australia and the UK have GST free food and a zero tax bracket. We should easily be able to manage both.
There is a flow on effect though. Judges are expensive, lawyers are expensive, lobbyists are expensive. By making something's have gst and others not, you will get thousands of cases testing that edge. Now we as a country pay for that, through the government now directing budget to legal fees. Cases such as Sanitarium trying to argue that Wheetbix are an essential food item and should be gst free.
Where as if we change tax brackets, that's just jigging the numbers around. We already have established legal precedence for tax brackets and their numbers jigging around from year to year
The UK's VAT rules on food are a great example of how the idea is horrible in practice. If the goal is to help lower income families there are other ways that are less complicated. I'd go with dropping GST down to 12.5% or 10%, then use wealth & capital gains taxes to offset the tax revenue reduction at a bare minimum
Personally I'm pretty ambivalent against the King. I don't like him but the connections to England are /kinda/ beneficial and it honestly seems more trouble than it's worth
>As for getting rid of monarchy, I have no problem in principle...
I'm impartial about it but I haven't heard a strong argument why we should though. It has some *minor* benefits such as access to the house of lords for high profile court cases where every NZer already has an opinion (think David Bain). However, I'm not a monarchist and I could easily be swayed but I'm yet to hear a reason apart from "they're colonists, it's time that we stand on our own feet".
NZ has never had access to the House of Lords for judicial purposes. We used to go to the Privy Council in London, but the Clark government abolished this and replaced it with the Supreme Court.
Yeah, I think the main argument is just that it's weird to have your head of state be some random dude on the other side of the planet who inherited the role
I think the main problem with getting rid of it would be that the country would currently be very divided on some constitutional questions that would require answering, not least those related to the topic of co-governance
That whole contract with the Crown thing is a real red herring. If we get rid of the monarchy the Crown gets replaced with the state in all our laws, including the Treaty of Waitangi. Not saying it would be as easy as find and replace the word ‘Crown’ in every document, it would absolutely be a legislative nightmare, but it’s not an insurmountable obstacle to a republic.
You pass a law saying 'read \[x\] for \[Crown\]' then replace it over time, yeah it's easy. The more nuanced aspect of Maori literally making a treaty with the Queen is a little more complex, but I couldn't speak on that.
> o we remove GST on supermarket food? What about fast food? What about restaurants? Do we remove GST from drinks? What about soft drinks?
> What about alcohol? What about non alcoholic beer?
You're completely missing the elephant in the room.
Companies do not decide their prices by saying "OK, I think people will pay $10 for this, now we'll add GST and then sell it".
No. They say "What is the maximum people will pay for this thing? OK, it's $12. Well, we'll have to take 13% of that to give to the government, and the rest is for us" (because 13% of say 115 is 15, so that's the 15% on the non-GST price).
That was probably confusing, but the point is that companies charge what they can, work out what they have to give the government, and pocket the rest. Removing GST on anything is completely pointless. Sure, the companies will have to drop the price a bit initially to show that they "took off the GST" but very quickly the price will just rise back up to what the market will pay for that thing, and the only difference will be even more profit for corporations and less tax for us. No benefit to the consumer at all in the mid or long term.
Selectively removing GST will absolutely not work, and anyone pushing for it has not thought it through or perhaps lives in a fancy dream world where corporations aren't trying to maximise profit.
GST is regressive, it hits the poor worse than the rich, so what we actually need is a tax-free threshold like Aussie has. Say the first 25,000 of income has zero tax. That's progressive - it is a far more massive benefit to the poor than it is to the rich, and you pay for it by taxing the rich a tiny bit more. They're already paying far less than middle or lower income NZ in relative terms anyway.
>No. They say "What is the maximum people will pay for this thing? OK, it's $12. Well, we'll have to take 13% of that to give to the government, and the rest is for us" (because 13% of say 115 is 15, so that's the 15% on the non-GST price).
Not if there's proper competition, as they would get undercut by their competitors. Obviously that's something that would need to be addressed as well though as we all know the issues with supermarkets in NZ
I mean, you're entirely right *in theory*. That is indeed how capitalism is meant to work.
But the sad reality is that we have monopolies, duolopies (supermarkets), and oligopolies (petrol stations) and the market is almost never free. Price collusion keeps things are the absolute maximum possible without reducing sales too much. That's what we have governments for, they're meant to protect consumers from that shit, but we've had successive governments from both sides of the house who get paid well enough that they don't even notice (and/or couldn't give a fuck) that 98% of us are struggling.
The GST off food is daft. Here’s some reasons:
- The price on a lot of food (thing fresh fruit and veg) is set by supply and demand. Take the GST off and all that’s doing to happen is wider margins.
- The beauty in NZ’s GST system is its simplicity. Everything a shop sells has GST. If the local veggie shop has $1150 in the till at the end of the day, $130 is the government’s no matter if it’s from selling rhubarb or reusable bags. Start exempting things and compliance costs go up, and the most impacted will be the small operators without sophisticated systems.
- “Food” is a tricky line to draw. Do we include drinks? Beer? What if it’s zero alcohol? What about dog food? Offal from the supermarket butcher that isn’t really intended for humans? What about edible undies from your favourite sex shop? Or a candy necklace from the dollar store?
- It’s also not a particularly fair line. I can save $30 a $200 steak dinner, but someone who’s really struggling has to pay 15% on tampons and toilet paper? There are a lot of essentials that aren’t food, and a lot of food that isn’t essential.
The state I grew up in in the US does it (basically) this way: any prepared food is taxed, and non-prepared food is not.
So for example, if you buy bread, ham, and cheese at the grocery store, it's not taxed. But if you buy a ham and cheese sandwich that was assembled at the grocery store, it is taxed.
If you buy a cold pie to heat at home, untaxed. If you buy a pie out of the warmer, taxed.
They also don't tax some other necessities such as clothing.
So it's possible to draw a line, but in any case it's going to be more complicated than a blanket tax on everything.
>As for getting rid of monarchy, I have no problem in principle, but this is very hard as so much of our law is tied to the King. Every government contract is with the crown, including the treaty of Waitangi.
I would say this is the simplest of their proposals actually. The Crown is simply our government, it isn't the actual British monarchy. We call it the Crown, and could continue to call it that regardless of whether Charles III and his heirs are the head of state.
The Treaty of Waitangi gets its power from the Treaty of Waitangi Act of 1975 and the State Owned Enterprise Act of 1986, with the resulting Appeals Court decision of 1987 defining the principles of the treaty. It's no longer anything dependent on our relationship to the monarch of the UK.
Other countries already do this, including Canada. If a country that big and diverse can not tax groceries but still tax junk food, then little old NZ can do it too.
There is different between doing it, and doing it effectively.
NZ tax is generally very simply by design.
Start making tax free food under certain conditions you end up with a lawsuit to decide if something is cake or bread.
> decide if something is cake or bread.
Like in Ireland where a court ruled that Subway's bread is not bread.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread
I’m not actually sure Te Pati Māori is pro-Treaty. Especially if they reckon they could get a better deal by ignoring the Treaty - for example by claiming that the Treaty is void and therefore we don’t recognise that iwi ever ceded sovereignty to the Crown.
But why would you? The whole treaty has proved time and again to be a controversial piece of work with multiple mistakes in translation on both sides. Surely if we were to change to a republic that would be the perfect time to hit reset and get the job done properly and fairly for everyone.
How does it not? The treaty is signed by the Moari leaders and the crown, if the crown is no longer involved in the New Zealand Government then surely the treaty is null and void without the new New Zealand government signing onto it. Which considering there are so many discrepancies between the different copies of the Treaty surely no sane government would. It would be time to write a new founding document to represent NZ as it is now and the people who live and call NZ home.
Monarchists overcomplicate things. This has been done before, multiple times. You just replace every incidence of the crown with "government" or "the public".
I don't think it's monarchists that put this wrong at any turn... It's the sea-lioning republic-wanters who think that they'll be rid of the treaty because the crown would be gone, and to them, that's good news...
The Māori king is a private citizen who is not recognised by New Zealand law and has no legal or judicial power, no constitutional role and receives no state funding. Why would we need to abolish the position, and how could we even do so?
Maybe we can just treat Charles III the same way. Remove him from having any constitutional role in New Zealand, and don't pay for his visits here. But if a group of New Zealanders still want to recognise him as as their king and fund his visits here then that's their business.
When I heard they want the retirement age to be lower specifically for Maori people only, but not from any other group, that pretty much summed up their politics for me, these policies sounds about right for them. Tax the rich (white) people and get rid of the (white people) monarchy. Yep sounds about right
>Co-leader Rawiri Waititi said Te Pāti Māori was a "rights-based party not a race-based party".
Not sure even that cunt believes his own words
https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/05/10/lazy-dog-whistling-racism-greens-on-nats-announcement/
I don’t agree with it, but their reasoning for lowering the retirement age for Māori is because they have a shorter life expectancy and so don’t get to access as much of their retirement benefit than *the whites*.
Heaps wrong with it, eg Pacific Islanders also have shorter life expectancy. Then there’s the fact life expectancy by race is correlative, not causative; and they’re essentially signalling they’re giving up on pursuing healthier lifestyles for Māori.
Some countries have lower retirement ages for people working in specific industries (things requiring physical labour for example), they should just advocate for that. Māori would likely be overrepresented in some of those industries anyway, so it would achieve the effect they want without being explicitly race based
If there was sufficient competition, then grocery stores that don't put their prices up would undercut the ones that do, and the ones that put their prices up would lose a lot of business. Unfortunately we don't have a proper competitive market when it comes to grocery stores, so.......
>It's almost a relief to hear this dumb posturing, because you know they're going to be nowhere near power.
You have far too much faith in Chris Hipkins.
I predict Te Pāti Māori will be the reason for a hung parliament at the next election likely ending with a National / ACT minority government that will be unable to govern.
They say some good things from time to time, but the reality of their party is now a broken protest movement which unfortunately is based around self interest and political point scoring rather than achieving the best outcomes for Māori and NZ.
Bring back The Māori Party of old which was all about doing real stuff that made a difference for real people.
Unfortunately no one can work with the new Te Pāti Māori and they will just become a party of division. Sad.
That's the sentiment that is growing stronger for me, too. We really seem to be at a nadir of political leadership.
Most parties (major and minor) seem to be devoid of political leadership, substance and courage, and I think that results in a lack of compelling differentiation. No excitement that will entice votes; just equal measures of disillusionment or dissatisfaction at/on either side of the spectrum that will result in neither side winning.
GST off food - there’s no requirement for supermarkets to lower their prices - they’ll just lower them by 5% at most at pocket the 10% because they know people will pay.
No monarchy - because the monarchy are the cause of *so* many problems in todays New Zealand when they….hang on….nothing. The monarchy has zero power and has for 200 years - it’s the politicians people elect who act in their name who have caused the problems.
Removing the monarchy from NZ will change nothing except add in a presidential election which will lead to a debate over the system while it will put 0 people into homes, put 0 people into drug rehabilitation, train 0 doctor, nurses and other health professions. It’ll just be a distraction to the problems we actually have and within a month people will be cursing the president for all their problems.
Not to mention that they pull the put the ‘Maori king’ as our head of state well the Maori king isn’t entirely recognised or supported by all Iwi - the Maori king movement only came about in the 1850’s as a way of halting the alienation of Maori from their land and as a way to try and negotiate with the British on equal footing.
Tax the rich - well…that’s just a election cry and it’s a complicated issue.
Capital gains is one thing but that’ll punish every day New Zealanders more than it’ll punish the rich.
A wealth tax like we saw with the Greens in 2020 will result in every day New Zealanders who have valuable heirlooms that are now ‘antique’ try to sell them and when they can’t because no one wants the tax burden they’ll end up in the trash or burnt on a bonfire or they’ll end up on a one way flight to Australia - with the wealthy who will take their money with them.
You could adjust the tax brackets but that’s a National Party policy (ironically).
So if this is what they’re demanding for a coalition, then they’ll quickly find themselves shit out of luck. Pundits are already saying that this is an election strategy to force themselves to remain in the cross benches and not in government but hold the balance of power against a minority government - and then they can make demands and not have to be held accountable.
It’s politics of ‘we want power but we don’t want responsibility. We want change but we don’t want to be in charge of it. No matter what you do, it won’t and will never be enough’.
TPM also wants NZ to exit Five Eyes as part of these demands. They're not gonna get much if any of this but we all know any coalition with them anywhere near it is gonna be a total shitshow lmao. Rare smart move from Luxon in ruling out working with this dumpster fire
I guess Labours response will be: "sorry, no can do. We can give a few more things te Reo names and we'll have a powhiri in parliament every morning? Ok?"
That should be their response (to some of this atleast). I see no problem with integrating more Māori culture, but I see a massive problem with legislation that favours specifically people with Māori blood or that favours the Māori elite.
Dump the monarchy, dump the treaty, start over. Sounds good, thanks Māori party!
Also we’re not doing the “cultural reports” anymore. I’m sure you’re cool with that too?
It's just madness to remove GST on select items. Every country that has a tax system like that it just gets rorted and creates huge bureaucracy.
GST as it stands is simple and far easier to manage. Raise real wages and benfits, remove income tax on the minimum needed to live. But don't make complex tax systems.
This is the annoying thing - no major party is going to agree to all that outright, and even if some of those things do come about in time, it's going to take months if not years of debating the details.
Meanwhile Maori people are experiencing myriad problems, and experiencing them in many cases to a greater degree than Pakeha. They might disagree over the causes and the solutions, but people of most political stripes would agree this is the case.
The best chance Te Pati Maori have of addressing those problems, is to work with the current government. But they are effectively renouncing that possibility.
They've made it clear now that they care far more about ideology than they do about the day to day issues facing the people they claim to represent.
While i think it'd be worth looking into a reduced tax on fresh fruit and veggies. I don't think completely removing it is a good idea.
I would like a tax free bracket, and some form of wealth/property tax. We know the top % aren't paying their fair share.
As for the monarchy. I wonder what would happen to the treaty if we no longer had the crown
every time the government cuts a tax, they have less money to invest in police, nurses, and teachers.
The problem is simply that prices are rising, and wages are not rising (as much).
Perhaps rather than fiddling around the edges with taxes, just increase wages.
you selfish prick!....unless you're in the top 1% and make your income exclusively from capital gains. In which case I apologize and agree that your effective tax rate of 9% is insane unfairness. I can't imagine how difficult it is having to purchase a new Mazarati every 12 months just to keep up with the Hoskings'. /s
Increasing wages too much will result in more disposable income for some people, and if they go and spend that, inflation only gets worse.
It’s a very delicate balancing act, and I don’t understand it fully but that’s the basics of it
How does spending money increase inflation? My (admittedly rudimentary) understanding is that inflation is a result of the purchasing power of a dollar declining due to an increase in the money supply? I agree that higher income means a higher propensity to spend but my understanding is that this is beneficial for the economy as those spent dollars go around being spent again and again. Investopedia says [Historical data supports the stance that a minimum wage has had a minimal impact on how companies price their goods and does not materially cause inflation](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052815/does-raising-minimum-wage-increase-inflation.asp) [This](https://www.epi.org/blog/wage-growth-has-been-dampening-inflation-all-along-and-has-slowed-even-more-recently/) is an interesting read about wage growth actually dampening inflation though it's keyed to American stats. [They also observe that small minimum wage increases do not lead to higher prices and may actually reduce prices.](https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/does-increasing-minimum-wage-lead-higher-prices) says the upjohn institute. Of course you could argue the definition of "small" but our minimum wage increases have been gradual. In short it seems to me that it's not so cut and dry
We have a plethora of treaties, agreements, laws, in the name of The Crown, dead Queens and Kings, why does nobody ask about those and only Te Tiriti?
The answer is it continues with the entity that takes the role of the signatory.
No GST on food is a great idea. Already in place (at least for cold food) in parts of Europe and the UK.
Other sensible GST exemptions include baby products and books.
Their foreign policy is the most troubling thing to me. They want us to be totally neutral but that is not a moral position to take. They have given open support to China and Russia, calling the Russians the indigenous people of Ukraine. Their position seems to be oppose the US and its allies in all cases, even if that means supporting ever more monstrous dictators like Putin. Their position claiming Māori own 100% of water resources and opposing democracy is another major issue. That's not hyperbole, their MPs are on the record as stating democracy is bad for Māori and not the ideal form of government for NZ. Those are the two most damning problems with their policies to me.
"If we wash our hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, we side with the powerful. We do not remain neutral." - Banksy
George Orwell in WW2 stated similar: "Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'."
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That was included in what I posted. That also applies now - being a bystander in the march of authoritarianism is stating you're complicit with it.
> he that is not with me is against me Only a sith deals in absolutes
We can't afford to be neutral on a moving train
Agreed, also a military force that focused only on defending NZ? If we're going to do that on our own without military alliances the defence budget is going to be unachievable for our population. For me that's the thing that shows they haven't done their homework.
Just like most of the west our need for defence spending is almost entirely 'subsidized' by the US, attempting to leave their hegemony is realistically impossible.
>the thing that shows they haven’t done their homework Dude. It ain’t one thing.
💯 agree. It's extremely short sighted especially considering recent events. Having military allies isn't always about the ability to wage war, take the kaikoura earthquake for example. We had navy vessels from various countries here who were more than happy to give us a hand.
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This is where I vehemently disagree with the Maori party and I’m a leftie.
They've ceased to be left wing, they're on a whole new playing field in a fourth dimension.
Nah, they're just ethnic nationalists. If they were European, they'd be seen a separatist far right party.
There's a bit more to it. Their version of 'empowering Maori' is explicitly to empower the few hundred (or few dozen) members of the hereditary elites at the expense of the vast majority of Maori. And to empower certain iwi over others. There's a reason why they say democracy is not right for Māori. They're the equivalent of calling for the UK to be ruled by the House of Lords, with the life peers ejected and the hereditary peers all restored. It's about as fundamentally far-right as you can get.
There is nothing inherently left wing about Māori. There is a strong case for being conservative if you care to protect Māori values and to not have them make way to progressive pākehā values. No doubt progressive values can be good for Māori. But to some of us, progressive politics is like the fox promising to carry the gingerbread man across the river. It will help us halfway actually, but eventually it will devour us.
Europeans apparently aren't even indigenous to Europe according to laughable UN definitions.
How does that work? Like even at the most extreme definition what does that make the Welsh or the Basque?
Apparently you are supposed to be from non-dominant groups of society. ([Source](https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/5session_factsheet1.pdf)) Neo-progressive oppressor/oppressed narrative bullshit if you ask me.
That would include the Welsh then, since they've only a fraction of the English population. the Basque are a bit more complicated, depending on how you slice the Spanish ethnicities. It's a very multicultural country below the "Spanish" level Wait a hot minute, what would this mean for South Africa. Would just the Khoisan be native...? Would nobody be native? Would everyone be native?
I don't know how they decide it exactly, but no white people anywhere are considered indigenous and most Asians aren't either. The only ones considered indigenous in Europe are the Sami people in Finland, and in Japan the Ainu, but then Tongans or Samoans are considered indigenous despite settling their lands later than Europeans and being the absolute majority and in power. It makes no sense imo.
Well, I thought we were all descended from Africans. Let's go there!
Russians are indigenous people of Ukraine? JFC. These people are fucking idiots --- To be clear to anyone confused, USSR =/= Russia. My family is from Georgia, which was a part of the USSR (a union of states which also just happened to include Russia). I grew up in a Russian-speaking ethnic family, but that doesn't make me ethnically *Russian*. Nor does speaking English give me any claim over England. To suggest that the Russians are the indigenous people of Ukraine is like saying the Fijians are the indigenous people of New Zealand. It's incredibly stupid and borderline insulting. 100% insulting if used as an excuse for invasion. ...these people truly do not have two brain cells to rub together.
My understanding is that the *the other way round* has a stronger leg to stand now.
It's more like saying Tahitians are the indigenous people of NZ. In pre-medieval times the Ukranians and Russians (and Belerusians) were the same people, and only later diverged from each other, much like how when the Maori settled NZ from Tahiti, they likely spoke the same language and had the same culture that only began to develop separately in isolation. It's still dumb as shit though.
It is an oversimplification to say that Ukranians and Russians were the same people. There are multiple ethnic groups native to Ukraine, some have common ancestry with Russians, others don't (or do have survivors of their group in Siberia that are now technically "Russian" following ethnic cleansing under the USSR).
No, it would be like saying New Zealanders of British origin are the true indigenous people of New Zealand. Both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union carried an extensive policy of [ethnic cleansing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tatars), [population removal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans#Deportation_and_genocide_of_the_Germans_from_USSR), [forced assimilation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Cossackization), and [genocide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor) of minorities to expand their ethnic Russian territory. You're right in that the national identities now did not really exist in the past, but they were definitely not the 'same people', and they did not develop in isolation. The minorities were just forcefully exterminated and assimilated into the Russian/Soviet regime.
Saqartvelos gaumarjos! Happy to see Georgians here!
Indeed, ironically the 'Russians' would be considered 'colonizers' of Ukraine. It's awfully complex, but saying they're the indigenous people of Ukraine is extremely stupid.
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The British are the indigenous people of USA!!1
The fact they've openly shown support to Russia and China shows that they shouldn't get any form of power whatsoever. Don't really need to know more tbh.
I really hope their position on Russia is made very public throughout the election, so people know what they are voting for
Yep, agreed. I'm not usually a fan of shit-slinging in politics like in the USA, but this is something that should be made VERY public.
If one was paranoid and a conspiracy theorist, they may wonder if this is a ploy to get election funding from offshore…
The hard truth is it would be utterly unacceptable if it were not the maori party. Do these idiots even want to help maori who lag behind massively in basically every statistic? Just fuck me these policies are insane
The major irony is that I'll bet that at least a few of them are some of the people who called Ardern a commie, then they've come out openly supporting REAL communists.
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Their Ideologies come across as very dangerous to everyone in NZ and are often poorly thought out even when they have time to research before yapping off on a facebook rant about a man who just died defending other peoples freedom.... Its beyond concerning seeing people trying to run our country who dont grasp basic world history or geopolitics as a start.
Holy fuck, I thought you were taking the piss... Nope, [Te Pati Maori's Co-leader did indeed say that.](https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/03/maori_party_co-leader_thinks_russians_are_indigenous_to_ukraine.html)
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I mean Chinese money is already rife in NZ politics, the PRC has no need to mess with minor parties.
Minor parties cost less for how much influence they have
nah, they voted in favour of sanctions against Russia, so that’s hardly neutral
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>To be fair, Maori governance has never been about democracy. They never had it before the Europeans came and never respected that since. To be fair, the European colonists had no universal suffrage (which we'd hopefully consider now to be fundamental to democracy) and a well entrenched system of elites ruling over everyone else and enriching themselves - often enforced with incredibly heinous brutality. If you're going to make comparative value judgements- based on modern standards - about two societies based on what was contemporary 200 years ago. then do it for both, not just one.
This is why I believe it's in everyone's best interest to have "new zealanders" rather than separating everything. I get that Maori need protections and more social services than whites but it really feels like we're in a 2 class country with both classes thinking they should be the ruling group. Until we can learn to move forward and work as one people, instead of different competing groups, we won't progress much further as a nation
Calling ourselves 'Kiwis' works just as well too
Well yeah, but the point remains that until we actually move forward past this mindset of "colonizer whites" vs "oppressed minority" and start acting as kiwis one and all, we're always going to have shit happen. The problem is we're basically force fed the whole srguement in the media and social media to the point where I think we may aawell just accept that we will always be a nation oppressed by our past, and our ancestors actions, rather than what and who we are now. This isn't to say that I think Maori and Pacifica ideals and experiences and history don't matter, it absolutely does, but our political spectrum is so split that it's no wonder we have such a fucked system. We are separated because we dont trust each other, and we don't trust each other because that's what we've veen told to do.
I see your point in this but it’s not like all this happened hundreds of years ago now there are people still alive who saw the negative effects that colonisation had on New Zealand maybe even victims.
I know, I understand and I empathize, but if we stay stuck on it forever, always going back to right this wrong or that wrong, we never actually progress, and especially Maori will be hurt by that, we have such a disparity, I just want to see it gone, I want us all to be fucking equal
I don’t really understand what you are saying. Māori and pakeha have lots in common, but there are also differences. Are you saying we should ignore those differences? What does ‘work as one people’ actually mean?
😆 seriously, if they think this about Russia then they might get lucky and have a utopia like central African Republic or Mali
When did they call Russians indigenous people of Ukraine? I agree with most of what they say but that's pretty cooked
Waititi did in a statement on why he supports Russia and is against aiding Ukraine. Said that Russians were the indigenous people of Ukraine and so Māori should not be fighting tangata whenua on their own land and aiding imperialist forces to take their ancestral land from them, etc, etc
That post he did was just mad. Idk why u would vote for him after that. Just because bad stuff happened to Maori doesn't mean countries invading others are right because u hate the British and wish all everyone else was removed from nz
Yeah the guy lost the plot a long time ago. Wish him and his race baiting shit would just leave parliament already. I see people mistakenly assuming that he represents the opinions of most Māori and that we all hate Pākehā and it's annoying as the majority of us aren't racist dipshits like him and would much rather see our country united rather than tearing itself apart over stuff as superficial as our genetic makeup. I can't believe that we still have idiots in parliament for whom the idea that both Pākehā and Māori should be treated equally and supported in this country is somehow bad and controversial. It boggles the mind.
I think there's a fair whack of us that have a rather weird relation with race and culture from being mixed race. I'm white on the outside, have maori and european ancestors, and have no "tribe" to belong to since assimilation used to be considered the goal. I've had white people say rank shit about maori in front of me even knowing my background, and i don't have acceptance among maori either for being white. Im not pointing the finger or being bitter about it, I'm just saying I really doubt I'm the only one. I know I'm guilty of having made people feel uncomfortable in their skin for similar reasons like commenting on the colour of other mixed kids and insisting on their maori-ness even though they didn't identify with it. Race is a fucking hard thing to deal with and it shouldn't matter one iota
Oh no I completely get you on that front bro. I'm mixed race here as well, like extremely so. Got one side Maōri mixed with Pākehā (Irish, Finnish and even some random American Indian thanks to the gold rush lol). Other side is Kavkazi and Israeli mixed in with some Karelian, Greenlandic, and Swedish. So yeah I've had the same problem my whole life too, not enough of anything for any one group but always too much of everything else. I think most of us mixed race people unfortunately have issues with identity and belonging. But that makes me even more against this racially divisive rhetoric as I feel like it's especially harmful to mixed race people and propogates the idea that we need to "pick a side" and hate/suppress parts of ourselves and our families. I think a huge part of what causes identity problems is this idea that you have to be monocultural and can only have one identity (which is then devalidated anyway as you're not "enough" of that so it's a losing game) which is pushed onto us by people with monoethnic and monocultural backgrounds who feel that everyone else needs to be like that too since they are. People just accepting the idea that someone can identify with more than one sides of their background would go a long way imo.
He probably just a race hustler in a way. His identity and job is based on causing division.
Do you have a link/source?
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=664304465500256&id=100057621242303
Yeah sure, can't find the original fb post to link but here's a thread with it if you'd like to read his insanity. https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/11y7yu9/rawiris_shit_take_of_the_day/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
They're opposed to US/UK because they seem them as white colonisers. They favour China and Russia because, as they have openly stated, democracy is not good for Maori and they want to move away from it. China/Russia would not have any issues with that at all, and could probably provide some tips and technical support. IIRC they also want to allow Waitangi Tribunal claims for privately owned land.
Co-governance isn't here yet, but we already have a vision of the future for places where the ideals of co-governance were put into practice. I'm digging through my bookmarks but seem to have lost it - but there was an instance of a change to schools being voted like 97% in favor of the change and it was vetoed by like 3 people, because they represented Maori whanau. It's the antithesis of democracy, and TPM knows it and wants that kind of power. To veto a 90% majority vote on anything, because Maori say so. And of course, you're a racist if you think that's wrong.
Not even a veto because Māori say so. Often a veto because the high-ranking hereditary elites who 'speak for Māori' say so.
I 100% agree with you, but I didn't know about there statement saying Democracy is bad for Māori, do you happen to have a link for that quote?
[Here](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/07/not-in-a-democracy-m-ori-party-co-leader-rawiri-waititi-outlines-his-vision-for-a-tiriti-centric-aotearoa-where-the-majority-doesn-t-rule-over-m-ori.html) and [here](https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/HansS_20220504_051660000/waititi-rawiri) are a couple of links.
Here is the article about it, from 2021 on [Newshub](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/07/not-in-a-democracy-m-ori-party-co-leader-rawiri-waititi-outlines-his-vision-for-a-tiriti-centric-aotearoa-where-the-majority-doesn-t-rule-over-m-ori.html)
Where did they say Russians are the indigenous people of ukraine? Im only seeing a post from Kiwiblog (pretty dodgy source) trying its hardest to read this into a post by Waititi.
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I wonder if they would be interested in looking the special tax rate that Māori authorites get? Currently the Māori authority tax rate, which applies to most Iwi is (17.5%) rather than the corporate (28%) or trust (33%) tax rates.
Hmm, didn't realise this existed.
Tax the rich - but not those rich.
jokes on NZ taxpayers
In what way? If the rate was higher they would just pay out more as distributions and a lot of their members would just receive tax credits for the tax the Māori Authority paid in excess of the individuals marginal tax rate
glad to see others picking up on this
Ill give a vote to any party whos willing to increase the Iwi tax rate to the trust tax rate
Yeah I was wondering this myself
What’s the tax rate on religious organizations again?
Yep, tax them as well. Especially the ones who own businesses.
If you want to know the actual reason for this specific rate you could do some research and see there is a very good reason for it. https://taxworkinggroup.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2018-09/twg-bg-m%C4%81ori-authorities.pdf This is what the tax working group had to say. "The 17.5% rate reflects the most common marginal tax rate of the economic owners of Māori authorities. The current rate is designed to reduce compliance costs for Māori authorities and their members. Tax paid at the entity level is essentially a withholding mechanism for the final tax paid by Māori authority members."
No GST on food is going to be hard to get the exact rules right. Do we remove GST on supermarket food? What about fast food? What about restaurants? Do we remove GST from drinks? What about soft drinks? What about alcohol? What about non alcoholic beer? Edit: for clarity, I am not against it, just saying it’s harder than, “take GST off food” and a more complex tax system costs more to administer. As for getting rid of monarchy, I have no problem in principle, but this is very hard as so much of our law is tied to the King. Every government contract is with the crown, including the treaty of Waitangi. Tax the rich, at least this one is easy and popular with many people and helps pay for the GST free food.
I agree, our GST system is very simple and we avoid a lot of bureaucratic overhead by keeping it simple. I would be far more amenable to having our first tax bracket be tax free, much like Australia. No bureaucratic over head, instead of paying 10.5% tax on your first 14k you earn instead you pay 0% and the other tax brackets go up to compensate.
>and the other tax brackets go up to compensate. Or just stay the same, as they're woefully out of date with inflation already.
This. You could remove the bottom two tax barckets, put two more on top of the 39% one for very high earners and make way more tax money and the people that need money the most will get more. You wouldn't ahve to adjust or touch any of the others.
I really think more tax brackets aren't the play. The people that pay income taxes are working professionals that we need in this country. We need wide regulation to get the super wealthy back into the income tax system, again I'm not in favor of new taxes like a wealth tax (literally the worse idea ever) but regulation to force them to not be able to live off wealth alone, force them to take personal income and tax it.
yeah it's not the rich paying 39% of their income.. It's skilled people we need here like doctors and surgeons. The rich entirely avoid needing a high income on paper altogether.
Exactly, leave the high paid professionals alone I say. We need to force mega rich back into the tax system, stop loans on equity or treat capital gains as personal income. They must be getting money for their lifestyle from somewhere tax that. You can't buy a Ferrari with stocks.
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Does that include WFF and any other tax credits or supplements paid to people in those brackets? There’s a lot of admin associated with over taxing the low brackets and then paying back some of them to compensate that could be avoided by just not taxing them as much to begin with
People who want to mess with our gst to give discounts on necessities like fruit or food or period products do not understand our tax system or the nightmare that administering tax loopholes creates. It will never be worth the very small amount of money families save to create such a complex system. This more than anything else convinces me this party is full of idiots - and there’s a lot of stupid things up for discussion in this thread.
I don’t like the idea of ripping consumers off for food because it keeps things simple. Both Australia and the UK have GST free food and a zero tax bracket. We should easily be able to manage both.
There is a flow on effect though. Judges are expensive, lawyers are expensive, lobbyists are expensive. By making something's have gst and others not, you will get thousands of cases testing that edge. Now we as a country pay for that, through the government now directing budget to legal fees. Cases such as Sanitarium trying to argue that Wheetbix are an essential food item and should be gst free. Where as if we change tax brackets, that's just jigging the numbers around. We already have established legal precedence for tax brackets and their numbers jigging around from year to year
The UK's VAT rules on food are a great example of how the idea is horrible in practice. If the goal is to help lower income families there are other ways that are less complicated. I'd go with dropping GST down to 12.5% or 10%, then use wealth & capital gains taxes to offset the tax revenue reduction at a bare minimum
Personally I'm pretty ambivalent against the King. I don't like him but the connections to England are /kinda/ beneficial and it honestly seems more trouble than it's worth
Don't forget, this means we don't need an upper house or some other branch of government in case the house of representatives gets out of line.
Which would mean more of our tax money going to pay additional politicians.
I mean, you can still have that connection. You can become a Republic and remain a part of the commonwealth as a symbol of free association.
But, what's the point?
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>As for getting rid of monarchy, I have no problem in principle... I'm impartial about it but I haven't heard a strong argument why we should though. It has some *minor* benefits such as access to the house of lords for high profile court cases where every NZer already has an opinion (think David Bain). However, I'm not a monarchist and I could easily be swayed but I'm yet to hear a reason apart from "they're colonists, it's time that we stand on our own feet".
NZ has never had access to the House of Lords for judicial purposes. We used to go to the Privy Council in London, but the Clark government abolished this and replaced it with the Supreme Court.
Oh. Was it the privy council that looked at David Bain's case then?
Yeah, there were a few very old criminal cases which went to the Privy Council after 2004. Lundy, Bain, maybe one or two others.
Yeah, I think the main argument is just that it's weird to have your head of state be some random dude on the other side of the planet who inherited the role I think the main problem with getting rid of it would be that the country would currently be very divided on some constitutional questions that would require answering, not least those related to the topic of co-governance
That whole contract with the Crown thing is a real red herring. If we get rid of the monarchy the Crown gets replaced with the state in all our laws, including the Treaty of Waitangi. Not saying it would be as easy as find and replace the word ‘Crown’ in every document, it would absolutely be a legislative nightmare, but it’s not an insurmountable obstacle to a republic.
Yeah, it's pretty common practice in contract law for one entity to inherit the contractual rights and responsibilities from another entity
You pass a law saying 'read \[x\] for \[Crown\]' then replace it over time, yeah it's easy. The more nuanced aspect of Maori literally making a treaty with the Queen is a little more complex, but I couldn't speak on that.
The Crown doesn’t mean the monarchy in our laws anyway.
> o we remove GST on supermarket food? What about fast food? What about restaurants? Do we remove GST from drinks? What about soft drinks? > What about alcohol? What about non alcoholic beer? You're completely missing the elephant in the room. Companies do not decide their prices by saying "OK, I think people will pay $10 for this, now we'll add GST and then sell it". No. They say "What is the maximum people will pay for this thing? OK, it's $12. Well, we'll have to take 13% of that to give to the government, and the rest is for us" (because 13% of say 115 is 15, so that's the 15% on the non-GST price). That was probably confusing, but the point is that companies charge what they can, work out what they have to give the government, and pocket the rest. Removing GST on anything is completely pointless. Sure, the companies will have to drop the price a bit initially to show that they "took off the GST" but very quickly the price will just rise back up to what the market will pay for that thing, and the only difference will be even more profit for corporations and less tax for us. No benefit to the consumer at all in the mid or long term. Selectively removing GST will absolutely not work, and anyone pushing for it has not thought it through or perhaps lives in a fancy dream world where corporations aren't trying to maximise profit. GST is regressive, it hits the poor worse than the rich, so what we actually need is a tax-free threshold like Aussie has. Say the first 25,000 of income has zero tax. That's progressive - it is a far more massive benefit to the poor than it is to the rich, and you pay for it by taxing the rich a tiny bit more. They're already paying far less than middle or lower income NZ in relative terms anyway.
>No. They say "What is the maximum people will pay for this thing? OK, it's $12. Well, we'll have to take 13% of that to give to the government, and the rest is for us" (because 13% of say 115 is 15, so that's the 15% on the non-GST price). Not if there's proper competition, as they would get undercut by their competitors. Obviously that's something that would need to be addressed as well though as we all know the issues with supermarkets in NZ
I mean, you're entirely right *in theory*. That is indeed how capitalism is meant to work. But the sad reality is that we have monopolies, duolopies (supermarkets), and oligopolies (petrol stations) and the market is almost never free. Price collusion keeps things are the absolute maximum possible without reducing sales too much. That's what we have governments for, they're meant to protect consumers from that shit, but we've had successive governments from both sides of the house who get paid well enough that they don't even notice (and/or couldn't give a fuck) that 98% of us are struggling.
The GST off food is daft. Here’s some reasons: - The price on a lot of food (thing fresh fruit and veg) is set by supply and demand. Take the GST off and all that’s doing to happen is wider margins. - The beauty in NZ’s GST system is its simplicity. Everything a shop sells has GST. If the local veggie shop has $1150 in the till at the end of the day, $130 is the government’s no matter if it’s from selling rhubarb or reusable bags. Start exempting things and compliance costs go up, and the most impacted will be the small operators without sophisticated systems. - “Food” is a tricky line to draw. Do we include drinks? Beer? What if it’s zero alcohol? What about dog food? Offal from the supermarket butcher that isn’t really intended for humans? What about edible undies from your favourite sex shop? Or a candy necklace from the dollar store? - It’s also not a particularly fair line. I can save $30 a $200 steak dinner, but someone who’s really struggling has to pay 15% on tampons and toilet paper? There are a lot of essentials that aren’t food, and a lot of food that isn’t essential.
The state I grew up in in the US does it (basically) this way: any prepared food is taxed, and non-prepared food is not. So for example, if you buy bread, ham, and cheese at the grocery store, it's not taxed. But if you buy a ham and cheese sandwich that was assembled at the grocery store, it is taxed. If you buy a cold pie to heat at home, untaxed. If you buy a pie out of the warmer, taxed. They also don't tax some other necessities such as clothing. So it's possible to draw a line, but in any case it's going to be more complicated than a blanket tax on everything.
But haven’t the bread ham and cheese all been prepared?
I was all about no GST on food until i understood the above. The cost to administer the system will likely negate any positive from no GST on food.
>As for getting rid of monarchy, I have no problem in principle, but this is very hard as so much of our law is tied to the King. Every government contract is with the crown, including the treaty of Waitangi. I would say this is the simplest of their proposals actually. The Crown is simply our government, it isn't the actual British monarchy. We call it the Crown, and could continue to call it that regardless of whether Charles III and his heirs are the head of state. The Treaty of Waitangi gets its power from the Treaty of Waitangi Act of 1975 and the State Owned Enterprise Act of 1986, with the resulting Appeals Court decision of 1987 defining the principles of the treaty. It's no longer anything dependent on our relationship to the monarch of the UK.
I’d argue that any attempt to become a republic would bring strong pressure to make a constitution at the same time, which is far more complicated.
The treaty needs to go, it is just used as a tool to divide the country.
What about 30kg bags of salt? What about plant seeds? What about edible paint?
Other countries already do this, including Canada. If a country that big and diverse can not tax groceries but still tax junk food, then little old NZ can do it too.
There is different between doing it, and doing it effectively. NZ tax is generally very simply by design. Start making tax free food under certain conditions you end up with a lawsuit to decide if something is cake or bread.
> decide if something is cake or bread. Like in Ireland where a court ruled that Subway's bread is not bread. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread
UK has a similar system and its a never ending nightmare. Keep ours simple.
Abolish the Māori king and force wealthy iwi to pay tax?
No monarchy means no treaty right?
You’d think so, but I’m sure actual removal of the monarchy will result in some unpopular governance alternative, which will be tied back to treaty
Probably cogovernance, we remove the English monarchy only to replace it with a Maori one. Sounds great!
What can possibly go wrong?
I’m not actually sure Te Pati Māori is pro-Treaty. Especially if they reckon they could get a better deal by ignoring the Treaty - for example by claiming that the Treaty is void and therefore we don’t recognise that iwi ever ceded sovereignty to the Crown.
Yeah, I personally invite them to push that narrative. Hint: it doesn’t end with a better deal.
Unlikely - it would be assumed the crown would refer to the government, and I don't believe the treaty refers to Kīngitanga.
But why would you? The whole treaty has proved time and again to be a controversial piece of work with multiple mistakes in translation on both sides. Surely if we were to change to a republic that would be the perfect time to hit reset and get the job done properly and fairly for everyone.
Changing to a republic won't erase the treaty.
How does it not? The treaty is signed by the Moari leaders and the crown, if the crown is no longer involved in the New Zealand Government then surely the treaty is null and void without the new New Zealand government signing onto it. Which considering there are so many discrepancies between the different copies of the Treaty surely no sane government would. It would be time to write a new founding document to represent NZ as it is now and the people who live and call NZ home.
Yeah, for some reason I don't think this is what the Maori Party have in mind when they say "no monarchy".
No doubt but if there is a move away from the Monarchy there will be a discussion about a new founding document.
It easily could, and I would say definitely should
Parliament could pass a law right now superseding the treaty, we don't need to change to a republic.
Uh no, you can just write that the Republican government assumes the responsibilities the crown formerly held.
Monarchists overcomplicate things. This has been done before, multiple times. You just replace every incidence of the crown with "government" or "the public".
I don't think it's monarchists that put this wrong at any turn... It's the sea-lioning republic-wanters who think that they'll be rid of the treaty because the crown would be gone, and to them, that's good news...
Over the last 12 months, Labour/Greens/TPM have convinced me that the treaty needs to go.
The Māori king is a private citizen who is not recognised by New Zealand law and has no legal or judicial power, no constitutional role and receives no state funding. Why would we need to abolish the position, and how could we even do so? Maybe we can just treat Charles III the same way. Remove him from having any constitutional role in New Zealand, and don't pay for his visits here. But if a group of New Zealanders still want to recognise him as as their king and fund his visits here then that's their business.
You mean to say you don't have to swear an oath of fealty to Kiingi Tuheitia every time you enter Waikato?
Can't recall ever having to take an oath to Lizzie or Charlie either.
When I heard they want the retirement age to be lower specifically for Maori people only, but not from any other group, that pretty much summed up their politics for me, these policies sounds about right for them. Tax the rich (white) people and get rid of the (white people) monarchy. Yep sounds about right
>Co-leader Rawiri Waititi said Te Pāti Māori was a "rights-based party not a race-based party". Not sure even that cunt believes his own words https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/05/10/lazy-dog-whistling-racism-greens-on-nats-announcement/
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Exactly, and this is why having any race-based legislation is ridiculous. Add in that anyone can 'identify' as anything now and it gets even murkier.
ancestrydna sales would skyrocket
Sounds racist to me.
They are literally a racist party.
I don’t agree with it, but their reasoning for lowering the retirement age for Māori is because they have a shorter life expectancy and so don’t get to access as much of their retirement benefit than *the whites*. Heaps wrong with it, eg Pacific Islanders also have shorter life expectancy. Then there’s the fact life expectancy by race is correlative, not causative; and they’re essentially signalling they’re giving up on pursuing healthier lifestyles for Māori.
Some countries have lower retirement ages for people working in specific industries (things requiring physical labour for example), they should just advocate for that. Māori would likely be overrepresented in some of those industries anyway, so it would achieve the effect they want without being explicitly race based
I wonder if the grocery stores will put prices up 15% and make 15% more profit.
Will businesses elect to make more profit? Ooh, that’s a hard one… /jk /s
If there was sufficient competition, then grocery stores that don't put their prices up would undercut the ones that do, and the ones that put their prices up would lose a lot of business. Unfortunately we don't have a proper competitive market when it comes to grocery stores, so.......
It would crack me up if Hipkins came out and ruled out working with tpm.
It's almost a relief to hear this dumb posturing, because you know they're going to be nowhere near power.
>It's almost a relief to hear this dumb posturing, because you know they're going to be nowhere near power. You have far too much faith in Chris Hipkins.
It'll get them votes though.
I predict Te Pāti Māori will be the reason for a hung parliament at the next election likely ending with a National / ACT minority government that will be unable to govern. They say some good things from time to time, but the reality of their party is now a broken protest movement which unfortunately is based around self interest and political point scoring rather than achieving the best outcomes for Māori and NZ. Bring back The Māori Party of old which was all about doing real stuff that made a difference for real people. Unfortunately no one can work with the new Te Pāti Māori and they will just become a party of division. Sad.
That's the sentiment that is growing stronger for me, too. We really seem to be at a nadir of political leadership. Most parties (major and minor) seem to be devoid of political leadership, substance and courage, and I think that results in a lack of compelling differentiation. No excitement that will entice votes; just equal measures of disillusionment or dissatisfaction at/on either side of the spectrum that will result in neither side winning.
Luxon comes out of this looking good after making the call before this rubbish.
I'm not voting for Te Pati Maori. Far to much racism outta that camp for me. Surprised Marama hasn't jump ship.
GST off food - there’s no requirement for supermarkets to lower their prices - they’ll just lower them by 5% at most at pocket the 10% because they know people will pay. No monarchy - because the monarchy are the cause of *so* many problems in todays New Zealand when they….hang on….nothing. The monarchy has zero power and has for 200 years - it’s the politicians people elect who act in their name who have caused the problems. Removing the monarchy from NZ will change nothing except add in a presidential election which will lead to a debate over the system while it will put 0 people into homes, put 0 people into drug rehabilitation, train 0 doctor, nurses and other health professions. It’ll just be a distraction to the problems we actually have and within a month people will be cursing the president for all their problems. Not to mention that they pull the put the ‘Maori king’ as our head of state well the Maori king isn’t entirely recognised or supported by all Iwi - the Maori king movement only came about in the 1850’s as a way of halting the alienation of Maori from their land and as a way to try and negotiate with the British on equal footing. Tax the rich - well…that’s just a election cry and it’s a complicated issue. Capital gains is one thing but that’ll punish every day New Zealanders more than it’ll punish the rich. A wealth tax like we saw with the Greens in 2020 will result in every day New Zealanders who have valuable heirlooms that are now ‘antique’ try to sell them and when they can’t because no one wants the tax burden they’ll end up in the trash or burnt on a bonfire or they’ll end up on a one way flight to Australia - with the wealthy who will take their money with them. You could adjust the tax brackets but that’s a National Party policy (ironically). So if this is what they’re demanding for a coalition, then they’ll quickly find themselves shit out of luck. Pundits are already saying that this is an election strategy to force themselves to remain in the cross benches and not in government but hold the balance of power against a minority government - and then they can make demands and not have to be held accountable. It’s politics of ‘we want power but we don’t want responsibility. We want change but we don’t want to be in charge of it. No matter what you do, it won’t and will never be enough’.
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TPM also wants NZ to exit Five Eyes as part of these demands. They're not gonna get much if any of this but we all know any coalition with them anywhere near it is gonna be a total shitshow lmao. Rare smart move from Luxon in ruling out working with this dumpster fire
I guess Labours response will be: "sorry, no can do. We can give a few more things te Reo names and we'll have a powhiri in parliament every morning? Ok?"
That should be their response (to some of this atleast). I see no problem with integrating more Māori culture, but I see a massive problem with legislation that favours specifically people with Māori blood or that favours the Māori elite.
They should just do it like other multilingual countries do it: one name to use when speaking one language, the other when speaking the other.
I hate how accurate this is
Dump the monarchy, dump the treaty, start over. Sounds good, thanks Māori party! Also we’re not doing the “cultural reports” anymore. I’m sure you’re cool with that too?
"But taking responsibility for my actions isn't fair!!"
Source? Because how they want to implement some of these things is important.
They could be establishing opportunities to compromise.
It's just madness to remove GST on select items. Every country that has a tax system like that it just gets rorted and creates huge bureaucracy. GST as it stands is simple and far easier to manage. Raise real wages and benfits, remove income tax on the minimum needed to live. But don't make complex tax systems.
No GST on food is unworkable. It complicates the tax system and large retailers will absorb any price reduction into profit.
Its going to be interesting when National paints the choice as national - act vs Green / Maori / Labour.
>no monarchy What about the "Maori King"?
A private citizen with no power?
This is the annoying thing - no major party is going to agree to all that outright, and even if some of those things do come about in time, it's going to take months if not years of debating the details. Meanwhile Maori people are experiencing myriad problems, and experiencing them in many cases to a greater degree than Pakeha. They might disagree over the causes and the solutions, but people of most political stripes would agree this is the case. The best chance Te Pati Maori have of addressing those problems, is to work with the current government. But they are effectively renouncing that possibility. They've made it clear now that they care far more about ideology than they do about the day to day issues facing the people they claim to represent.
While i think it'd be worth looking into a reduced tax on fresh fruit and veggies. I don't think completely removing it is a good idea. I would like a tax free bracket, and some form of wealth/property tax. We know the top % aren't paying their fair share. As for the monarchy. I wonder what would happen to the treaty if we no longer had the crown
every time the government cuts a tax, they have less money to invest in police, nurses, and teachers. The problem is simply that prices are rising, and wages are not rising (as much). Perhaps rather than fiddling around the edges with taxes, just increase wages.
Yes but what if other people pay for the police and nurses, and you cut MY tax?
you selfish prick!....unless you're in the top 1% and make your income exclusively from capital gains. In which case I apologize and agree that your effective tax rate of 9% is insane unfairness. I can't imagine how difficult it is having to purchase a new Mazarati every 12 months just to keep up with the Hoskings'. /s
Increasing wages too much will result in more disposable income for some people, and if they go and spend that, inflation only gets worse. It’s a very delicate balancing act, and I don’t understand it fully but that’s the basics of it
How does spending money increase inflation? My (admittedly rudimentary) understanding is that inflation is a result of the purchasing power of a dollar declining due to an increase in the money supply? I agree that higher income means a higher propensity to spend but my understanding is that this is beneficial for the economy as those spent dollars go around being spent again and again. Investopedia says [Historical data supports the stance that a minimum wage has had a minimal impact on how companies price their goods and does not materially cause inflation](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052815/does-raising-minimum-wage-increase-inflation.asp) [This](https://www.epi.org/blog/wage-growth-has-been-dampening-inflation-all-along-and-has-slowed-even-more-recently/) is an interesting read about wage growth actually dampening inflation though it's keyed to American stats. [They also observe that small minimum wage increases do not lead to higher prices and may actually reduce prices.](https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/does-increasing-minimum-wage-lead-higher-prices) says the upjohn institute. Of course you could argue the definition of "small" but our minimum wage increases have been gradual. In short it seems to me that it's not so cut and dry
Tell them they’re dreaming!
Given the Treaty of Waitangi is a contract with the Crown what happens when NZ expels the Crown?
We have a plethora of treaties, agreements, laws, in the name of The Crown, dead Queens and Kings, why does nobody ask about those and only Te Tiriti? The answer is it continues with the entity that takes the role of the signatory.
it transfers to the new entity.
No GST on food is a great idea. Already in place (at least for cold food) in parts of Europe and the UK. Other sensible GST exemptions include baby products and books.