Craig
McCulloch Deputy Political Editor
Both
National and the Greens are refusing to back down over
inaccurate claims they’ve made about their political
opponents, as the election campaign heats
up.
Parliament descended into furious finger-pointing
on Wednesday, with MPs on both sides accusing each other of
lying and demanding apologies.
The Greens were pushed
to correct claims made about coalition MPs’ property
holdings, while National refused to retract social media
posts mischaracterising Labour’s tax policy.
National
MPs furious over Greens’ property ‘lie’
The row
centred on a fiery speech from Green MP Tamatha Paul two
weeks ago, in which she accused coalition MPs of buying up
investment properties after the government changed rental
laws.
Paul later posted clips of the speech online,
which have since attracted more than one million
views.
National’s Grant McCallum told RNZ the speech
contained two false statements about him: that he owned a
Wellington house and that he rented out another property in
Paihia.
McCallum said he bought the Paihia house so he
could stay there while travelling around the north of his
electorate, rather than have taxpayers pay for motel
accommodation. He did not rent it out, he said.
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“We
can attack each other’s policies. That’s fine. But getting
factual things wrong about individuals is not acceptable,”
McCallum said.
National
MP Tom Rutherford called it “a lie” for Paul to say he had
bought a rental property. He said he had updated his
property records after getting married in January because
his wife already owned a house.
“This is the party of
envy,” Rutherford said. “She should be holding herself to a
higher standard.”
The ACT Party said Paul was also
wrong to claim its MP Parmjeet Parmar had bought “five new
houses”. A party spokesperson said Parmar had instead
developed five houses on existing sites.
Greens hit
back at National’s ‘crocodile tears’
Green co-leader
Marama Davidson said she accepted MPs should get their facts
right, but was “not too concerned” about “these property
investor MPs and their crocodile tears”.
She said
McCallum had already set the record straight in Parliament
and the other MPs could do the same.
“If they want a
correction, they can write to the Speaker and go through the
normal procedures,” Davidson said.
“If they really
want an apology… they can write to the Speaker and ask for
an apology. But are they going to apologise to the hundreds
of thousands of people who are struggling to pay
rent?”
Davidson went so far as to welcome National’s
continued focus on the matter.
“It highlights how
disconnected these wealthy property investor MPs are, while
we have a homelessness problem.
“They are behind
legislation that benefits super rich property investors,
while at the same time making it harder for ordinary people
to even have a home to live in.”
Willis: ‘I am not
going to be asked to explain myself’
Given their
pursuit of truth, National MPs were also questioned about
their recent social media posts mischaracterising Labour’s
tax plans.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has repeatedly
stated a capital gains tax (CGT) would be the only new tax
Labour would support, explicitly ruling out taxes on land
and inheritance.
Yet McCallum recently shared a
Facebook video listing “all Labour’s taxes”, including land,
gift and inheritance taxes, none of which are Labour
policy.
Asked
about that post on Wednesday, McCallum said there was a
difference between attacking an individual and attacking a
party’s policies.
“Two different things,” he said.
“[Labour] have all sorts of policies on taxes, and they’ve
got to link those back into a whole coalition
arrangement.”
National deputy leader Nicola Willis was
equally unrepentant about her party : “It is correct that
Labour are campaigning on additional taxes, and that a land
tax may well be one of them.”
Willis said she would
not be changing her tune.
“This is a man who has
openly lied to the New Zealand public, saying that
businesses will be exempt from his capital gains tax, which
is incorrect.
“I am not going to be asked to explain
myself until he explains where his extra tax revenue will
come from.”
When announcing its CGT policy, Labour
made clear it would not cover the sale of businesses
themselves, but would apply to commercial
properties.
Hipkins said National continued to
“desperately lie” about Labour’s tax policy as they had no
track record to campaign on.
“I have been very clear,
a Labour government I lead will have a simple, targeted
capital gains tax,” he said. “We have ruled out supporting
taxes other parties are
proposing.”
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