Russell
Palmer Political reporter
Labour
leader Chris Hipkins says Christopher Luxon is incompetent
and is dismissing National’s attacks over the opposition
party’s tax plans as hysterical desperation.
Speaking
to media after the prime minister and transport minister announced
a detailed business case on a second Auckland harbour
crossing, Hipkins was questioned about whether he could
rule out a new tax on streaming companies such as Netflix or
bringing back the so-called ute tax.
He had a simple
answer to both: “No.”
It followed National finance
spokesperson Nicola Willis on Sunday calling for Hipkins to
clarify his position on the two taxes.
She said Labour
broadcasting and media spokesperson Reuben Davidson was
“proposing to introduce a levy on streaming services that
would jack up the price Kiwis pay for Netflix and other
streaming services”.
Willis also pointed to an NZ
Herald report showing Michael Wood, who re-entered
politics after resigning from Cabinet in 2023, had been
talking up the Clean Car Discount scheme labelled by
National as a ‘ute tax’ as a policy win he
achieved.
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However, the article does not indicate Wood
planned to bring back the scheme, which granted rebates for
imports of low- or zero-emission vehicles paid for by
imposing a fee on high-emitting ones.
National
campaign chair Simeon Brown on Monday afternoon released
another statement during the Waitematā announcement saying
Hipkins had been “silent” on both ideas.
Brown said
Hipkins “has had 24 hours to rule out a streaming tax and a
ute tax, and all we have heard is radio silence”.
“We
already know Labour and their mates are planning to hit
Kiwis with nine new taxes to fund their $18 billion hidden
bill. Information revealed by National yesterday shows they
appear to be planning two more, with a streaming tax and a
ute tax. That would be 11 new taxes.
“These are not
backbench thought bubbles. One is a former Cabinet minister.
The other is Labour’s broadcasting and media spokesperson
announcing policy in his own portfolio… he has had a full
day and said nothing. If he cannot rule out both taxes on
his media round tomorrow morning, New Zealanders can only
assume Labour will be campaigning on them.”
Those
“nine new taxes” include three from Labour, including the capital
gains tax policy, a reinstated 3
percent digital services tax on tech giants, and the scaling
back of National’s Investment Boost policy.
The
remaining taxes are policy pitches from the Greens, Te Pāti
Māori and Opportunity, including a 45 percent top tax rate,
inheritance tax, gift tax, removing interest deductibility
from rental properties, an assets tax and a land
tax.
Hipkins, who has repeatedly ruled out
implementing tax policies from other parties, said the
statements from National were “just
desperation”.
“Simeon Brown is getting more and more
hysterical by the day. I guess if I was looking at internal
polling numbers like the sort that he’s looking at I’d be
getting a bit worried about that as well, but that doesn’t
mean that he can make up policy on behalf of the Labour
Party.”
However, those other parties have typically
denied such policies could be ruled out before negotiations
to form a government.
Willis had also pointed to
Labour’s Willie Jackson telling Ryan Bridge’s TODAY
programme Labour would show respect to its prospective
coalition partners and, when asked what percentage of a land
tax they could accept, saying “who knows”.
Hipkins
said Jackson “could have been clearer” and pointed to
Jackson later in the interview saying he was not open to a
land tax.
“Nobody’s perfect in every answer that they
deliver, including me. Every now and then, you say
something, and you think ‘gosh, I could have been clearer’,”
Hipkins said.
He said another Opportunity Party policy
to cut 2000 public servants by scrapping benefits in favour
of a universal basic income, which would arguably take
less work to administer, was “incredibly
unrealistic”.
Hipkins indicated he would not be
meeting with Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong ahead of the
election to sort either matter out.
“We’ll see what
the voters dish up, but we won’t be meeting… no doubt
we’ll run into each other. You know, probably we may well
end up on a stage together at some point with leaders’
debates and those sorts of things, but I don’t have any
intention to have formal sit-down meetings.”
With
Luxon having announced
a policy to hold a referendum on MMP if re-elected,
Hipkins said the system was “by and large” working well and
“I don’t intend to change it”.
“New Zealanders have
repeatedly chosen MMP, they were given a referendum as
recently as … was it 2011? And convincingly decided to
keep it.”
He dismissed the referendum idea as
incompetence on Luxon’s part.
“If you’re an
incompetent prime minister, no electoral system is going to
help you do a better job of running the country. Christopher
Luxon has made an absolute hash of running his coalition.
That’s not MMP’s fault. That’s Christopher Luxon’s
fault.”
However, reporters were soon questioning
Hipkins’ own competence after he revealed he had not heard
or seen a briefing on any of Luxon’s regular Monday morning
interviews.
“I’m not watching every media interview
that everyone in government does, including the prime
minister. Generally, I get an update on them, but I haven’t
this morning. I haven’t from this morning,” he said when
asked if the opposition leader should be across things like
that.
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