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Speaker 1: Kyota.

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Speaker 2: Chelsea Daniels here, host of the Front Page. We're taking

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Speaker 2: away breakover summer, but to help build the gap, we're

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Speaker 2: re issuing some of our most significant episodes of twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty five on behalf of the Front Page team. Thanks

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Speaker 2: for listening and we look forward to being back with

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Speaker 2: you On January twelfth, twenty twenty six. Kyota owned Chelsea

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Speaker 2: Daniels and This is the Front Page, a daily podcast

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Speaker 2: presented by the New Zealand Herald.

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Speaker 1: Should the ultra wealthy pay more tax?

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Speaker 2: It's a debate that's continued for decades, even centuries, from

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Speaker 2: ancient Athens to present day. The idea has been a

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Speaker 2: constant when it comes to addressing inequality, yet no government

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Speaker 2: in the last few decades has been brave.

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Speaker 1: Enough to impose one.

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Speaker 2: It's a staple of the Green parties prepared posed budget

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Speaker 2: which promises bold moves to make sure everyone has a

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Speaker 2: warm home, decent ki and the care and.

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Speaker 1: Support for a good life.

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Speaker 2: But who pays and is leaning even more left than

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Speaker 2: center doing wonders for the party's polling. Today on the

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Speaker 2: Front Page, Green Party co leader Chloe's Swarbrick is with

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Speaker 2: us to discuss whether it's time for the wealthy to

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Speaker 2: fund the rest of us. First off, Chloe, your Green's

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Speaker 2: on Tour road show is taking the party's Green budget

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Speaker 2: directly to communities. What are the most common concerns or

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Speaker 2: questions or stuff raised with you?

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Speaker 3: People know that the wheels are falling off. You know,

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Speaker 3: if you diagnose the problem of the world that we're

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Speaker 3: living in today or the country that we're living in today,

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Speaker 3: you know, half a million New Zealanders are using food

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Speaker 3: banks every single month, one hundred and ninety one New

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Speaker 3: Zealanders or leaving the country every single day, and a

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Speaker 3: pharraicle correctly two thirds of them are between the ages

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Speaker 3: of eighteen to forty five. If Nicola Willis has concerns

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Speaker 3: about the aging population and the challenges that that may

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Speaker 3: face in terms of fiscal propositions for us, then we

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Speaker 3: need to actually be having sensible, rational conversations. And that

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Speaker 3: was just only underscored by the iid's Long Term Insights

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Speaker 3: briefing from a few weeks ago, which told us that

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Speaker 3: the rational conversation in politics isn't if we change the

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Speaker 3: tax system, it's how we change the tax system to

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Speaker 3: make things fairer. But look, you don't need to be

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Speaker 3: an economist to know that things are pretty dire and

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Speaker 3: pretty diabolical out there at the moment, and New Zealanders

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Speaker 3: are feeling it every single day. So I'm also really

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Speaker 3: proud of the fact that we've been going out there

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Speaker 3: and saying we're not as here to complain in solidarity

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Speaker 3: with those complaints, but also to put some solutions on

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Speaker 3: the table. So for us, that's looked like obviously free

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Speaker 3: early childhood education, free dentistry, free GPS in the primary

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Speaker 3: healthcare space, and also helping the transition into a climate

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Speaker 3: resilient economy, because you can't just be talking about climate

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Speaker 3: adaptation without also talking about how we curb our climate

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Speaker 3: changing emissions. And this government's making some deeply irresponsible and

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Speaker 3: frankly stupid decisions with, for example, the two hundred million

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Speaker 3: dollars that it's decided to invest in new fossil fuel subsidies.

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Speaker 3: It's taxpayer money.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so the.

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Speaker 2: Party's promising you mentioned, free early childhood education, free dental care,

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Speaker 2: free GP visits. I mean, what do you say to

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Speaker 2: critics who find all of this to be fiscally unrealistic.

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Speaker 3: I'd say that if we were advocating for or fighting

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Speaker 3: for free compulsory education or free hospitals these days would

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Speaker 3: be called the exact same thing. It'd be called wasteful spending,

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Speaker 3: would be called Marxists, and all the rest come at us.

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Speaker 3: The reality is that we've done really big things in

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Speaker 3: the past, and the nineteen thirties and forties, after World

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Speaker 3: Wars and the Great Depression, we came together as a

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Speaker 3: country and decided to build a nation which looked like

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Speaker 3: the foundations of public healthcare, public education, and public housing.

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Speaker 3: And we paid for that responsibly by higher taxes on

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Speaker 3: those who had profited handsomely during a time of hardship

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Speaker 3: for many. Right now, we're in a situation where the

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Speaker 3: top one percent in this country hold twenty three percent

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Speaker 3: of all of the country's wealth, and IRD research from

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty three told us that the top three hundred

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Speaker 3: eleven households pay an effective tax rate less than half

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Speaker 3: of that of the average New Zealander.

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Speaker 1: It's not fair.

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Speaker 3: And when are we going to be able to have

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Speaker 3: a rational political debate about how we fix and change

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Speaker 3: these things? I mean, there's a reason that the conservatives

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Speaker 3: on the other side of the political debate are not

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Speaker 3: even willing to engage in the terms of this debate.

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Speaker 3: They simply want to shut it down and that should

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Speaker 3: tell New Zealanders everything that they need to know. I'd

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Speaker 3: also add that in the government's first hundred days, one

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Speaker 3: of the first things that it did, as quietly as

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Speaker 3: it possibly could, was revoke or appeal the enabling legislation

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Speaker 3: to require ird to report on the fairness or on

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Speaker 3: fairness of our tax system.

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Speaker 1: One the way there is I think Nobel Peace.

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Speaker 2: Prize winning economists have recently called for a global tax

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Speaker 2: on the ultra wretch, arguing that even a modest two

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Speaker 2: percent wealth tax on billionaires stay not even just millionaires billionaires.

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Speaker 1: Could raise substantial revenue international.

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Speaker 2: Now, how does the Green parties proposed wealth tax compare

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Speaker 2: And do you see New Zeraltters having a kind of

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Speaker 2: a leadership role in this global argument at the moment?

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Speaker 3: I mean, we absolutely could be taking leadership position if

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Speaker 3: we want to do. Unfortunately, I think with this current

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Speaker 3: government we're saying far more of a shredder than we

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Speaker 3: are any kind of vision for the nation that we'd

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Speaker 3: want to build. And this is the point that I

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Speaker 3: made in the budget debate. You know, this kind of cut, cut,

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Speaker 3: cut after callous cut, whether it's in conservation or frontline

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Speaker 3: of what's necessary for communities or climate resilience or adaptation

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Speaker 3: or whatever. It's not only cruel and unusual, but it's

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Speaker 3: not how you build a country, it's how you break one.

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Speaker 3: And that's where I kind of come back to those

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Speaker 3: basic economic principles. You know, it's really deeply ironic and

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Speaker 3: profoundly nonsensical for the government to be talking out one

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Speaker 3: side of its mouth about productivity and growth while actively

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Speaker 3: kneecapping precisely those things with its fiscal strategy, where it

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Speaker 3: is pulling back on government investment and the things that

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Speaker 3: drive that productivity and that growth, let alone fear distribute

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Speaker 3: of those things. But to your question on how our

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Speaker 3: tax proposals would work, so we put on the table

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Speaker 3: a proposal for a wealth tax, which would only apply

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Speaker 3: to the top approximate three percent in this country. So

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Speaker 3: for anyone with an individual net wealth over two million dollars,

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Speaker 3: so for a couple it's over four million, and that's

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Speaker 3: net wealth, so it's minus obviously your mortgages. Ratherwise, you'd

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Speaker 3: pay a two point five percent tax above that two

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Speaker 3: million dollars net wealth individually, and doing that along the

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Speaker 3: suite of other reforms, and using debt sensibly to actually

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Speaker 3: pay for productive investment in our infrastructure, as opposed to

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Speaker 3: the tax cuts of Nicola Willis, which have generated zero

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Speaker 3: jobs and in fact only continued to minimize the opportunity

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Speaker 3: for young New Zealanders. We can build an economy that

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Speaker 3: works for people and planet.

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Speaker 4: They are further entrenching a system, mister Speaker, which sees

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Speaker 4: our nurses, our firefighters, our teachers pay an effective tax

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Speaker 4: rate almost double that of the wealthiest in this country.

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Speaker 4: And not only is that so deeply un fear and

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Speaker 4: so deeply inequitable, that it robs us of the very

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Speaker 4: productivity that they tell us that they care about, it

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Speaker 4: robs us of the investment that we could be making

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Speaker 4: and that infrastructure that all.

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Speaker 1: Of us need.

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Speaker 4: The fundamental problem with the economy and the tax system

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Speaker 4: in altero in New Zealand is that we overtax work

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Speaker 4: and we undertaxt indeed oftentimes do not tax at all wealth.

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Speaker 2: We're hearing these terms rich ultra riches as a term

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Speaker 2: that I've heard pop up recently as well. How does

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Speaker 2: the Green Party define rich in this context of tax policy,

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Speaker 2: where do we draw the line for who should pay more?

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Speaker 1: I mean we we've drawn the line and our proposals

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Speaker 1: as that termillion dollar figgre termillion dollars individual net wealth

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Speaker 1: puts in the top three percent in this country.

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Speaker 3: So I think you're doing pretty all right. And this

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Speaker 3: is where I think we just kind of need to

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Speaker 3: come back to these really fundamental points. Right there are

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Speaker 3: very few people in this country individually afford to pay

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Speaker 3: for the cost of building a school or a hospital,

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Speaker 3: or even closer to home for a loved one's cancer

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Speaker 3: treatment when tragedy befalls us. That is why we pull

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Speaker 3: our resources together and we create this thing called a country,

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Speaker 3: because we're not five million random individual people or running

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Speaker 3: around this country doing our own thing. We actually need

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Speaker 3: each other and we can build this infrastructure by working together.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, maybe it's a bit of a

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Speaker 3: red hearing to try and define what we perceive rich

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Speaker 3: to be, but we've decided to draw the line in

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Speaker 3: terms of our wealth taxes currently at that two million

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Speaker 3: dollar net individual wealth.

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Speaker 1: What about Nan and Pop who bought say, a villa

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Speaker 1: in Mount Eden for ten of tomatoes in the.

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Speaker 2: Seventeenes or something, and they're obviously going to be above that.

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Speaker 1: What happens there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so in terms of people who are, you know,

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Speaker 3: asset wealthy but don't necessarily have the cash flow, they

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Speaker 3: would be able to have this eventually paid off in

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Speaker 3: the same way that rates can accumulate against the kind

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Speaker 3: of property to the point that it's sold or the

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Speaker 3: point at which somebody passes on. So we'd have those

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Speaker 3: sameatures and our wealth tacks.

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Speaker 1: Critics often claim that higher taxes on wealth will drive

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Speaker 1: high net worth individuals to leave the country, and this

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Speaker 1: is probably a few gimes and that's why we simply

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Speaker 1: can't do anything about it.

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Speaker 2: No, No, what evidence do we have that something similar

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Speaker 2: wouldn't happen here? Like would there be some kind of

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Speaker 2: brain drain?

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Speaker 1: I mean we're seeing one at the moment anyway.

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Speaker 3: That's kind of the point.

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Speaker 1: But would we be seeing different individuals leave and we

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Speaker 1: don't mind them leaving, but we want the young people

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Speaker 1: to day It's frankly ludicrous.

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Speaker 3: Look, I'm not going to pretend that it is easy

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Speaker 3: to change the tax system. Of course it's not. But

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Speaker 3: ease should not be the reason that we do something.

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Speaker 3: Fairness and equity and the fundamental principles and values that

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Speaker 3: we have as New Zealanders, that is that we care

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Speaker 3: about each other and the planet that we live on

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Speaker 3: should be the driving force behind why we do things,

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Speaker 3: and we've done people should and we've done hard things

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Speaker 3: in the past. So I mean, yeah, just a lot

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Speaker 3: of the the arguments that are often floated around. For example, Norway.

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Speaker 3: At the top of my head, I think there's approximately

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Speaker 3: two hundred and thirty six thousand millionaires and billionaires in Norway,

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Speaker 3: and there are approximately thirty high profile individuals who made

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Speaker 3: a big song and dance about leaving the country as

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Speaker 3: a result of their wealth tax changes, and that resulted

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Speaker 3: in a huge amount of hysteria, but again a drop

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Speaker 3: in the bucket in terms of the reality of it.

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Speaker 3: So I think we just need to come back down

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Speaker 3: to earth as far as this debate goes, and ask

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Speaker 3: ourselves why do people want to live here? It shouldn't

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Speaker 3: be a race to the bottom to shred the social

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Speaker 3: safety in there and the infrastructure that all of us

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Speaker 3: ultimately rely on. All the country falls apart and people

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Speaker 3: end up with less social cohesion and we have more

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Speaker 3: people sleeping rough down the bottom of Queen Street outside

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Speaker 3: of luxury stores. The reason that people should want to

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Speaker 3: live here is because of our great quality of life,

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Speaker 3: and we are losing that because we are not investing

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Speaker 3: in it.

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Speaker 1: What about people? And you've probably heard this one before

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Speaker 1: as well, because I've heard it a few times.

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Speaker 3: I've worked hard to get here. I ask anyone, Well, firstly,

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Speaker 3: I would say the hard working news. Some of the

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Speaker 3: hardest working New Zealanders that I have met are single

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Speaker 3: mothers working multiple jobs, paying double the effective tax rate

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Speaker 3: if the multi multi millionaires and billionaires in this country.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, any politician who wants to claim

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Speaker 3: to be fighting for the hard working New Zealanders should

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Speaker 3: be fighting for those who make their income from work,

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Speaker 3: not from near wealth accumulation.

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Speaker 1: By the way, I read some critique about the Ears.

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Speaker 2: So you've got this thing five thousand dollars per passenger

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Speaker 2: private jet tax proposing, and I've read something that's somewhere

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Speaker 2: that said, look, it'll it'll force people to fly commercialism

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Speaker 2: And I actually laughed out loud at that because these

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Speaker 2: people are not like five thousand.

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Speaker 1: Dollars to me, for instance, I don't know.

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Speaker 2: About you, but that's I don't have that just totally

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Speaker 2: will really do you know what I mean? But these

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Speaker 2: people who have private jets, I'm going to say, they

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Speaker 2: will drop that on a lunch kind of same things.

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Speaker 3: So little in the multiples of that that it costs

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Speaker 3: they actually use the private jet to get here in

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Speaker 3: the position.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, do you have any data or any

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Speaker 2: idea how many of those private jet passengers are actually

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Speaker 2: coming here every month? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Every year. I believe it's between two hundred and fifty

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Speaker 3: to three hundred, so it's not that many. But again,

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Speaker 3: this is about kind of drawing a line in the

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Speaker 3: sand or making a point of principle, because we've seen

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Speaker 3: similar policies applied in other jurisdictions. I just think that

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Speaker 3: it is insane that we are at a point in

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Speaker 3: time where regular people, low income, metal income regular people

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Speaker 3: are trying their best to use reusable straws and reusable cups,

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Speaker 3: and billionaires are allowed to set the planet on fire.

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Speaker 3: That's kind of the end of it for me.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, Jeff Bezos's wedding the other Oh yeah,

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Speaker 2: I was keeping a close eye on that guest list,

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Speaker 2: thinking like, oh right, you have to see Oprah this. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean, in New York City recently, attacks the rich

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Speaker 2: message helped Zoran Mumdani to win the.

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Speaker 1: Democratic mayoral primary.

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Speaker 2: Do you say this as a sign that public sentiment

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Speaker 2: is shifting globally in favor.

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Speaker 1: Of wealth taxes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I think there's a few things that we can take

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Speaker 3: from Zoran's win. The first, you know, I really applaud

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Speaker 3: the approach that he took post Trump's win. He went

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Speaker 3: into communities within New York and the equivalents of kind

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Speaker 3: of electorates or borrows or whatever they call them over there,

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Speaker 3: and he asked people why they had flipped from the

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Speaker 3: Democrats to voting for Trump, because that seems to be

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Speaker 3: a question that many of us in commentary land are asking.

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Speaker 3: And what he found, strangely enough, was people citing the

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Speaker 3: cost of living and basic economic issues, and they felt

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Speaker 3: as though they had voted for decades and decades, their

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Speaker 3: entire lives for the Democrats to do something about it,

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Speaker 3: and they hadn't. So it was kind of a hail Mary,

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Speaker 3: something needs to change. So we're just going to grasp

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Speaker 3: for the closest thing that looks like a meaningful transformation

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Speaker 3: or a meaningful change there, and that is why he

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Speaker 3: ended up coming out with such strong fundamental economic policies

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Speaker 3: of how you basically rebuild society, of how you rebuild communities,

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Speaker 3: of how you provide people with actual economic freedom, which

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Speaker 3: then results in those social freedoms. So you know, will

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Speaker 3: be completely transparent about the fact that backwhen I was

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Speaker 3: at university, I was enamored by the idea of libertarianism,

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Speaker 3: which is actually the ideology encapsulated best by the activity

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Speaker 3: right now, because.

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, course it makes sense.

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Speaker 3: We'll just get to run around, live our own lives,

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Speaker 3: don't interrupt other people doing their own thing. But the

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Speaker 3: more that I thought about it and I read a

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Speaker 3: second book, you then start to realize that that social

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Speaker 3: freedom is a losory. It's not real if you don't

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Speaker 3: have access to the material basics to be able to

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Speaker 3: participate in society to survive, let alone to thrive. So

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Speaker 3: that's where he came out, obviously with the kind of

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Speaker 3: tax the rich stuff, but also those basic propositions for

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Speaker 3: free public transport services, for free early childhood. Yeah, I

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Speaker 3: think that what that tells us is in a nutshell

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Speaker 3: tempered centrism which has failed people for decades, for forty decades,

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Speaker 3: as they've been subjected to trackle down economics is a

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Speaker 3: breeding ground for effectively right wing radicalism, and the antidote

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Speaker 3: to that is to ensure that everybody has their basic

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Speaker 3: needs met. It's not rocket science.

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Speaker 5: On our numbers, the opposition parties Labor, the Greens, Antiparty

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Speaker 5: Malori would be in a position to govern if an

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Speaker 5: election was held today. Let's break the numbers down. National

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Speaker 5: is on thirty point seven points. That's down two point

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Speaker 5: two on our last poll in March. Labor is a

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Speaker 5: head of National sitting on thirty three point two. That's

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Speaker 5: a slight increase of zero point nine. The Greens into

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Speaker 5: Party Maiti are both up. The Greens one point six

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Speaker 5: points to eleven point six while to party Maliti has

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Speaker 5: nudged up zero point five to five point five percentage points.

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Speaker 1: Well, the Green Party is currently pobbling really well, we

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Speaker 1: can go high the double digits.

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Speaker 2: Now, which is I mean, this far out from election

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Speaker 2: isn't too bad, all right, and that's ahead of ACT

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Speaker 2: in New Zealand. First, in the recent post fresh Water

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Speaker 2: and urn z read research poles.

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Speaker 1: Rather, what do you attribute this surge and support to?

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Speaker 3: First thing, I say, I'm always so reticent to provide

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Speaker 3: commentary on poles.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I mean, it feels.

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Speaker 3: Like reading the tea leaves and it's kind of like,

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Speaker 3: you know, everyone's always like when it's good, Oh yeah,

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Speaker 3: it means that we're doing great, and when it's bad,

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Speaker 3: we don't actually pay that much attention. That's what internal pole,

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Speaker 3: but our and another thing is just my basic experience.

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Speaker 3: You know, in Auckland Central in twenty twenty, I was

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Speaker 3: put behind on all the poles, and then of course

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Speaker 3: we ended up making history. Because the real pole is

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Speaker 3: people realizing not to watch the poles, but we are

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Speaker 3: the poles. We have agency and we can actually change

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Speaker 3: things here. But I guess to try and read the

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Speaker 3: tea leaves and the vibes that are out there. The

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Speaker 3: sense that I'm getting from folks across the country is

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Speaker 3: people are much like as we're discussing around Zoruns, when

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Speaker 3: people are looking for what the next iteration of our

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Speaker 3: economic framework looks like. People know that the wheels are

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Speaker 3: falling off of the way that things are currently operating.

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Speaker 3: So there's obviously a heck of a lot of frustration.

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Speaker 3: And I'm really proud to be co leading a party

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Speaker 3: that is putting genuine solutions on the table. And this

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Speaker 3: is about also understanding the kind of fundamental principles of

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Speaker 3: the Green Party. Two, because it's a moral panic that

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Speaker 3: I get asked about every few months or so where

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Speaker 3: people are like, oh, you're talking about social policies. That's

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Speaker 3: not Green Party stuff. Your name is green, your color

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Speaker 3: is green. So just to give you some insight, the

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Speaker 3: Green Party or Green parties all around the world have

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Speaker 3: the same four core charter principles. What differentiates the Green

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Speaker 3: Party in Altered or in New Zealand is a recognition

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Speaker 3: of ten tooth your waiting is our foundational constitutional text.

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Speaker 3: From that flows firstly the notion of ecological responsibility. Resources

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Speaker 3: are finite, even those resources that do regenerate need time

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Speaker 3: and space and God forbids and planning Chane Jones in

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Speaker 3: order to regenerate. If you accept that as the first principle,

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Speaker 3: that makes you know in terms of the flow on

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Speaker 3: effects for society, it makes sense to go, well, we

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Speaker 3: need to share those resources and a somewhat fair, a

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Speaker 3: just and reasonable and rational way. That's not a social

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Speaker 3: responsibility or social justice on the internet. The third is

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Speaker 3: appropriate decision making we like devolving decision making powers down

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Speaker 3: to the level where it actually affects people. It's why

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Speaker 3: I'm such a massive nerd for local government. And the

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Speaker 3: fourth is non violence. Of course we're happies and we

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Speaker 3: don't like going to war, but if you dig into

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Speaker 3: that a little bit deeper, it's basically about how do

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Speaker 3: you create these systems and settings and blueprints and ways

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Speaker 3: of operating as a country and governance and making decisions

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Speaker 3: that don't neglect people or their perspectives so that further

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Speaker 3: down the track they go, this thing doesn't work for me,

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Speaker 3: and I want to uproot the entire thing.

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Speaker 1: Do you reckon? The Greens have bounced back.

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Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, we're back, baby, But I think I

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Speaker 3: think that you know, my aspirations, our aspirations as a party,

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Speaker 3: will not be met until we live in a country

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Speaker 3: where every child is able to live a good life,

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Speaker 3: until our rivers are clean, and you know, our native

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Speaker 3: wildlife is flow perishing. It was utterly mind lying to

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Speaker 3: know to be in a discussion or a debate or

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Speaker 3: whatever you want to call it the other day with

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Speaker 3: an act Party MP where you know, the proposition of

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Speaker 3: bringing back the more was on the table through genetic engineering,

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Speaker 3: and it's like, yeah, cool, like novel whatever, get it. Yep,

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Speaker 3: science is awesome, but like we're putting our eggs in

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Speaker 3: the basket of something that literally sounds like Jurassic Park. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 3: seventy five percent of our current native wildlife is at

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Speaker 3: risk of extinction. The government is approving in fast tracking

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Speaker 3: coal mines and kiwi habitats and cutting predator free twenty

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Speaker 3: fifty and Department of Conservation funding make it make sense.

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Speaker 1: I was like, mama's got a lot of meat on.

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Speaker 2: Look. Finally, if Chris Luckson called you tomorrow, he said, look,

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Speaker 2: I've had a good look at your green badga not bad,

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Speaker 2: but I'll let you pick one thing to implement tomorrow.

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Speaker 2: And he's got a genie out of the back, so

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Speaker 2: don't worry about logistics.

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Speaker 1: What would you choose?

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Speaker 3: Oh, I think espe the wealth tax as a starting point.

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Speaker 3: You know, if we're talking about economic transformation and fairness,

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Speaker 3: which is deeply into related to climate justice, then we

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Speaker 3: need tax reform. And regardless of whatever side of the

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Speaker 3: political spectrum that you're on at the moment, as the

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Speaker 3: IID themselves said, and you know they're not politically beholden.

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Speaker 3: The sensible, rational, mature political debate at the moment is

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Speaker 3: not if we have tax reform, it's how we do

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Speaker 3: tax reform.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Chloe.

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Speaker 5: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You

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Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage

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Speaker 2: at enzid Herald.

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Speaker 1: Dot co dot MZ.

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Speaker 2: The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sells and Richard Martin,

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Speaker 2: who is also our sound engineer.

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Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.

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Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you

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Speaker 2: get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look

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Speaker 2: behind the headlines.

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Speaker 3: The