The Green Party’s finance (and transport) spokesperson Julie Anne Genter has an unlikely ally on a handful of policy issues: Mayor of Auckland Wayne Brown.
Both politicians agree New Zealand needs to scale up its public transport, move more freight by rail, implement congestion charging, and build cheaper versions of big Labour projects.
The Greens already have three former mayoral candidates (one successful) in winnable spots on their party list — could Wayne Brown make the 2026 list? Genter doesn’t think so.
“I think that my colleague Chloe Swarbrick, MP for Auckland Central, has had to be involved in some campaigns to stop cuts to the Auckland City budget”.
“But I do think it's great that Wayne Brown is onside with surface light rail,” she said, in an interview for the Of Interest podcast.
Genter supports light rail in Auckland but opposes Labour’s plan to build it in a tunnel under Dominion Road, which could cost roughly $15 billion.
Surface light rail might be up to $6 billion cheaper, savings which could be used to build light rail projects in New Zealand’s other major cities.
“We could deliver surface light rail in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch—as the spine of an improved public transport system that connects with bikes and buses and everything else.
And, we can do that for less than the cost of the tunnel light rail line in Auckland, and we can do it faster with less disruption and make a bigger difference to people,” she said.
The parties which “claim to be fiscally responsible” are simultaneously promising projects that don’t stack up just because they think they will be popular with voters.
One example of this could be Labour’s multi-tunnel Waitemata Harbour crossing, which was announced before even an indicative business case was completed.
Both Genter and her “unexpected ally” Wayne Brown think the Government should build a bridge instead.
She said the alignment between the policy platforms was because Brown was “someone who looks at the numbers”.
He was willing to make an evidence-based decision on what would be the best use of money and get the best outcomes, rather than just pursuing a particular transport ideology.
The two larger parties were stuck in “a race to the bottom” making big promises for people involved in delivering these large highway projects or large tunnelling projects, or on the assumption that roads will be popular with voters.
“I think they assume that because everyone drives, they just want more roads, whereas lots of people would like the option to not drive,” she said.
Evidence-based populism
The Green Party prides itself on being evidence-based policymakers, but it isn’t immune from the occasional tilt towards populism.
One example (arguably) is rent control. The Greens’ manifesto pledged to limit annual rent increases to 3%, and sometimes less.
A rental price index would be set at whichever rate was lowest: general inflation, net hourly wage growth minus one percentage point, or 3%.
The evidence in support of rent controls is mixed, at best. This literature review found they worked to lower cost increases, but also caused a “wide range of adverse effects”.
Adverse effects can include a reduction in the quantity and quality of available housing stock over time. Genter said the party’s suite of rental policies would offset the negative effects.
“Yes, there may be examples of places where rent controls haven't worked well. But that's because they don't have the other policies that we're proposing, which is a big push on public supply”.
The Green Party plans to build 35,000 publicly owned homes over the next five years, using long-term funding and materials contracts, as well as pre-fabrication.
Kāinga Ora would be tasked with targeting housing affordability and maintaining a building programme that anticipates demand and adds enough homes to meet it.
Of course, the rent controls won’t be needed if supply-side reform works in the long term.
Genter said the 3% speed limit was necessary as a “stop-gap” measure, because governments hadn’t provided enough housing over the past few decades.
Wealthy mandate
Labour has ruled out implementing a wealth tax if it were able to form a government after the election. This puts the Greens in a difficult position, since many of their policies are unpinned by an increase in tax revenue.
Genter said the Green Party would push for a wealth tax in the coming Parliamentary term, even if only 15% of votes had been cast for political parties that supported the policy.
“Well, the really puzzling thing to me is that 50% of National and Act Party voters support a wealth tax or capital gains tax. So, I don't know that people are voting on policy”.
Polling had demonstrated that there was a majority of New Zealanders who supported tax reform, but even without majority support Parliament had a responsibility to pass good laws.
“We are elected as representatives to use the power and the mandate, we have to get the best possible outcomes and I feel really confident the country would be better off as a result”.
You can listen to the full interview with Julie Anne Genter on our podcast, as well as interviews with Labour’s Grant Robertson and NZ First’s Shane Jones.
Interest.co.nz has also asked National and Act’s finance spokespeople for an interview.
87 Comments
Genter's first problem is that she lives with an economist.
And her second is that politicians have to peddle an optimistic story, or become history.
If we stand back and ask what a post-fossil-energy society will look like, we will be more likely to be close to what is needed. (Fossil energy is leaving us, irrespective of Climate decisions).
That means triaging bitumen, that raises questions about feeding cities (importing solar area, to the area-congested; it's going to be ALL about solar energy per head). So light rail is a likely goer - but not to service the current city-domiciled activities dependent on surplus energy. Which is most of them.
The Greens have lost their way, going Socialist at the expense of Environmentalist - but without an ecology, there is nobody to apply Socialism to; they've all snuffed it. So they have to re-prioritize, get their heads around the Limits to Growth (a domestic clash coming for Genter there...) and take heed of what the de-growth people are saying. Then they and the media should tell it like it is.
Note Dan, they had a 2-day symposium. NZ media coverage? Nil, that I've seen. Chosen ignorance or just ignorance?
Like listening to a campus club debate on socio-economic-enviro issues. Very little in the way of articulating real solutions. All so fluffy, ill-defined, and surface level. Peppered with contradictions.
They love dropping 'evidence based' for credibility to their message. Nothing wrong with that but there's little to suggest JAG does little more than cherry pick a study that fits her narrative. Nothing in this discussion though.
Irony is that compared to the average person, these kind of people are making out like bandits (with income derived from the public sector) while achieving very little except a debate.
Actually, I remember a caveat in their immigrations policy, somewhere
Here we go, found it:
https://www.greens.org.nz/immigration_policy
Ecological Wisdom: Immigration policy should consider sustainable population levels. The effects of overall population growth need to be actively managed and planned for. These effects depend on our environmental footprint per capita and particularly on those people with the largest environmental footprint
The rest is pretty much Woke waffle.
Sadly most green supporters are still all for it. It does not even register as an issue to be concerned about to them and certainly not a priority to address or even speak about. Most even want the migration numbers increased in a big way with less restrictions and less checks. But then that is from being a Green party newsletter, social media and MP marketing article reader and attending their rallies. After all it pays to know their priorities to heart to better plan for a darker deader future.
That Mexican backpacker MP is basically the MP for immigrants. He does not seem to believe its his job to represent New Zealanders, but "future New Zealanders". He wants open borders, no immigration checks, amnesty for illegal overstayers, basically a free for all.
I imagine any policy talks around reducing immigration will be shouted down and labelled as "Trump Policy". Wouldn't surprise me if, being from Mexico, he is motivated by the "abhorrent racist structure" that is the US-Mexico wall.
Oh wait.....
For most of us, Donald Trump’s bloated rhetoric on a ‘big, beautiful wall’ separating the US from Mexico is just that.
But not for Ricardo Menendez March, for whom the wall, and before that the fences, separating his home town of Tijuana from the US was an ever present reality that ultimately shaped the person he is today.
‘The house I spent most of my years in Tijuana was less than 200m from the border—a couple of blocks away,’ Ricardo says. ‘You don’t really realise how weird it is to grow up in a city like that.
‘What I see in Trump’s comments is an agenda beyond the wall. Mexicans are his scapegoat because we’ve always been in the spotlight as a migrant community. I guess the real danger is that some of the violence that Mexican communities in the US or migrant communities abroad experience as part of what happened when Trump got elected, comes as a wave around the world. And which NZ is not immune to.
‘I find the most dangerous comments from politicians are the ones that come across as benign. The ones that start off with, “I’m not racist but”. That’s what we get here in NZ.
Which is ironic because our countries of highest immigration rates are those who are ethnically the same. So those who are stating that immigration should be well considered are primarily looking to then limit immigration from those countries most likely ethnically similar to their cultural history. Most comments around immigration actually do detail they would rather have some minimum checks and controls we often do not take note of now (such as are the migrants being scammed by a dodgy employer stealing thousands from them, do they have any criminal history as the supporting documents are automatically waived currently etc), and should be targeted to the areas of most need & ability to house and cater support services for (as in providing with housing, a support structure, trauma therapy and support in schools e.g. for refugee children dealing with trauma and the need for rapid adaption, or for those who are forcibly returned here they may need connecting to a specialized support workers etc).
Many will rail about high immigration from X country or bias in selection but in reality what we have now is uncontrolled immigration from ethnically similar populations where none of the documents and supporting application forms are checked even once, and predominantly does a lot of harm to migrants being scammed. Those coming in to low wage jobs with little to no housing affordability in the local area and poor skills match to the jobs needed that often do take work that locals can do. Like the special category of vacuum cleaner, hammer hand or barista which can be learned on the job or qualified for in a matter of a week etc. We are not talking rocket scientists or medical specialists entering the country, but rather labour hire companies scamming migrants and stripping them of employment rights in the effort to make a quick buck when they have not even full time minimum wage to look forward to and cannot find or even pay for housing on their own. It is not no immigration regulations that we need but better and more ethical immigration both for the migrants and the local population.
I knew of several families scammed even to come into "essential" medical fields that are literally funded below the minimum wage so employers would illegally cut hours or have unpaid overtime to make the wage up to minimum and then the staff would live 6-7 to a 2 bedroom flat that was unsanitary and without suitable cooking options, no heating and if they had children with them they could not even afford GP access. It was tragic. All you could do as a employer and client in that market was to leave the service company in disgust and there was no other options... it was a captive market so it was milking the sweat of migrants by the larger overarching true employer, te whatu ora, and the labour hire company for illegal wages and illegal fraud of client services. The limit to immigration would mean they would stop being able to wash out the migrants through the illegal system and start having to ensure employment sustainability, legal policies and ensure employee wellbeing was good enough they would stay longer than a few months to a year in the role and would at least have the skills relevant to the work (most had none, I coached many in CV rewriting so they could apply to other companies for work for skills they did have).
Why is transport only thought of in terms of city boundaries? Will we ever have a decent rail passenger service that serves the towns between Auckland and Hamilton. Tuakau, Pōkeno and Te Kauwhata are commuting distance to either Auckland or Hamilton, as are Ohinewai and Huntly. NZ planning is so parochial. I tried raising this with our local Port Waikato MP Andrew Bayly (whose constituency is in Auckland and Waikato) and he didn’t seem interested. He just wants more roads. I drive a lot and would prefer to take a convenient train.
Agreed. I used to take Te Huia from Huntly. Was a long work day, but very productive adding the commuting hours to my work day (i sat in the food cart so snacks a plenty too).
But, I was subsidised what, ~$500/trip by the tax payer? Makes up for the wastrel youth who damaged my car that the police had on camera but couldn't/wouldn't do anything about, but it seemed to me someone was making out like a bandit at the tax payer expense on that train. No way it was worth the price tag.
The problem with Te Huia is that it is impractical for most people and you can only go from Hamilton to Auckland. It is the communities between Hamilton and Auckland that need the rail service. If there was a regular train from Pokeno or Tuakau into Pukekohe and Auckland, it would be used by heaps of people. Just a quick hop on and off.
All this money spent on slow trains. If we had a forward thinking Govt they'd implement a bullet train like in Japan. Tokyo to Osaka (530km distance) in 2 hours, 20 minutes. That would open up all the middle of the North Island to Auckland commuters. But no, we have a train that is slower than driving and the Govt is suprised people wont use it.
Yes great summary.
https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2023/05/11/its-time-to-shine-a-light…
Decent passenger service between Auckland Hamilton? How about the Te Huia service? You know there is the Te Huia? The train that had 35 people on it early on? And was losing $100's of thousands? And the train that local and central Governments are bragging about how it now carries 320 passengers? After they cut fares by 50%? So it seems that passenger fares are being subsidised by Government? Yeah, a working train service that is potentially being paid for by non-train users. Brilliant.
Te Huia doesn't serve the communities between Hamilton and Auckland, it just goes from one centre to another. Most people in Hamilton work in Hamilton, most people in Auckland work in Auckland. It is the settlements between the two that commute in both directions. Thats why the trains aren't full, the people that need them can't get on, they just watch them go by.
The virtue signaling from those with electric bikes is tiresome. For those who have been cycling most of their adult lives, it all seems so contrived. Imagine Japanese for example virtue signaling because they ride their bike to the shops. They don't expect applause. It's just what they do.
Car countries and bike countries have not always been the way they are presently.
Well yes. Bicycles are still common in China, but less so in major urban areas because of public transport options and car ownership. That being said, urban Chinese are unlikely to drive a car to the shops as first-best option.
Greens are not evidence based. They are ideologues. Especially Genter.
JAG is educated and has urban planning experience on both the public sector and consulting sides (from memory). Where it gets all messy (to me anyway), the consulting sides are always going to operate in a confirmation / descriptive frame. For a consultancy to actually come up with a strategy and execution plan is going to be very high cost.
And people like JAG will not have the technical chops to lead it.
KH - ever since Thatcher, and in NZ, Shipley, I have learned to watch for the mud that is being thrown - because it is usually what the thrower is guilty of. It's the ultimate spin, the ultimate straw-man; throw at them what you're guilty of. By the time they wipe off the mud, the media will have moved on. but the implication will have been absorbed.
The problem here is that exponential growth is incompatible with a finite planet, and we're in gross overshoot.
Those who ignore that - and worse when they do so purposely - are the biggest avoiders of evidence. The biggest idelogues.
And typically, they get worse the further Right they go - but our existential problems outweigh left/right by such a margin, that to even think that way is irrelevant.
The problem here is that exponential growth is incompatible with a finite planet, and we're in gross overshoot.
Those who ignore that - and worse when they do so purposely - are the biggest avoiders of evidence. The biggest idelogues.
Yes Power. But based on your narrative, electric bikes, etc are also ignoring the issue and until the population is meaningfully culled, it's a quick trip to total destruction.
You want the Greens to be distributing the Kool Aid laced with cyanide?
"The problem here is that exponential growth is incompatible with a finite planet, and we're in gross overshoot.
Those who ignore that - and worse when they do so purposely - are the biggest avoiders of evidence. The biggest idelogues".
All in your humble opinion of course Powder. I mean, after all, the end is nigh. Woe is me.
WCC Deputy Mayor, 93% increase in cycling through Basin reserve following removal of all carparks from basin to Hospital and the Cambridge terrace. 93% equates to an extra 100 cyclists a day, what was the prediction what was the cost, we will never know. So much for evidence based decisions.
Protip 93% of 1% is not much, plus they literally had ALL transport options already available to them being able bodied so there was 0% increase in transport options and considering the hundreds of millions spent you could literally pay for a private limo each time they decided to travel and it would be cheaper.
Genter has been behind the marketing for the biggest removal of transport accessibility for disabled people in the past decade. A known ableist and highly discriminatory of disabled people she tries at every turn to ensure access is stripped from essential places. This in turn led to a massive loss of job access an increase in abuse and hate speech directed at disabled people and sadly real lives lost. If anything the Green party should never ever be let near transport policies again, (as even James shaw saw fit to tax disabled people more than ten thousand just for the right to travel when they have literally no other options and are not able bodied). They are a walking breach of the UN Conventions of the Rights for Persons with Disabilities and their party priorities actually include stripping disabled access from key areas in CBDs and around medical centres. If anything they are a danger to the public, especially with an ageing population and a highly disenfranchised disabled population with the lowest wellbeing of all social groups in NZ (Stats NZ).
Genter has been behind the marketing for the biggest removal of transport accessibility for disabled people in the past decade.
Not sure if this is trolling or not. If it is true, I find it hard to believe. JAG and the Greens would be all for transport accessibility for disabled people.
Except they directly encourage stripping transport accessibility, and directly targeted disability mobility vehicles with high taxes even directly knowing and being informed of the very real harm it does when many have to raise money through charitable sources in the first place. They removed CBD access in a large degree last time they had seats in government. It was brutal and with jobs and medical access lost and very real physical harm done from that AND they still champion more of the same.
It is very easy to use accessibility as a marketing brand word but be very clear they only mean accessibility for the most able bodied in the country and all their transport policies literally are only for the most able bodied. They are even stripping access of nurses and carers to visit and perform necessary medical tasks for disabled people and the Greens housing designs they promote literally are completely inaccessible to even visit for cultural or social needs. Not once is accessibility even recognized as a right which is why most their MPs find it easy to gaslight and even post hate speech encouraging their supporters to literally bully, shame, degrade and even attack disabled people (Shaw and Genter do this often literally using hate speech against the disabled and when challenged go on to ridicule the disabled people for being too "lazy" who should be forced out of there only transport option and never be allowed to travel). It is very very brutal reading their SM.
But sadly these days any disability issues can be ignored as most disabled people do not have transport access to even collectively protest. You remove the right of access you can very easily silence the disabled. After a while the low wellbeing contributes to death rates below 65 (for conditions that in other countries do not affect life span). It is very easy to not see disabled people as deserving the right to have equity of access or even exist in society once they have their transport access removed, they are forced out of work, they have medical access removed, and become so poor and so unwell that death comes early. Ironically most MH services are inaccessible to disabled people also, including those targeting poorer communities like youthline (which is highly inaccessible to the point most cannot even get access to website details). This conflux generally leads to high rates of suicide for disabled people also. But most the time coroners can record the death of those with disabilities as natural regardless of cause or action/medical neglect. Hence many suffer physical abuse & neglect from carer support agencies but literally have no recourse and the agencies have no push back to improve. All down to out of sight out of mind. With the crux being what is the best way to keep disabled people out of sight. Why remove their access to society and work.
Transport access for disabled people, in WK 2022 research, not improved "in any measurable way since the Human Rights Commission’s inquiry almost two decades ago".
When more road access and disability access is being removed for a cycleway less than 1% of able bodied ever use while disabled have the access and option to travel there permanently removed. Try jumping over a cycleway barrier in a powerchair. Get back to me when you realise when it tips over it can kill someone real fast. I have even had family lose jobs because of barriers installed and serious injuries caused. But because they had a wheelchair and physical disability ACC refused to cover brain injuries from trying to cross even low sloped barriers that blocked access to medical centres and work. Note that repeated injuries as we tried so many times to retain access and could not get access even with serious injuries that crippled and nearly killed us. For the others with the same conditions across NZ they just abandoned all hope of ever trying to have access there ever again. In a city this is more than 10% now having access removed altogether. A large group hence why most public consultation meetings are absent of most disabled people. We should have accepted the denial of access like them instead of trying to have hope to fight to retain access to hospital & my partners job.
Ironically America is 35 years ahead of NZ in accessibility rights and transport. Which shows how bad NZ much be for American politics to be 3 decades ahead of NZ in transport accessibility for the poor and disabled. My family now has jobs with American companies paying 100k more than NZ companies, (it is well known most NZ companies will not employ disabled people even for WFH roles with known high levels of discrimination that is tolerated and even encouraged in media). There are literally exemptions in the NZ bill of rights that can exclude disabled people from employment, housing and basic access Fun fact eh.
Because the living needs of other humans especially those with the worst wellbeing in NZ is beneath you. Yeah I know. You have just proven a pyschopathic lack of empathy is very much part of NZ today. Except your life is also so dependent on services of society around you it would not be able to function in NZ without a socially minded govt service either.
No she wasnt. Clearly states "WHILE IN LABOUR".
“Contractions were not super intense at that point, I probably had [three] on the ride in, and another in the car park.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/127121005/green-mp-julie-anne…
Admittedly not all that many haha. No V8's unfortunately just the BMW witht the straight six and a 2005 Prado with the 4.0 V6 which I got for $2k somehow. Ironically I catch the bus most days since it ends up being faster than trying to find a park so the cars really just there for weekend duty.
ᴺᵒᵇᵒᵈʸ ᵃˢᵏ ᵐᵉ ʰᵒʷ ᵐᵘᶜʰ ᴵ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ˢᵖᵉⁿᵗ ᵒⁿ ᵐᵃᶦⁿᵗᵉⁿᵃⁿᶜᵉ...
I see toyota are talking about solid state batteries in ev's by '27, current battery tech will be obsolete. This is the problem with EVs, they will become a big iphone situation with endless cast offs as the tech gets better.
Im waiting for the vhs/beta war ev version.
solid state has been promsing for a long time.
I don't think lithium will be just dumped , if you look at the history , there's still NIMH running around.
If you look to deep cycle batteries , no technology has been superseded completely.
Wet lead acid still has it s place , and still outperforms agm , lithium is making inroads , but still unproven given 20 year life spans.
at worst , it would be battery pack swaps , but at best would make an affordable seconhand Ev market.
Sadly in history, now and all future plans lithium has been dumped, in large quantities in toxic fire hazardous landfills that have caused mass pollution disasters that could not easily be mitigated because of the more dangerous properties of lithium fueled fires. We have direct proof that both the right to repair and have replaceable parts in products (now forcibly made obsolete) is well and truly gone. The concept of forced obsolescence in tech is now so much a part of the business plan it is just openly accepted that is how the design cycle works. Rather than products that would last 30 years and could be repaired by generic parts you could pick up at a local hardware store to fix multiple companies' products or even build your own and last another 20 years. The lifecycle of EVs is actually shorter than most older tech and sadly that is both the hardware design and moving to more subscription based service models (the new flavour of removing the right to repair, removal of the right to operate). With the removal of the right to repair and the removal of the rights to operate new EVs are never going to out compete older vehicles on lifecycle, and ease & cost to repair. However bring back an open generic parts markets and home repairability and you may approach it.
We kind of had the vhs/beta war in regards to the charger connection designs if you have been following the tech and EV company movements through engineering news. We do not have the dongles for 'same company different release version' EV chargers yet as referenced in tv shows. People normally just dump the old one into a foreign market that is less advanced or push the costs and connection difficulties of the old one onto some poorer person. China just dumps into massive swathes of land solely for long term storage/waste... One guy just filmed blowing the old ones up in a quarry for giggles because they could not be fixed up to operate on the road again and there was no suitable landfill in his country yet.
What has happened to prioritising projects based on Benefit/Cost ratios?
There seems to be a total lack of accountability for spending public money.
Media has become fixated on seeing spreadsheets for tax policies, but turns a blind eye to requesting spreadsheets of benefit/cost ratios for major roading projects and policy initiatives like rent controls.
Show me the spreadsheet for benefit/cost ratio for rent controls. How will rental supply be affected?
How many more people will be without a home as a consequence of rent controls?
The same applies to state housing. Where is the analysis to show what is best ratio of privately supplied versus publicly supplied housing?
Show me the spreadsheet that will fix the current problem of 25,000 people on the housing waitlist.
Spending all your money building a few thousand public owned houses over the next few years won’t fix the problem for the current 25,000 that don’t have a home.
Migration at 100,000. Good luck finding these people homes. This country has huge problems that the private sector will need to solve as the government can’t do it themselves.
Government policy needs to help not hinder the private sector supply of housing. Rent controls are not the solution.
It's not about money.
Let me repeat that - It's not about money.
It's about allocating the resources (finite in many cases, limited in all cases) and energy, of a finite planet, to an already-overshot population.
Sorry - maybe you came in late?
Budget the remaining resource-stocks, by all means. Budget the remaining fossil energy ditto. But please, let's get past budgeting in keystroke-issued debt - it's nothing but a forward bet on said energy/resources, blindly issued, not referenced at all....
https://www.financialsense.com/contributors/chris-martenson/the-trouble…
Completely agree. This is not a well thought out solution, and even without a cost-benefit analysis, if we implemented a compulsory national service that included building houses and infrastructure, I have no doubt that we could make better progress towards solving some of problems. The problem with such a solution is that it would never happen as it would require our leaders and bureaucrats to take ownership. Therefore, it would likely never happen or be watered down to something meaningless.
How do they help private sector supply?
Some guys I know in government were doing some interesting work on this a few years ago, until they got sick of the ‘Small P’ politics and bureaucratic BS. They were looking at planning standards - comply with those, no resource consent required ! None of this BS about every development of 4 or more houses having to go through a usually long and costly resource consent process full of subjectivity and ambiguity.
Show us the same for a policy approach that has led to the worst housing bubble in the world, $2.5 billion of rental yield welfare subsidies per annum, a dearth of investment in productive business and over-investment in housing, $12 billion spent on handouts to property during COVID, another $774 million on handouts to flood-affected Auckland properties, $70 million to flood-affected commercial properties in the Hawkes Bay (so far), restrictive zoning that prevents building of adequate new supply close to public transport, and financially unsustainable sprawl.
What has happened to Benefit/Cost in that, and roading projects.
Rent controls are not the answer, but the current policy approach is probably even worse.
Having lived in a city that tested both surface and grade separated rail, and had rent controls:
a) long distance surface (rapid) rail transit is too slow. If Auckland wants surface light rail it would be better to connect each surface line to the heavy rail stations and grade separate/close all the heavy rail crossings so the heavy rail can be the rapid service. A long distance surface Airport to CBD light rail is too far and too slow.
b) rent controls don’t work. What needs to be controlled is the demand which means slowing the net immigration rate to something sustainable.
c) wealth taxes are fundamentally wrong. What we need is an inheritance tax (better than a wealth tax) and capital gains tax.
Good points. I guess Genter’s point of view is that rent controls can work if you have big and sustained increase in supply. However, while good in theory, as Labour have shown it seems to be hard in reality.
Rent controls have had some nasty side effects in Stockholm.
A CGT I'll go along with - there will of course be no airport, inside of 20 years' time, probably 10, maybe 7.
Folk have such short memories, and are so energy-blind. Remember when fuel prices climbed? Not one airline on the planet was immune. And we've burned an awful lot more since then; 100 million barrels every day. They might get a reprieve because the first distillate shortage looks like being diesel - but those who can't get diesel can't pay for flying.
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