An alternative budget released by the Green Party on Wednesday aims to raise roughly $22 billion a year from new taxes on wealth, businesses, and the highest income earners.
The revenue would fund a $395 minimum income guarantee, free doctors and dentists, early childhood education, expanded accident insurance, public transport subsidies, and climate policies.
Core Crown tax revenue would increase from about 29% of GDP today to 33.9%, while core expenses would rise from 30% to 35%, and net core Crown debt would exceed Treasury’s recommended 50% ceiling.
The reform hinges on raising $72.5 billion over four years through a 2.5% tax on net wealth above $2 million. To curb avoidance, a 1.5% tax would apply to assets held in trusts, and gifts and inheritances over $1 million would be taxed at 33%.
Another $9.2 billion would be raised by lifting the company tax rate from 28% to 33%, $6.2 billion from higher ACC levies, and $101 million from a $5,000 arrival or departure fee per passenger on private jets.
Income tax would be overhauled. A $10,000 tax-free threshold would be funded by a 39% rate on income over $120,000 and 45% on income above $180,000. This would give anyone earning less than about $125,000 — roughly 90% of wage earners — a $1,050 annual tax cut.
This would raise approximately $88 billion over a four year period, broadly equal to 4.9% of annual GDP, to fund expanded public services
Primary healthcare and dentistry would become free at a cost of about $5.1 billion. ACC would be converted into a public insurer covering illness, injury and disabilities for $9.3 billion. Not-for-profit early childhood centres would be funded for up to 25 hours of free care, costing $7.7 billion.
Most core benefits would be replaced by a minimum income guarantee set at $395 a week. This would mainly cover Jobseeker and the student allowance, while sole parents and people with long-term health conditions would receive additional support through separate policies.
The policy would not affect superannuation, which is already above the threshold at roughly $500 a week, depending on individual circumstances. The minimum income guarantee is expected to cost more than $21 billion over four years.
Green Party staff and volunteers produced the cost estimates, which they say were reviewed by economic consultancy Infometrics, though the firm is not named in the documents.
Seriously, not literally
In a speech, co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick called the Budget a “roadmap” for the country New Zealanders deserve, and later told reporters it likely wouldn’t be possible to implement all the reforms at once.
“What you see reflected in the Green Budget today are the needs that we heard people crying out for, needing to be addressed. When it comes to which cab is first off the rank, that’s something we continue to work through for election campaign priorities,” she said.
The document was intended to illustrate the kind of economic settings possible under a Green-led government, in contrast to the upcoming Coalition Budget, which is expected to be framed as constrained by fiscal conditions.
While the Green Budget proposes raising billions in new taxes, it still anticipates annual operating deficits and increasing debt to fund housing, renewable energy, and rail infrastructure.
Net core Crown debt would rise to 53.8% of GDP in the 2028 fiscal year, compared with 45.2% under the Coalition’s fiscal plan in Treasury’s most recent update.
In a press release, ACT Party leader David Seymour criticised the Green Party’s willingness to increase debt as “financial illiteracy”.
He said adding $40 billion to the national debt would drive up interest payments, and the taxes needed to fund it would push wealthy New Zealanders to move overseas.
"Anyone with the financial sense the Greens lack would simply take their career, their business, and their money overseas,” he said.
A Green Party spokesperson said the wealth tax modelling accounted for behavioural changes, including the possibility of capital being moved offshore.
78 Comments
No government can "reduce poverty". "Reducing poverty" sounds magnanimous of course, but the best a government can do is to subsidise poverty by taking from those who are being productive. In the medium to long term, this has the undesirable effect of having more people doing less.
Actually, most of the 'high incomers' are rentiers.
Totally non-productive.
The rentier class should be voting green based on this ‘cause that’s exactly where all this increased government borrowing will end up.
Most of the high incomers also own assets, which can be in the form of property, shares, etc, which provide ongoing income.
That's probably one part of the big divide. Those at the lower end are only paid for whatever their labour generates in a given period, a one off amount. Those holding assets, are rewarded continually in the form of some sort of dividend, PLUS any appreciation of the asset.
Not necessarily non-productive. But also not necessarily that equitable either.
Policy can certainly improve social equality, however. But it doesn't really work if you achieve that by making everyone just a slightly better than poor.
That'd be almost perfect equality, wouldn't it?
""the best a government can do is to subsidise poverty by taking from those who are being productive. In the medium to long term, this has the undesirable effect of having more people doing less.""
You'd think that with all the information available on the internet, people would fact-check themselves before making statements like this, but here we are.....
Mmmm, tricky one. I'm sure there's some stats that says having a robust social welfare system improves productivity of a whole economy as a raw indicator.
But just from the act of being a human, growing, and watching other people grow, it should be fairly undeniable that if you continually do something for another adult they can't or won't do themselves, you'll likely end up doing it for them forever, and possibly a few more things also.
This isn't to say we shouldn't have a social welfare system, just that it creates bad incentives, and potentially traps as many as it saves.
"But just from the act of being a human, growing, and watching other people grow, it should be fairly undeniable that if you continually do something for another adult they can't or won't do themselves, you'll likely end up doing it for them forever, and possibly a few more things also."
How game are you to perform open heart surgery upon yourself?
Yeah, cause that's exactly the same principle.
Indeed it is
Ones division of labour. It's how we get things like heart surgeons and air traffic controllers, instead of a mass of generalist hunter gatherers.
The others subsidization for low or poor labour utilization.
Again..."But just from the act of being a human, growing, and watching other people grow, it should be fairly undeniable that if you continually do something for another adult they can't or won't do themselves, you'll likely end up doing it for them forever, and possibly a few more things also."
There are things (not just open heart surgery) that humans cannot do for themselves (or do poorly) and we have developed systems that enable those things to be done through collective actions.....you appear to be advocating that collective action is detrimental.
Yeah, we are talking about two fairly different things.
I'm talking about giving someone resources/funds, in liue of them acquiring them themselves, via conversion of their efforts into money.
And not, you know, your mechanic is preventing you from doing your own oil changes. You pay your mechanic, by getting paid to do something, presumably that the mechanic can't do.
Feel free though to point out how society benefits from adolescent males sitting on their parents couch playing video games though.
"Yeah, we are talking about two fairly different things."
Are we?
Or are you talking about collective actions that benefit you being acceptable and collective actions that benefit someone else as unacceptable?
You may have an agreement with your mechanic whereby you pay him a retainer and he will repair your car (perhaps for no additional fee, or at a reduced rate)....how would you consider that mechanic if they reneged on that arrangement?
Yeah, we are. You're trying to make an equivalency of division of labour with permanently disabling someone by doing things for them, that they could easily do themselves.
Let me make it easier for you.
If you continue to clean up after your kids into their 20s, they're unlikely to start cleaning up after themselves. Surely, in your many years you have seen this or similar behavior.
Who is the one drawing the false equivalency here?
Public policy is developed to benefit a society as a whole...that includes those capable, incapable, willing and unwilling.
There are alternatives, but are they better?....in my opinion not, but it appears we are in the process of discovery.
The part of my post you excluded:
This isn't to say we shouldn't have a social welfare system, just that it creates bad incentives, and potentially traps as many as it saves
So you're saying it doesn't do this at all?
Im saying that a social welfare system (noting that social welfare is far more than just monetary payments) is a net benefit to society....within that society there are mechanisms available to make the most efficient use of the available resources....'social welfare' per se does not create 'bad incentives' , indeed it can (and should) provide a level of security and certainty that enhances efficiency (or productivity if you prefer).
The context shoulda made it clear it was referring to social welfare in the form of financial assistance.
Oh well, I guess this is another point where our views differ.
Exactly Yvil.
Green...with envy is their motto & appropriate party name.
In the midst of all their obduracy and irrelevance they should pause to wonder why in their 30 years of being present in parliament, they have never attained even one of the much coveted cabinet seats in any government. Then it may dawn on them that maladroit and unviable policies such as presented here are only palatable to a small, but extreme segment of the electorate. Perhaps they could get better results if they resorted to witchcraft.
Actually Foxy, that ain't fair; to lump all Greens in one basket is to misstate the case.
Greens of the Fitzsimons era were indeed relevant to the current human predicament - she even 'got' the Limits to Growth, which is our major issue.
But the Greens of today, have gone down a track of believing in social justice, as if it can displace habitat failure(s).
In that they are just as blind as the Seymours of the world.
And that is hellish blind.
The Greens of Fitzsimmons & Donald are past tense. Had that platform and direction been sustained then daresay my comment likely, could not have been made. Be that as it may, it applies and fully as intended, to the present lot of them, and many more of them beforehand.
Do these clowns actually achieve anything?
Only economic disaster & social dysfunction, when in govt with Labour.
No, that's the lot you tout for.
They take from the poor and give to cronies.
You sleep well?
"When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff." — Cicero
PDK, since the advent of subscribe to comment, you apparently remain the only person now regularly abusing ad hominem to people who do not share your dogmatic world view. It's quite sad to see, when I believe that you could contribute more eloquently & effectively.
But it's OK to denigrate a mass of humans?
On behalf of an agenda?
I'm not denigrating you - I'm deriding what you do here. I regard your input as Cameron Slater with a polite lens. Sure, there were obvious touts for the 'other side', some of whom seem to be silent at present, but I'd rather a debate at a higher level; indeed we are overdue same.
A Green Party spokesperson said the wealth tax modelling accounted for behavioural changes, including the possibility of capital being moved offshore.
Yes. Along with the owner of that capital. Last one out, turn off the lights.
Unless the modelling includes government controls on the flows of capital: not sure how that would play on world markets.
a lot of the stuff in the Green budget is worth doing like renewable energy works, UBI etc.
I'm sure a lot will be said about increased taxes too.
I'm curious about how the Greens plan to reposition our economy for the future, in addition to making existing industries and transport links more energy efficient?
UBI would never work, the market would just adjust to the income everyone would be getting, just as early childhood providers adjusted to 20hrs free. Rents would adjust, commodities would adjust, and we would have the same issues as before. Taxes do need to increase, but without the legal loopholes being closed beforehand we will have unintended consequences. If an inheritance tax came in there would be a flight of wealth to pass on before it, and many other ways to keep asset ownership form ones name, and personal income.
Rob the rich to pay for the poor, the good old socialism fantasy. They should rename the party to the Robinhood Party, with an emphasis on the ROBB-IN. If there was ever a time for the launch of a true Green agenda focused on ecology protection and sustainability it is now. Their traditional voter base must be feeling abandoned on the original foundations of this party.
At the end of the day, and after all this time the quote attributed to Orwell remains the best. Something like - it’s not so much that socialists love the poor, it’s their hatred of the rich that drives them.
They, like most, fail to understand that capitalism has to be abandoned. No prob - it was abandoning us anyway.
That happens with an exponentially-growing take/consume/discard sequence within defined parameters. Can't not.
"$6.2 billion from higher ACC levies"
That is a doubling of the ACC scheme. Apparently, all coming out of employer's pockets.
"net core Crown debt would exceed Treasury’s recommended 50% ceiling"
So, we're going to borrow more?
Aye but therein lies a double play come motive and not located only there either. The creation of a huge phalanx of public servants to manage or mismanage the whole concern and thus insert both a grateful and dependent body of appropriately minded voters into the electorate.
This is where it gets stupid. They are stifiling the very things that earn the money to pay for what they want.
The Maori Party and the Greens seem hell bent on taking off the productive to suit their own perceived needs. Without realizing that to pay for all this we need income from overseas. This is the reality, NZ can not sustain it self. Without imports we are stuffed. How to pay? We need to export.
Imagine the average industry owner or farmer, the assets will be worth millions. 2.5% tax on top of what they already pay really! Oh or is it just private property. But what about Maori property, Church property etc. There will be hoop holes everywhere.
Both parties seemingly have realised that their influence, or ability if you like, in the house in parliament is as irrelevant as it is powerless. That is because the electorate has rejected the consistent extreme and irresponsible behaviour of too many of their respective representatives in so much that every recent election has seen them resultantly sidelined. That unhappy truth unfortunately appears to have provided no idea other than for them to then think, to tear down the house.
I can only hope Foxglove, that the general population realizes that those two parties have no agenda to improve the NZ economy.
Yes I know there are those who say it's about people and everything isn't about money. Fine. Lets face reality, it's all about money. Has been for about ten thousand years. This is not going to change any time soon.
There is no free lunch. And despite Luxons growth mantra I don't see much real delivered economic improvement initiative from the two major parties either - they wasted their respective govt opportunities while the NZ economy declined at least 3 decades so far.
improving the NZ economy'?
Is that where you are away back at?
10,000 years is how long we've been stationary farmers, running a marginal energy surplus at first. We now run one we cannot maintain. Which means that a goodly percentage of the forward bets (debt-issued fiat-levered-on-horsepoo-'valuations') which is money - cannot be underwritten.
You can't trade you way out of that.
You can talk in all those forward bet ways etc but the thing is the way the job works is how it is. It might not be to your liking, however you will never change the course of history nor will you change how it is now or will be in the future. I agree with you that energy as we know it will run out but my thoughts are if Humans concentrate on survival instead of beating the crap out of each other, there could be hope.
Doubt there is much chance of that.
"ACC would be converted into a public insurer covering illness, injury and disabilities for $9.3 billion."
I've worked in health and rehabilitation for 30 years. ACC cannot even keep its S**t together dealing with accidents and injuries. I wouldn't trust them with a wider set of responsibilities.
So they pay a dentist to provide free welfare. I assume they will pay market rate. But then they are going to tax these dentists up the wazoo so the dentists market rate that they charge will go up to cover the extra taxes they are paying. And so it goes…….
A better start would be stop looking at health / illness in isolation. Abolishing tobacco, for example, will save the health system millions. Likewise, finding ways to reduce alcohol harm, and obesity.
At some point, individuals have to accept some responsibility for their own wellbeing while governments should set policies that make it possible to lead a healthy existence. Gawd, I sound like a raging hippy!
Abolishing tobacco, for example, will save the health system millions.
It'd cost it millions. Tobacco taxes are a net earner for the state (they take in more of tobacco taxes than they spend on tobacco related health costs).
Although I do agree that our health system should be more proactive than reactive. But then that'd involve telling people what to do, which goes against people's right to treat their bodies like dumpsters.
Govt probably realises it lowers life expectancy and thus overall pension and health costs across the lifespan. Sick (no pun intended), but plausible.
Thats exactly what happens.
Even some of the nordics model for this.
At some point, individuals have to accept some responsibility for their own wellbeing
You sound like a logical and rational person from this statement. There are too many that see life as a rental car mentality, thrash the hell out of it and do whatever then hand it back to get fixed up between uses. Notwithstanding there are a growing plethora of illnesses, allergies ect that for some is genetic or from causes outside their control.
Chole spouting on about the depression and WW2 era - when there were 8 workers for every geriatric, there are now 4 and dropping fast. She doesn't have the workers to fund her green dreams. Anyone with the means will leave - just as they have under Reeves.
"Looking again at UN global data (Figure 4), when I was born in 1949 there were about eight people of working age (25–64 years) for every person over the age of 65 years.
Seventy-four years on, globally there are now about five adults per old person because so many of us live on into extreme old age. By 2100 CE, when the children born in the first third of this century are elderly, and with a low TFR for the rest of this century, this ratio is expected to have dropped to about 2."
FAFO
Last year, the UK lost 10,800 millionaires to overseas countries, more than double the number who left in 2023, according to data from the Adam Smith Institute.
Treasury tax receipts from wealth individuals were also down in the first three months of 2025, compared to a year earlier.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/06/non-dom-exodus-threaten…
Have you read anything I put up?
It's not 'labour' that supports - it's energy.
Orders of magnitude difference.
Sigh
Yeah we all read what you put up and I would suggest most agree. But energy as we know it is not going to run out tomorrow. Until it does things will carry on as they are. Planning for the future is something Homo Sapiens are not very good at. In fact it has always been living for tomorrow.
Running out isn't the issue.
Coming off the peak, while juggling maintenance balls (never more) is the issue.
That happens half-way through, not at the end.
Man, these policies would be a disgrace, if they hadn't mostly proven in other countries to be successful...
1. Central Planning vs. Market Innovation
> “When the State takes over, competition dies. And with it, efficiency and innovation.”
Markets thrive when providers compete to offer the best service at the best price. Dentistry in New Zealand is already relatively efficient, driven by private clinics competing for patients. Nationalizing it risks:
- Bureaucratic bloat
- Political interference in clinical decision-making
- Longer wait times
- Lower-quality service
Under public control, dentists become civil servants—not entrepreneurs. Incentives to improve services, invest in better tools, or expand access will atrophy.
---
2. Wealth Redistribution is Coercive
> “Taxation is only moral when it’s consented to by the people who earn the money.”
The Green Budget assumes that people who’ve accumulated wealth did so unfairly—and thus must be forced to “give it back.” But many people work hard, save diligently, and take risks to build businesses and secure a future for their families.
A 2.5% annual wealth tax, in addition to steep income and corporate taxes, is a form of punitive double taxation. It targets unrealized gains, erodes private property rights, and punishes productivity.
Redistribution becomes a euphemism for legalized plunder. It might be politically popular—but it sets a precedent where the majority can vote to seize the assets of the minority.
2.1 Wealth Taxes Punish the Illiquid and the Elderly
> “This isn’t a tax on income—it’s a tax on existing ownership. Even if you don’t have any cash.”
A 2.5% annual wealth tax on net assets sounds abstract until you realize what it means for real people:
- A retiree who owns a modest home in Auckland valued at $2.5 million (not hard to imagine today), but lives on superannuation, could be hit with a $12,500 annual tax bill—with no new income to pay it.
- That’s on top of council rates, which already function as a de facto wealth tax on land.
- This forces people to either sell their home, go into debt, or reverse-mortgage their way into dependency.
Who benefits? Banks. They get to re-mortgage homes that were fully paid off, turning debt-free retirees into clients again.
It’s a disaster for anyone who saved, built, and paid off their home over decades—now punished for having the audacity to hold on to it.
And no, this isn’t about billionaires. Most of them can hide wealth in offshore trusts, foundations, and complex legal structures. It's the middle class with visible, taxable assets who get caught in the crossfire.
---
3. Nationalizing Everything Is Anti-Resilience
> “The more you centralize, the more fragile your system becomes.”
Whether it’s housing, education, energy, or healthcare—centralizing provision under a single payer (the State) creates massive points of failure. If the government botches it, there’s no alternative. Private markets allow for pluralism, adaptability, and community-driven solutions.
For example:
- Public housing projects often fail due to mismanagement or political cycles.
- State-run ECE could homogenize care and crowd out the diversity of approaches seen in community centers, Montessori, Steiner, or faith-based care.
- Forcing councils to operate public transport services risks bureaucratizing what could be outsourced more efficiently.
---
4. The Budget’s Moral Framing is Dishonest
> “Calling it ‘fair’ doesn’t make it just.”
The Green Budget cloaks itself in moral language—justice, fairness, restoring mana, helping the vulnerable—but glosses over the zero-sum nature of what it proposes:
- Every dollar “given” to someone must be taken from someone else.
- Every public job created means private jobs displaced, crowded out, or taxed out of existence.
- Calling business profits "corporate greed" dehumanizes the entrepreneurs and workers who make the economy function.
---
5. You Can’t Spend Your Way to Utopia
> “This is fiscal fantasy wrapped in activist rhetoric.”
The budget radically expands the welfare state, energy subsidies, housing construction, public transport, and more—all funded by massively increasing taxes on a small productive minority.
That’s risky:
- Revenue from wealth taxes is highly uncertain—many countries have tried and abandoned them (France, Sweden, Denmark).
- Raising corporate tax to 33% makes NZ uncompetitive globally.
- If the rich flee or downsize, the tax base collapses.
New Zealand could quickly find itself with European-style welfare ambitions and a Pacific-sized economy to support it—creating permanent deficits, capital flight, and social division.
---
6. The Slippery Slope Toward Soft Authoritarianism
> “Once the State decides it owns your wealth, your land, your choices… where does it end?”
When governments start nationalizing services, controlling the economy, and redistributing wealth at this scale, the line between democracy and economic coercion starts to blur.
A nation cannot remain truly free when:
- Its citizens no longer control their property
- Markets are distorted by central planners
- Citizens are increasingly dependent on the State to survive
---
In Summary
The strongest argument against this budget isn't simply "it's too expensive" or "too idealistic." It's that it replaces a dynamic, voluntary, and pluralistic society with a centralized, coercive, and dependent one—all in the name of fairness.
It assumes that bureaucrats know better than families, that taxing wealth is justice, and that the only way to fix inequality is through confiscation and control. But history shows this rarely leads to prosperity—it leads to stagnation, division, and a dangerous loss of freedom.
James Agree with a lot of the above, particularly the last paragraph. But what I would recommend is to condense your thoughts. Long winded gets boring.
- A retiree who owns a modest home in Auckland valued at $2.5 million (not hard to imagine today), but lives on superannuation, could be hit with a $12,500 annual tax bill—with no new income to pay it.
- That’s on top of council rates, which already function as a de facto wealth tax on land.
- This forces people to either sell their home, go into debt, or reverse-mortgage their way into dependency.
The precise reason they will not get sufficient support
The underlying intention is to force folk into reverse mortgages. Ironically that will further enrich the (in their language - capitalist pig) banks more than anything else.
"A Green Party spokesperson said the wealth tax modelling accounted for behavioural changes, including the possibility of capital being moved offshore."
That sounds like controls on the flow of capital would be imposed in an attempt to stop an exodus of capital (and likely enterprises) overseas. That didn't work well for us in the past, and there are other effects beyond capital flight that have caused wealth taxes to be dropped in other countries.
Those effects include: making it harder to do business here, actually incentivising enterprise flight to friendlier jurisdictions, it's very likely rates would rise on any borrowings the country makes as the economy shrinks in relation to debt, and from overseas experience the administrative overheads like valuations, asset registers and the like make such a tax only marginally viable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Criticisms
It's kind of weird that a capital gains tax on realised gains hasn't been mentioned: it's simple, you can make carve-outs like the family home to improve public acceptability, and physical assets are a lot harder to send overseas.
What an absolute hodge-podge.
Most core benefits would be replaced by a minimum income guarantee set at $395 a week... The policy would not affect superannuation, which is already above the threshold at roughly $500 a week,
So what are they saying? Older people need more money than younger people?
I'd have thought the opposite, surely an 80 year old eats less than an 18 year old, for starters.
If any party wants to pursue a UBI or 'minimum income guarantee' (same thing essentially), it should be set at the same level as super and indexed to CPI, as super is.
And why is there such a focus on subsidized childcare? Surely, the best society is one where a single income is adequate to comfortably raise a family - and that's where the UBI comes in - the adult that stays at home to raise the children receives it. No childcare subsidies needed at all.
Everything else is (to my mind) an unnecessary thought-process for a minor party. They never write a full budget - in an MMP environment I think they'd be better to focus on a big single-issue (i.e., tax/welfare reform) and do it well.
And BTW - we actually need a dedicated, single-issue environmental party - these folks just aren't 'there' anymore.
“These folks just aren’t there anymore.” True, but that’s hardly new. When the Green movement came to the fore internationally I cannot recall any acquaintance who disputed either the essentiality or the sincerity of the cause. As far as New Zealand at least, the movement has without doubt been highjacked by the belligerent bigotry of an agenda far removed from the founding ideals and direction. What is apparent too is that the current disciples on board, are actually all doing very well for themselves in comparison to those that they unrelentingly present as being underprivileged. It sucks, and they suck.
Agree Kate, the Greens have lost their focus. Should have stuck to sustainability. They are in the misty world of trying to stick up for the so called under privileged. Yes there have always been the poor. Most societies try to help. Sometimes there is a misconception as to what is poor.
Agreed
One can lead a very rich life with little income.
Yes PDK I have family who have lived on very little and have owned nothing but have had a wonderful life.
It takes seeing through the cloud of modernity to see this. Often overseas travel to less fortunate nations helps give perspective, and I wonder the prevalence of this understanding is as generations go on. Millennials were the last generation to know what it was like to grow up without (at least in part) the internet, smartphones, social media. How this plays out in many ways with GenZ, GenA and so on will be interesting in deed at a societal level.
Anyone with an understanding of how the economy actually works would conclude that the economy would be a lot better if this budget were passed. The wealth tax is a bit silly and the corporation tax is not great, but otherwise it is pretty good.
"Anyone with an understanding of how the economy actually works..."
Jonny.Foe, perhaps you know the J.Foe who contributed regularly here last year? A determined proponent of Magic Money Tree free lunches.
Yes, we are common foes. I have read everything j.foe wrote, and I never heard him espouse mmt free lunches. No lunch is free of course, it's the product of energy, labour, technology, plant, and minerals.
Welcome back
But to be implemented would require many of those who think they will achieve independence from state provision to have an epiphany
Im unimpressed with the poverty of comments here. Rolling out of old tropes. Try and survive on a cleaners wage of $30 an hour. Are we boomers really content to grow old in our rest homes with robots for company? Many can afford to share that wealth.
Look to Finland or Sweden for an economy that treats its citizens with dignity , houses everyone and values their environment. Yes, they have high taxes. They also have a great health system and incredible education and they dont fear growing old because the taxes they have paid helps them retire and enjoy an great third age.
People are leaving New Zealand because of the poverty of ideas and opportunities.
We need more investment in science and innovation, in infrastructure, in health, etc...and that takes money.
How else do we pay for these? More tourism, more cows?
You might want to speak to a Finn about the current state of their country - essentially the same as anyone complaining about the state of NZ, with the added bonus of Crazy Ivan on their border.
Agree. One of the biggest risks to any society is a high Gini Co-efficient;
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gini-coefficient-by-…
A far more important statistic than GDP.
Dont worry. If the Greens policy platform is ever adopted you can always book a place in Dogen City
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