Sometimes economists say the dumbest things. Yes, house prices have to rise for capital gains to be a thing. But then, people have to have jobs for PAYE to be a thing, and that’s also looking pretty bloody tenuous these days #nzpol

New government data confirms gas exporters continue to pay no tax “It beggars belief that a company like Santos can spend a decade selling almost $50 billion worth of gas and not pay a cent of tax on it," said @rodcampbell.bsky.social. #auspol Read: australiainstitute.org.au/post/new-gov...

New government data confirms what everyone already knew...multinational gas exporters are reaping billions from Australian resources while paying little or no tax. "People are getting increasingly sick of it." 🔊Richard Denniss, co-CEO, the Australia Institute @richarddenniss.bsky.social #auspol

Great to hear Corin Dann putting my dividends vs investment data in front of Meridian CEO Mike Roan who confirms they have faced no access to capital issues in the last decade. Here is the updated 2025 data - $14b in gentailer dividends since privatisation, $6b in investment.

📣 Justice For Myanmar named 2025 Right Livelihood laureate Award shines a light on Myanmar people’s struggle to dismantle the military cartel. Press Release 👉🏽 buff.ly/glncPoQ Right Livelihood Award announcement 👉🏽 buff.ly/0W9ftKU #changemakers #RightLivelihood #Myanmar #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar

Govt takes a billion in revenue each year in dividends and tax from the electricity sector. This is a regressive form of taxation that causes factories to collapse. Why cant we just tax capital gains like a grown up country

Kicking off this weekend's event🧵with a win! The #Airbusted campaign spearheaded by the likes of @justiceformyanmar.org Info-Birmanie @bloodmoneycampaign.bsky.social & more has been a success! Airbus have divested from AVIC whose subsidiary provides planes & parts to the Junta in Myanmar. 1/

For decades, we've been told that governments must cut corporate tax to create jobs Now the data is in: there is no evidence that lower corporate taxes lead to job creation & tax dodging suppresses wages Read more via @psiglobalunion.bsky.social 👉 publicservices.international/resources/di...

Predatory finance is taking over Asia Pacific. CICTAR researcher Ed Miller @labourcartel.bsky.social joins our friends at @grain.org to discuss how workers, food & public services are at risk and how we fight back 📅 22 May 🕑12h30 Delhi/14h Jakarta/17h Sydney ✅Register here: grain.org/e/7270

Why did the government send Sam Uffindell and Hamish two-by-twos Campbell on the ACA educational tour to Australia to see what a properly funded aged care sector looks like, knowing they were planning to pull the pin on pay equity the next week? open.substack.com/pub/labourca...

Hooton backing in his old workmate's industrial-scale pay equity wealth transfer. A $17 billion saving would have more than funded last year's $14 billion tax relief programme, which disproportionately benefited the rich. Seymour said this "saved" the budget. www.nzherald.co.nz/business/eco...

The noose continues to tighten around the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF) after new sanctions. Who powered the cyber scam industry tied to the militia leader Chit Thu & the criminal Karen BGF? Discover more on the growth of border crime with satellite analysis👇🏽

Bupa likely receives tens of millions in Health NZ per year. Our new report suggests it may have used related party transactions to reduce taxable income by $150.6m in the past decade and paid an effective tax rate of just 4 percent over that period. www.thepost.co.nz/business/360...

CTUM union offices in liberated areas of Myanmar were bombed last night by junta jet fighter rocket attacks. Luckily nobody hurt but shows the madness of the regime. Farmers union (AFFM) also targeted. Who is still selling the junta jet fuel??? @justiceformyanmar.org

#nzpol The first episode of Locked Out with Craig Renney is…unlocked! I sat down with @labourcartel.bsky.social to talk about energy markets and missing data from the government www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBW9...

A National Party MP is part of a religious group embroiled in alleged child abuse being investigated in New Zealand, Australia, and the USA. www.1news.co.nz/2025/04/08/n...

In this week's podcast, getting ready for tax year end - what needs to be done by 31st March; lessons from the largest known GST fraudster; corporate tax cuts what does the public think while @clrenney.bsky.social & @labourcartel.bsky.social look at who benefits soundcloud.com/user-2622281...

The US is pressuring Australia to pay $500M to NuCoal Resources over a canceled mining license. Joe Hockey, now lobbying for NuCoal, is pushing this claim amid ongoing tariff wars. aftinet.org.au/joe-hockey-l...

13 seconds faster per km on the Parihaka hill track (up Goetzee track and down Dobbie track)!!!

Australia's coal mines systematically and massively under-report methane dumping, resulting in wild under-statement of harms New @ember-energy.org report: ember-energy.org/latest-insig... + new UN study that used planes to monitor Glencore's mines: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

What should NZers know about Brookfield? ✒️ New syndicated article from @labourcartel.bsky.social about the investors at the Infrastructure Investment Forum over the next two days

This a very cute picture of a Pygmy hippo. Unfortunately this hippo is scam. You’ll have to read the article to find out why though. open.substack.com/pub/labourca...

Our latest report finds that Starbucks seems to have used its ‘ethical sourcing’ programme for coffee beans to route $1.3bn of profits through Switzerland, likely substantially reducing its tax bill cictar.org/all-research...

Privatisation’s profits are a tax on households and businesses. My latest here: open.substack.com/pub/labourca...

When we accused gentailers of excessive dividends and underinvestment in 2022, Mike Fuge retorted. Now it’s 2025 and Fuge says underinvestment is causing price increases…

Four tax havens - Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland - account for 17% of OECD FDI inflows, but only 4% of GDP. Removing them from the data shows that despite NZ's restrictive investment regime, we're p much on par with the OECD average. labourcartel.substack.com/p/tax-havens...

#NZpol It's often argued by the wealthy, or parties like ACT, that things like increasing renewables is "too much of a drain" (same too btw for public transport). But in this 2024 article, it's shown they'd sure have a better chance if less of our public entities actually underwrote private gains.

Big industry says they need public funding for the energy transition... But they're funnelling 75% of their profits into shareholders payouts 🤔 🔎 Our new investigation with @foeeurope.bsky.social exposes a system that puts shareholder gains before public interest. Have a look ➡️ bitl.to/40NX

Are crappy school lunches funding your retirement income?

Repealing the offshore ban was the main plank of the govt's energy security agenda. With a dry winter around the corner Why has progress stalled? Is disagreement emerging amongst the coalition parties? labourcartel.substack.com/p/why-hasnt-...

Great to see @barbedmonds.bsky.social considering the #generatingscarcity recommendation of Govt using its majority gentailer shareholdings to require investment in new renewable capacity. Under-investment has been disastrous for our economy. www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/...

Landlord tax cuts haven't helped encourage investment into new housing; we are back to bidding up the value of existing assets. What evidence is there that corporate tax cuts would be any different?

From 2019 to 2023 alone industrial electricity consumption declined 12.4 percent. In the decade to December 2023 per capita electricity consumption declined 23 percent. Compare this to per capital residential consumption which has been basically flat since 2016. This is deindustrialisation.

Out of paywall now. Foreign investors own critical nz infrastructure through tax havens like the Bahamas, British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands. Do these guys really need a cut to the corporate tax rate?

Why are critical infrastructure operators like the Wellington Lines Company and Enviro Waste (our second largest waste company) owned through tax havens like the Bahamas, British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands? newsroom.co.nz/2025/02/14/f...

Low wages in the garment industry aren’t just an issue, they’re a systemic challenge driven by competitive pressures. No single brand can fix this alone. It’s time to show real love ❤️ for the workers who make fashion possible. #happyvalentines #GarmentWorkersNeedUnions

Average NZ wholesale electricity price for the first 11 days of February are already substantially higher than recent years. Despite scorching temperatures around much of the country, the 2025 dry winter lurks just around the corner.

Is everyone in New Zealand/Aotearoa sharing a single password? Or is something else going on? The Post reports on the questions being asked by CICTAR's Ed Miller cictar.org/news/thepost...

Netflix's NZ subsidiary doesn't file public statements, meaning its revenue is below $22m. This seems pretty low, given there are 1.3 million subscribers here. Where are Netflix's NZ revenues being booked and what does that mean for our tax revenue? www.thepost.co.nz/business/360...

“Some of these strikes, which were the deadliest in the war and often used American bombs, are known to have killed Israeli hostages despite concerns raised ahead of time by military officers.”

Geoff Nightgale in the NZH: "The evidence in New Zealand that reducing the corporate tax rate drives investment is quite weak. Our company tax rate has come down from the early 1980s, from 48% all the way down now to 28%. Each time it’s been reduced, there’s no clear evidence it drove investment.”

At current levels of borrowing, the Govt's interest costs are largely covered by its interest income from the vast stock of financial assets it owns (89 percent in Sept 2024 quarter). There is a lot of fiscal space here.

Should Govt have forgone NZ$295 mln of Transpower dividends to avoid the big power price hikes? John Key says no. https://www.hivenews.co.nz/articles/423-key-defends-power-price-hikes-and-transpower-dividends

The bounty at this time of the year is just insane.

Just days after hammering the "woke" banks, a coterie of bank execs attended Shane Jones' Gatsby-themed party. Gatsby's set in the roaring 20s, a period which saw widespread bank collapses, followed by the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression. www.nzherald.co.nz/business/med...

Minister Van Velden says she prefers to meet with workers directly, rarely making time to meet with the @NZ_CTU, which represents 360,000 workers across the country. How many workers do they FSU and Red Unions represent? newsroom.co.nz/2025/02/04/v...

Mortgagors will be thrilled to learn the unemployment rate has risen to 5.1% (another 33,000 unemployed since last year), meaning RBNZ will likely cut rates by 50 basis points and lower interest costs. Looks a lot like class conflict to me.

We've cut the corporate tax rate twice since 2000 - from 33% to 30% in 2007 and from 30% to 28% in 2010. While FDI has grown in an absolute sense, FDI as a proportion of GDP has continued to decline. "This time will be different" is a fantasy.

How do we kill the myth of crazed NZ Govt C*VID stimulus spending? All the data to test the assumption that we went nuts relative to other countries is easily available now. Let's have a look at a few angles... [🧵1/n]

A powerful and shocking story. CICTAR is working with the doctor's union in Kenya, KMPDU, to challenge this approach. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... @ifc_org @worldbank