Labour leader Chris Hipkins. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii
Labour leader Chris Hipkins says he is comfortable with where the Capital Gains Tax policy has landed, after a survey showed voters were split on the idea.
Hipkins announced last month the party would campaign on the tax covering just property - excluding the family home and farms - to help fund three free doctor visits for everyone.
The party overtook National on perceptions of its ability to manage the economy in Monday's Ipsos poll, putting it on top for 15 of the top 20 issues for New Zealanders.
And a Curia-Taxpayers Union poll on 12 November had the coalition holding on to power but Labour gaining two points following its capital gains tax announcement.
A NZ-Herald-Kantar poll of 1000 potential voters published on Tuesday showed an equal split between supporters and opponents of the party's capital gains tax policy, though with Aucklanders more likely to oppose it.
Hipkins said he was comfortable with where the capital gains policy tax had landed and it was "not a natural human response" to vote for higher taxes.
"But New Zealanders can see that we do need to change our tax system so that we're encouraging people to invest in creating jobs and to productive businesses, we're not going to get rich as a country by buying and selling rental houses to each other."
Hipkins said Labour would be campaigning hard in Auckland and he was determined to persuade them of the need for a capital gains tax which although necessary was never going to be an easy sell.
Hipkins said the public could see the government was full of blame and excuses without much to offer in terms of solutions.
"They said they were going to fix the economy and things are getting worse, they said they were going to fix the cost of living - things are getting worse, they said they were going to deal with unemployment, more people are losing their jobs and we've got record numbers of New Zealanders leaving the country."
Labour's focus was "jobs, health, homes and cost of living" and those were the key things it would be campaigning on next year, he said.
"We want to get people back into work and we want to make sure that work is well-paid, we want to make sure people have the opportunity to buy their own home, we want to make sure everybody has access to the healthcare they need when they need it."
Hipkins said in terms of dealing with the cost-of-living crisis, the first thing was to get people back to work because people were more resilient to cost of living pressure if they had good well paid jobs.
Labour had begun outlining its plan to do that with the establishment of the New Zealand Future Fund which was focused on creating jobs for New Zealanders, he said.
Shifting investment away from housing speculation and into the productive economy was something New Zealand had needed to do for a long time, he said.
The cost of living was a huge issue for New Zealand families which the current government was out of touch with the reality of that, he said.
"The government can't set food prices but we can make sure that the grocery sector is a competitive industry which it isn't at the moment and we can look at other areas of cost pressures on Kiwi families as well.
"Electricity prices are continuing to go up, that's a major pressure point for New Zealand families ... renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuelled energy."
The government had not addressed the fundamental problems with the electricity market, he said.
"That the current big companies are more focused on extracting dividends than they are in investing in new generation for the benefit of all New Zealanders."
Hipkins said there were some things that could be done to alleviate cost of living pressures which would have an immediate impact, such as giving every New Zealand three free visits to the doctor.
Asked whether Labour could work with Te Pāti Māori after infighting and the expulsion of MP Tākuta Ferris and Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, Hipkins said the plan was for Labour to win back all the Māori seats at the election.
It had a better chance of doing so now because "Te Pāti Māori are not in any fit state to contest those seats or to form any constructive role in the next Parliament," he said.
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