Mike's Minute: We were lied to on tax

Has the Government's desire to bail out their dire fortunes in the election, in fact, made them worse? The revelation that the Government was indeed considering a wealth tax this budget has been blown wide open by the release of budget papers - and the Prime Minister confirming that he killed it. For months now there has been a suspicion of this. I first got wind of it in a speech the Statistics Minister Deborah Russell made in Queenstown months back, on the work that David Parker had done around the so-called super rich. She seemed to indicate the Government, if we hadn't already been clued in by the Parker fishing expedition, was keen to explore tax fairness. I asked Megan Woods several times on the show about the idea. She vehemently denied it, saying not this term, giving away the possibility that an election win could deliver more tax. So, if not in the budget, then when? I was then convinced it would make up part of their election campaign, thus being introduced next year and not breaking a promise. What I couldn’t work out was why a Government so desperately in trouble electorally, would try and sell more tax. The argument was because they hate the successful, they were hoping New Zealanders operate out of the same level of envy and, given it wouldn't actually affect the vast majority, we would actually welcome it. Especially if it meant we got to pocket a bit. I argued that’s not how we work. We are aspirational. Or we were. We wanted the chance to work hard, to do well and to succeed. Yet, as it stands, these days the main benefit has gone up 48 per cent over five years for doing nothing, while if you earn over $48,000 a year, you're in the 30 per cent tax bracket. So, at last we find out the truth. They looked at a wealth tax, they looked at it for the Budget and they had a series of implementation plans worked out. If you follow Parliament and Question Time, all the questions Nicola Willis was asking Grant Robertson, who was squirming like a worm on a fishing rod, were for a reason. Having taxed the bejesus out of us, having spent like drunks, having run us into a recession, and possibly two of them, and having racked up debt the likes of which we have never seen - they still wanted more. And while they were planning, they were busy denying they were anti-success and not exactly embracing honesty either. Busted at last. They should hang their heads in shame.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.