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6:00 am, August 9th, 2026 - 26 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Little
greenorange men….
An American oil company connected to Donald Trump is preparing to sink wells in remote Greenland despite not having received permission from the local authorities.
As the US president renews his threats to claim the vast Arctic territory, materials to prepare for drilling were brought ashore in recent days on Greenland’s eastern coast.
That has prompted Greenland’s government to issue a “strong warning” that no approval had been granted to land the kit. “All future logistical matters must be advised and approved by the mineral resources authority – before they are carried out,” the government said in a statement.
Two days later, Trump made his latest menacing post on Truth Social, showing himself looming over a Greenlandic village.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/08/greenland-iwarning-trump-linked-oil-firm-prep
Another commenter saw this too Joe90 and it received a detailed reply with lots of relevant information and I have copied that from the other post (Mac1 8/8 OM) and put it here as we all need to read and understand:
8 August 2026 at 6:17 pm
What the hell does a Louisiana politician know about Greenland?
Louisiana landscapes features vast delta swamps, bayous, and the mouth of the Mississippi River. The climate is subtropical with hot, humid summers and mild winters.
Greenland has an ice sheet that covers roughly 80% of the island. It reaches thicknesses of up to 3 kilometres, weighing down the center of the country into a subterranean basin. The remaining 20% of ice-free land is a mountainous, rugged rim heavily carved by deep fjords where 100% of the population lives. Summer temperatures hover around 0°C to 10°C, while winters are long, dark, and average –5°C in the south to –20°C in the north. Because it sits within the Arctic Circle, Greenland experiences 24 hours of daylight in summer and continuous darkness in winter. Cold, dense air forces its way down from the high inland ice sheet toward the coasts, triggering sudden, fierce storms with hurricane-force winds.
Reply
Australian states have land taxes.
But they exclude the owner-occupier.
Land tax is instead reserved for investment properties, commercial land, and vacant blocks.
They have exemption levels and progressive rates based on value.
There are imposts on absent landlords, foreign owners.
A guide for investors.
https://patrickleo.com.au/blog/land-tax-in-australia-a-state-by-state-guide-for-property-investors
The UK has stamp duty, rather than land taxes.
https://www.gov.uk/stamp-duty-land-tax
Australia has both.
https://www.conveyancing.com.au/blogs/understanding-stamp-duty-state-by-state-guide
Australia has a CGT also.
Out of the OECD member nations, two thirds – 24 countries levy an estate, inheritance, or gift tax.
Those with no estate or inheritance duties include Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway (has a wealth tax) and in the EU – Sweden, Austria, and Portugal.
https://www.countrytaxcalc.com/tax-guides/inheritance-tax-by-country-2026/
When we wonder about our structural budget (government funding) deficit, as it is now called – we had a land tax until 1990-1992, estate tax until 1993, stamp duty till 1999 and gift duty till 2011.
All were imposts on those who owned stuff – the 4th Labour government removed the first and the others were removed by National governments.
Near all OECD nations have a CGT, we have had only the two year bright-line test (and brief extension period to it).
The time for a CGT on investment property raising money may have passed us by.
The historic CG's made are now only to be taxed as part of wealth or estate.
Well but let's never have a tax debate in isolation, either now or historically.
The biggest tax move the Labour government in that era of the mid 1980s was the introduction of GST. This has been a savoiur for government expenditure left right and centre ever since.
The policy intent behind introducing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) , was to shift the tax system from a narrow, distorted base to a broad-based, low-rate consumption model, replacing inefficient wholesale taxes and funding substantial reductions in high personal income tax rates.
There is no opint waving our arms about begging for more taxes until we are prepared to rebalance the entire tax system: the primary purpose of tax isn't to migitate inequality. the purpose of tax is to get income for the government to generate stuff the country needs.
You sound more like Farrar than a Labour Party member.
And we do not have enough tax and we know who has been paying less than ever before, the haves – less than anywhere else in the OECD.
Yes the GST funded
For awhile they faced land tax, or stamp duty on purchases (but none on their CG, which would grow and grow until they died) and gift duty and estate tax. Then they did not, thus inequality grew and grew and becomes inter-generational.
Thus a class divide which only the Green Party is trying to counter (TOP may be a catalyst, or a distraction).
When Douglas first advocated for reform he preferred an assets tax to a CGT – then did neither. Presumably expecting CG made to be collected later in estate taxation …
What I sound like is someone who has seen Labour lose elections almost entirely on the "let's raise taxes" question in 1996, 2014, and very close to losing in 2017 … and again very close to losing in 2026.
So sue me if I sound like Farrer and don't want to lose yet again, and see more of New Zealand destroyed under National+NZF+ACT, with our next shot at doing this being 2029.
Under Labour in 2018 and again in 2021 we expanded the Bright Line Test to do most of what a CGT would do anyway.
If in late 2026 by some miracle Labour get to lead a government of New Zealand, it will most certainly not be because we ran around with our hair on fire saying tax everything that moves.
Have a glass of Ad to enliven you, kicks like a mule but bucks you up for the cold! Give it a try for better results. That's my Advert for the message above. Be practical and do what is necessary, good and appropriate for the present mix-up.
A regressive tax, as good as it gets now is it.
Voting was pointless till MMP (unless one moved to a marginal seat), but this attitude is why I have never voted Labour since – though supportive of the 1999 and 2017 governments.
It is not ethical, it is being inoffensive to the haves and makes the party complicit in the rightward drift away from its own founding government values and achievement.
There is no longer any money in CGT on property.
If this country allows boomers to pass on their estate wealth without any tax on it, we will have become a class ridden society (akin to the UK of the pre WW2 period). And one with either a large public debt or limited government capability to provide.
Substitute human rights for all, the Treaty of Waitangi, the environment in place of tax and where would the Party end up?
The party, that says it being in government means things will not get even worse till they leave office once again.
The party that says, in New Zealand the fight for a fair tax system is too difficult.
What a lack of inspiration it provides for the next generation.
Who do you think that the boomers are going to pass their wealth on to?
Because, the majority of 65+ people (the youngest of the boomers), regardless of their social class (whatever that means in NZ), own their own homes. That is the 'wealth' they will be passing on to their children/grandchildren (generally being split up into multiple recipients).
The biggest risk of an estate tax, is that it will encourage the boomers to spend all of that wealth in advance. This is a constant complaint from countries with estate taxes (and other varieties of CGT) – that it encourages consumption of wealth, rather than it being diffused to the next generation.
I really should note that the GMFI established in 1986 eroded substantially afterwards – leaving most of the benefit of the tax changes change with those on higher incomes.
There was no attempt to deal with this until the WFF tax cuts in 2005.
And they like the 1986 GMFI measure erode over time.
The 2017-2023 government focused on the benefit level (given real costs were greater than the CPI adjustment, this had fallen in real terms from the low created by the 1991 cuts).
Yet the super wealthy in this country threaten to leave, if the left win in November.
The "super wealthy" will be completely unaffected by Labour's CGT. They are already structured way beyond that. They're international already, we're too small, and aren't interested in our tiny and volatile housing market. The capital flight bogie man is a projection of real estate industry fear / panic that the housing investment ponzi could be killed.
Somehow we've got to move on from an economy that just a real estate ponzi with a bit of farming tacked on the side, but the farming is hard to differentiate from the main ponzi bit.
The super-rich will be unaffected by the Greens' Super-Rich Tax.
They will be super-rich before they pay it, and they will be super-rich after they pay it.
Not to worry. At the present point in time what we need is to stick a pin in their bloated portion of financial advantage, so that we can manure the panting landscape of peons which we have, or are likely to, become.
A definition of religious fundamentalism.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361017809/national-target-debt-surplus-and-government-spending-if-re-elected
They made no promise not to charge for services, tolls and congestion charges have already been indicated.
One wonders if they plan a Burnham tax (options include a levy or estate tax funded insurance scheme) or a health services charge.
AI
https://spectator.com/article/would-a-social-care-levy-work/
They made no promise not to raise GST.
Saying that the solution to our current crisis is simply more of the policies that got us into it is certainly… a choice.
It seems to me that National learned the wrong lesson from 2023 and is trying to campaign as though it's still the opposition. That's a difficult trick to pull off after three years in government, because eventually voters may notice that the people promising to fix everything are the same people who've been running the place.
Although, given the ascendancy of ACT and NZ First within the coalition, I suppose you could make a half-serious argument that National actually is the opposition.
Either way, they seem to be relying on voters ignoring the evidence in front of them and keeping faith that the same policy prescription will work this time.
They really pinkie promise.
Seymour been weirdly quiet.
Labour has found its knitting mojo and is sticking to it! New policy announced today.
https://www.labour.org.nz/small-business-first
https://www.labour.org.nz/news/release-labour-to-open-up-govt-contracts-to-small-businesses/
Wonders, wondering. Pollie fancying put me in mind of pigeon fanciers. I think the pollies think we are the pigeons, let us reverse it. Can we stop following the lines of Skinner's experiment? Elections and their habitual bewitchment set us up to be pigeons!
AI Overview –
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Sorry thought I was in Open Mike so off topic. Planes and pigeons both taking to the blue hadn't connected in my mind at all.
once a knob …
(short vid)
@smithkstead
·
Dec 1, 2024
good to see luxon finally putting the hard hitting interview skills he’s been honing for years to the test
https://xcancel.com/kimpearce1331/status/2084856862596645073