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6:00 am, February 13th, 2026 - 42 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 …
Burning gas is just hot air
Users pay, which is more than fair
A dollar a week is not heavy
A lot smoke about a tiny levy
But Lux is lacks
A levy’s a tax
When is it okay to “ “totally destroy” the environment, for some time.”?
When you solemnly promise to sell your precious to the US and not to China.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/10/seabed-mining-firm-hits-back-agrees-to-not-export-critical-minerals-to-china/
Woosh! [the sound of NZ sliding down further in the Corruption Index]
Fast-track should be buried down a mine ASAP.
Further to Incognito at 1&2, I hear on the radio the government will not be bailing out property owners after significant weather events where there is no insurance.
There must be political hay to make when this government acts in a denialist fashion but then refuses to stand by citizens.
There is an argument to be made that by this government's actions and inactions the severity of these weather events will increase.
"property" owners?
why do I have a strong suspicion that there will be a difference in how the rule is applied?
i.e. one set of rules for ordinary Kiwi homeowners, and another for owners of rental property (esp. if they live overseas)
As an Old, I'm fortunate to have a paid off house (I was in the last year to qualify with the ability to capitalise Family Benefit and get a mortgage from the Housing Corp?), and in the past I would have held that if people can't afford insurance, they shouldn't buy houses (or cars).
But now the cost of buying a house is so insanely high – and rates and insurance costs rising faster than the rate of inflation, families are stretched to the limit. Both those, plus maintenance, take up a fair bit of my own Super.
I'm old enough to recall when homeowners who didn't qualify for HC loans and had to borrow privately were still able to deduct interest costs on their tax returns – as they still are in the US.
In the past, home ownership was considered a socially desirable goal, and tax laws were designed to encourage it. Now the clear goal of the National Govt is to favour landlords over home owners and force Kiwis to be lifelong renters.
And I'm not altogether sure that Labour is going to undo all the damage that has been done so far. After all, they have not reversed any of the changes National have made to the original Kiwisaver plan, or GST rates.
Roll on the future, when the rich can all sit around in the 7 houses they've rented from each other, and create reaction videos to each other's AI created You Tube channels!!! Never mind the beggars sleeping on the footpath – the rich don't have to step outside as AI makes pizza instantly delivered through the computer screen!!!
"I'm old enough to recall when homeowners who didn't qualify for HC loans and had to borrow privately were still able to deduct interest costs on their tax returns".
You certainly aren't, at least for money borrowed to buy the property to live in that does not earn taxable income. You can deduct it when you are buying a property that is an investment and that you rent out or where you get taxable income from part of the property you live in, such as by having a boarder.
However you cannot, and never have been able to, deduct the interest paid on your own home's mortgage where you don't earn any income from it. It doesn’t matter how old you are. You have never been able to do it.
I checked. Sorry, you're right, I'm wrong.
This is what happens when you rely on aging memories of filling in tax forms decades ago. I didn't think back then I'd ever be an old duck dribbling on about "good old days….."
I'd better stick to memories of India to remind myself I am still, by world standards, very well off.
I already feel like suing the Crown for its negligence re climate change.It can pay my insurance cost increases, and fund all repairs from serious weather events
The whole yellow legged hornet story has quietened down.
There was a webinar for beekeepers earlier this month and a Q and A session.
Here is a link some of y'all might find interesting.
(I've not looked at either yet, life and fishing taking up time.)
https://nzbb.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=243d2c0e101a57a2d71a67e42&id=77be554988&e=703f9059ea
AI certainly has its benefits.
I have now decided not to leave my 70 year old bagpipes to my grand kitten .
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oAvSYhwBulo?feature=share
https://stories.theconversation.com/can-australia-build-one-of-the-worlds-largest-data-centres/
I’m no luddite but I have a deep aversion against clicking on those stupid silly (AI) videos and now I’m having a good reason to rail against them too. How much LNG do we have to import to power this kind of shit?
"How much LNG do we have to import to power this kind of shit?"
None surely, if it is being run in Australia?
No, it isn’t run in Oz and you’re missing the point – it’s not that hard to grasp.
Seymour is changing the name for lunch in schools, the Healthy part of lunches in schools is being dropped. Guess the name is now reflecting the reality
An investment company is once again pushing the idea of raising the age of superannuation and means testing it.
On RNZ: "Retirement age will rise to cover superannuation cost, investment company predicts"
Milford Investments CEO Blair Turnbull, says we can't afford universal super and the current retirement age because we don't have the same number of young workers to match those over 65.
David Parker said we need to follow Aussie with compulsory Kiwisaver.
In August last year Susan St John on Newsroom question the idea that we can't afford the current super is unaffordable, and says the problem is the untaxed wealth at the top end. Raising the retirement age would disadvantage the poorest people (who tend not to live as long as the wealthiest), and the disabled, chronically ill and unemployed
So, we should increase benefits eg working for families for the under 65s, hardship assistance, etc. And we should take more money from the top end who barely notice their super income. We should tax currently untaxed returns on wealthy assets.
I half agree with David Parker about making Kiwisaver compulsory like Aussie. I'm retired, and while I rent, I have benefited from having put money into compulsory additions to to state pensions, the equivalent of Kiwisaver, from living overseas prior to the advent of Kiwisaver: compulsory employer-managed super in Aussie for a few years, and by opting into an employment based pension, which was an option rather than paying the compulsory UK additional state pension. I'm glad I did the latter UK opt in as any additional UK state pension would have been deducted from my NZ super entitlement.
However, I now benefit from those compulsory extra pension in Aussie & UK, particularly because I was continually employed in those countries in jobs with a reasonable income. So, again I think the unemployed, precariously employed, disabled, chronically ill would not benefit from such arrangements.
And women would tend to benefit less than men as the sex income and wealth gaps still exist.
The Super issue is in three parts.
1.Super as a cost to be reduced.
2.Equity, provision to those in need.
3.Universal Super encouraging people to continue to work
If three is important, then raising the age is the way to reduce cost – the problem is equity.
Super as an issue of the past, present and future.
A plan for now can be based on awareness of past flaws, or present budget constraint (and related forecasts) but may not take into account future society change.
The impact of new tech (here AI and robots) will be to once again transfer income and wealth from the many to the few.
Equity first
Preventing raising the age of super having an adverse impact is quite easy
*all those unable to work or without a job over 65, receive a payment equal to that of super (this should have been age 60 since 1990).
*the saving made is not paying super to those working age 65-67 (65-70 etc).
Equity first and second
Means testing super to those over 65 (67 etc) who are still working and who already own property.
Use the money to
1.afford super rate payments to those not working (over age 60 or age 65)
2.provide income related housing to those without property over age 65
3.aged care
More general equity
The wealthy face estate tax and otherwise gift duty.
This to better fund government – education health and housing etc.
KiwiSaver
1.compulsory payment by the employer (to 4%, then 6%, then 8%)
(if a foreign worker, the money is paid to the government)
2.above (2% 3% or 4%)(half the employer compulsory rate) payments by the worker are voluntary.
I think we need to remember that in the majority of cases, superannuation is not a payment to people, but a payment through people. The great majority of superannuation recipients spend all of it out into the community, in supermarkets, in Council rates, to utilities companies, in rent (in some cases), to cafes, garden centres, etc. Superannuation helps keep the local economy going – and some of it comes back to the government in taxes from those places where it is spent. If you reduce the total amount of money going through those primary recipients into the community simply because you want lower government spending, you will reduce the size of the economy. It is classic austerity: shrink the economy based on a fantastical belief that this is the only way to grow it.
This problem could be overcome by the government spending the same amount of money into the economy by doing something else that has the same effect – though it’s not clear what this might be and there is always the moral problem (and financial cost) of elder poverty if you do that.
If we don't like very wealthy people receiving it, this can be addressed through the tax system so some of that money is clawed back in higher taxes at the top end.. This is far better than breaking with the principle of universal entitlement. Universality is an incredibly important principle because of its democratising, equalising, communitarian and anti-hierarchical spirit. Targeting is social and moral poison and a vicious enemy of social cohesion..
I love your comment and I think it’s great.
This is how (some of) the rich view (progressive) taxes; they feel they’re unfairly targeted and that their tax amounts to ‘theft’.
I meant that the targeting of benefits/entitlements is an enemy of social cohesion. That's because targeting creates boundaries – on one side of the boundary you get a benefit on the other you don't. This creates resentments among people in the marginal zone near the boundary.
I think you raise a fair point that progressive taxation might also be seen as targeting, with the same resentments occurring at the margins. However, because we are talking about the comfortably off, these are not existential resentments. They are more likely to produce tax avoidance behaviour than social friction.
It also creates more work to ensure people aren't trying to slip into the targeted bunch.
This is what happens in Aussie. My experiences with Aussie Centre Point is that some of the staff I've dealt with there, don't fully understand the details they refer me to, causing confusion, and extra letters and phone calls to sort it out.
Not wanting to pay the level of tax the wealthy should, is why investment organisations like Milford are still promoting the idea of means testing and raising the retirement age.
It comes out of the same hat as social investment and it’s typical neo-liberal thinking. The danger is that much of it sounds persuasive, common sense, and compassionate even, but in actual fact, it’s a double-edged sword in RW hands.
Your mention of RW hands makes want to ask the question again; How many folk advocating raising the Super age have callouses on their hands?
I'll wager their offices have air con so they aren't toiling in 28 degree sunshine with high humidity.
Good points AB. I am sick of smart arses trying to change our systems because …of some idea, some brainfart that comes from their class of society – facing inward. Superannuation spent properly is a bulwark of the economy. Universal was good. Those with money to support themselves can have their payments automatically put into bonds in their name that form a national investment fund. It would always be possible to cash in the bonds when required, to withdraw say half the investment immediately, and receiving state benefits for the elderly.
And all people receiving advantage from the government, subsidy, charity, pension at any age over teens, should be putting something into our body politic that is helping and advancing the country, and is staying in the country in NZrs hands. That would help us over the dips and difficulties we face.
NZAO should not be just a place, an address where you live, but be a Home Country, that one supports and cares about, along with one's fellow citizens, and is not looked on as being a cash cow.
Well said AB. There is precisely zero problem with leaving the NZ super age where it stands. Super is simply not ever a fiscal problem. Responsible papers should refer these kinds of articles to their paid advertising section.
Steve Keen is good reading on those points.
Government transfer payments return money to communities, and keep it circulating, making for healthy local economies.
That is why taxing wealth is essential, to prevent continual "trickle up" and local impoverishment.
So called business people who say they have more confidence when right wing cockups are in power, and support lower wages and taxes, are ignorant about where their profits come from.
Cheers AB, great framing.
Treasury tried to make this and the wider budget circumstance an election year issue late last year.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/574085/gst-at-32-percent-pension-age-of-72-among-treasury-solutions-to-financial-crunch
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/573996/current-government-policies-not-suitable-for-long-term-treasury-outlook-on-fiscal-future
Thus this comment today
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360949044/treasury-secretary-iain-rennie-warns-nz-super-incentivises-graduates-leave
A "Hardy annual"!
"Investment company" that makes money out of privatising super, says there is "no alternative to privatising super". Funny that!
In reality it will eventually become a costly mistake, just like other privatisation of essential services. Not to mention that resources allocated to the elderly, or anyone else, always comes out of current production.
Anyone who believes in "infinite expansion in a finite world is either a politician, or an economist"!
Every time the media mentions the Christchurch terrorists name, or retells what he did, he wins.
Shakespeare would be in awe Incog.
That’d be the ‘awe’ in aweful. But bad art can still tell a good story.
We've got a small building project underway and we are on our second liquidated supplier company – so far!
First time, we got our deposit back as we paid by credit card, this time we will not be so lucky and will lose our $4500 deposit as the company has no money and lots of creditors.
Where are those green shoots Nicola Willis?
The Opportunities Party has entered the Super debate to promote its long time policy of universal income.
It would extend paying money to those working over age 65, to doing so for those under age 65 as well. But at a lower amount.
It claims this is all affordable by a land tax.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/586825/ditch-nz-super-entirely-minor-party-says
Let's not. Garethnomics will likely turn out even worse than Rogernomics.
More-gone-omics..
I did a post on it for tomorrow.
You may want to check the name of the party again.
Too minor to provide more than one opportunity?
Never ask a spermatozoid that question.
lol.
ta! That was odd. Maybe I was distracted by thinking about who decided their new logo was a good idea.
https://www.facebook.com/opportunitypartynz/
I think they said something similar about Keynes initially, but the next thing we knew everyone was a "Keynesian".
I guess she didn't smile.
/
OpenAI has cut ties with one of its top safety executives, on the grounds of sexual discrimination, after she voiced opposition to the controversial rollout of AI erotica in its ChatGPT product.
The fast-growing artificial intelligence company fired the executive, Ryan Beiermeister, in early January, following a leave of absence, according to people familiar with the matter. OpenAI told her the termination was related to her sexual discrimination against a male colleague.
“The allegation that I discriminated against anyone is absolutely false,” Beiermeister said in a statement in response to a request for comment.
https://archive.li/oa7Ta (wsj)