Luxon just became a poster boy for taxing the rich

Whenever our politicians are caught with their hand in the till, they loudly proclaim that their theft from the public was "within the rules". The problem is that they are the ones writing the rules, and there's a certain suspicion that they write them to suit themselves. And so their their legalistic defences simply add to the stench of self-interested corruption from our political class.

That's bad enough when it comes to rorting perks and getting paid to live in your own house. But Prime Minister Chris Luxon has taxen it to a new level, apparently scamming $70,000 from a tax break he gave himself:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon narrowly avoided paying what might have amounted to a large tax bill on the sale of his Wellington apartment thanks to changes brought in by the Government.

Luxon sold his Wellington apartment and moved into the Prime Minister’s official residence, Premier House.

[...]

Because Luxon bought and sold the apartment within five years of purchase and he bought the apartment after the introduction of the five-year test, he would have been required to pay tax under that test at a rate of 39% - equating to a maximum tax of $70,200.

However, on coming into office, Luxon’s Government scrapped both of Labour’s extensions of the bright-line test, shifting it back to two years as of July 1, 2024. That means Luxon avoided being caught by the five-year test by just over two months and saved himself $70,200. If he had sold the apartment in February, when he declared he would move into Premier House, he would likely have been required to pay the tax.

Obviously, Luxon didn't change the rules solely so he could profit from it. But he did nakedly profit from the rule-change he wrote. And that's... unseemly. A "bad look". A bit stinky.

But I guess that's just who our political class are now: not normal people, but people with huge portfolios of hoarded houses, and the rapacious, grasping, self-interested attitudes to match. According to his Gospel of Prosperity, Luxon saw an opportunity and took it, and that's why he's "wealthy and sorted" and the rest of us are just struggling peasants. And because we were fools enough to give him power, we deserve to be exploited in this way. But while that may sound great in the weirdo fundamentalist circles Luxon moves in, to the rest of us, it just looks like a greedy arsehole abusing his power to rip off the public. And it makes some form of wealth tax a necessity. Because its no longer just a fair way of giving the state the resources it needs to pay for the services we need - its about making sure rich arseholes like Luxon don't get to rort us while laughing at us.

Climate Change: Fossil fuels versus free trade

One of the arguments against National's gas fantasy is that it breaches our environmental commitments under various free trade agreements, including the NZ-EU FTA, which requires us to meet our Paris commitments and not weaken our environmental protections. And it turns out that MFAT agrees:

Legal advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade states the Government’s plans to repeal the 2018 ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration will “likely” breach New Zealand’s obligations in recent free trade agreements.

Deals with major trade partners such as the European Union and the United Kingdom prohibit New Zealand from reducing environmental protections to encourage trade or investment. Though officials said the risk of a country taking a case against New Zealand was low, the policy was “likely” inconsistent with these provisions.

National apparently doesn't care, leaning heavily on that low chance of anyone bringing a case. Which I guess shows how committed they are to the "rules-based international order" they keep talking about. But we're a pretty poor international partner if we only keep our commitments if they are actually enforced against us, and I think most kiwis would expect better from our government than that. We've made promises, and we should keep them. Only business weasels and sociopaths would try and cheat.

But also, it seems that if we want the direction of this government to change, we should be doing our utmost to ensure that these countries do take action. After all, National has said its the only thing they'll listen to. We should take them at their word. And if it results in sanctions on the dirty dairy industry, so much the better.