I have a good friend, who I refer to (not to her face) as a Born-Again Socialist. When questioned, she will tell anyone prepared to listen that she ‘used to vote National’, almost as if she were a recovering alcoholic. More likely, she is trying to tell everyone that she
Things have changed a lot in the workplace in the last 30 years, and much of it has been good. Women having babies in the 1980s had no paid parental leave, and may have been allowed to take a few months unpaid leave (if they were lucky), but fathers basically
Now for a boring little piece on tax… but bear with me. It will reveal the pettiness of this government, and how they really, really do despise farmers, tradies and almost anyone who actually works for a living. The Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) rules have 2 types of private vehicles:
I have taken to reading The Spectator Australia and The Telegraph in the UK recently, as they produce decent journalism that is well researched, well written and thought-provoking without being inherently biased. The Telegraph attacks members on both sides of the political divide roughly equally, while The Spectator attacks wokeism,
While driving today, I heard something on the radio which said we are now celebrating 2 years of being plastic-bag free. We are not plastic-bag free, of course. Anyone can buy them at the supermarkets in packs, or in bulk on the internet. I assume they mean ‘free-plastic-bag free’, as
Enjoying the glory of our cricket team winning the inaugural Test Cricket World Cup is a magical moment for sport in this country, and one that we cricket fans can savour for a long time. It almost takes away the bad taste of the other sporting announcement this week; almost,
I have a client who has been hit rather badly by the Bright-line Test. His profit on the property sale is over $200,000, on which he will have to pay tax. As he already has a reasonable income, this is going to push him well into the top tax
I was chatting to a client the other day. He has been in the construction industry for the last three decades. Now in his 50s, his personal situation is quite comfortable; he has only a small mortgage and a nice house in a coastal area, and he has decided to
The first time I heard the suggestion that Wellington City Council might start imposing congestion taxes in the CBD was just after the 2013 local body elections, when Chris Laidlaw famously put the idea to council. I thought at the time that it was an outrageous idea; after all, they
We all know about the Climate Commission’s report, which came out last week. It continues with the usual narrative, that we are destroying the planet, and we all have to live like Stone Age people if we wish to survive. The prime minister jumped in with her usual dose
I grew up under a barrage of strikes. In 1970s Britain, there was always a strike somewhere – a car plant strike here, a cross-Channel ferry strike in the holiday season. Strikes were as regular and tedious as they were damaging. I studied for my ‘A’ Levels (7th Form Certificate) by
The first person I heard speak about the idea of unconscious bias was Prince Harry. He claimed that his upbringing made him completely unaware of ‘unconscious racial bias’, until he met Meghan Markle. The fact that he grew up in a family where his grandmother was head of the Commonwealth,
Anyone who remembers John Key standing in the Wellington Westpac Stadium and bemoaning the fact that the number of people leaving New Zealand each year would fill that stadium must be coming to the realisation that soon, we will be back in the same situation. In fact, it is quite
Many of you will know that parts of Australia are currently suffering a once-in-a-lifetime mouse plague. The plague is affecting rural parts of Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia, resulting in the destruction of crops and people’s livelihoods. This is a tragedy for all concerned… but according
Okay. Let’s take a look at the proposed Employment Protection Insurance, dangled like a carrot at middle New Zealand by the benevolent Grant Robertson while reading the 2021 Budget. On the face of it, such a scheme would have a couple of major benefits. The first is that those
It seems that its large majority, won at the last election, has gone to Labour’s head. On election night, Jacinda Ardern promised to govern for all New Zealanders. After all, she was well aware that many people who normally voted National had given her government a resounding second term.
