Mike Hosking: Numbers don't lie, time for the Government to wake up over CGT

Opinion

The numbers are new, but the theme isn't. Business NZ has polled on the capital gains tax, and they've come up with pretty much what we have been saying since the whole mad idea got reheated by the Labour Party, who seem obsessed by it.

Overall, 65 per cent say no. Has it harmed the Government? Half say, yes. Should it be on farms and businesses? 54 per cent say no. Houses? A bit closer, 49 per cent against 39 per cent for. Kiwisaver? 90 per cent say no.

And the poll out on the same day the Aotearoa Tax Justice hand-wringers launched their campaign with a petition of less than 400, and about 10 people showing up on the grounds of Parliament.

New Zealanders, and this is what the Labour Party have never got, are inherently fair. You can argue around the margins on tax, tax is an accepted practice. But so is hard work, graft, risk and discipline. And that is what business, especially small business, the very business that drives this country's economy, is all about.

Owning a business, which virtually none of the Labour Cabinet ever have, is not like a job, it's not salary and wages, it is your life. And until you've done it, you don't get it.

And that is why the Labour Party on this are so hopelessly out of touch, and why the poll says what the poll does. And these numbers, I would have thought, are about the final nail in the coffin for New Zealand First, who most see as the moderator of any excess that comes out of the Cullen report.

If they weren't hesitant to sign up before, surely the polling we've seen now is about as rock solid by way of proof as you could ever possibly want.

And here's what I don't get about why we are here. We have been here before, it was a bust. A CGT has never been viable.

Labour seem obsessed with it. They've adopted it, abandoned it, adopted it again, and, irony of ironies, hired one of the most vehement critics within their own party to lead the latest charge.

Not once did Sir Michael Cullen in all those years in Parliament ever utter a favourable word about a CGT, he had plenty of words though about its failings. But never a fan, not even when he got hired could his committee come up with a formula. He told the Government so, they told him to go away and get it done.

They did, but not unanimously. There were three dissenters, two of them recognised tax experts. And then having got the report they wanted, they wandered off pretending they hadn't made up their mind.

There was the Prime Minister, just yesterday, saying they still hadn't made up their minds, despite literally any day now their response is due. Do we honestly believe any of this crap?

Pragmatism and common sense should have seen this folly put to bed months back. But it looks like ideology rules with Labour, but as the poll shows to our economy's and to the Government's detriment.

If these numbers don't wake them up, it might well be the break National have so badly been waiting for.