JACINDA ARDERN : HER WORDS DON'T MATCH HER DEEDS

Who knew that when Jacinda Ardern cried 'Let's do this!', she meant helping out business groups, landlords and property investors?

GIVEN THE Labour Party's dismal track record over the past three decades, it comes as no surprise that it should decide that a capital gains tax will now be permanently consigned to the 'too hard' basket. But what makes this capitulation a particular bitter pill to swallow for many is that it was made by a government led by a Prime Minister who promised transformation but has instead delivered up the further entrenchment of power and privilege in this country. As someone once said, the National Party runs the country on behalf of capitalists, the Labour Party runs the country on behalf of capitalism.

Ordinary people have been shafted again and have every right to question what Jacinda Ardern actually meant when she convinced many with her battle cry of 'Let's do this!' They no doubt didn't expect it to mean helping out landlords, property investors and financiers.

The failure to introduce a capital gains tax might of been described by the NZ Property Investors Federation as 'the best thing the Government could have done' but the over 250,000 children living in poverty have nothing to thank Jacinda Ardern for. Max Rashbrooke, author of Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis says that without the $3.4 billion a year that a capital gains tax was expected to raise, it will now be next to impossible for this government to deliver its target of halving child poverty by half within ten years.

The frustration for many of us is that we lack a real political alternative in which we can put our anger to positive use. Venting our spleen in the social media and even writing on blogs can only carry us so far. Some of us having been doing it for way too long and want something to write about other than the latest capitalist bullshit.

With Parliament having long been captured by the vested interests of capital we still have nowhere to turn. What is doubly galling is that we know that the present critics of the Government's decision not to implement a capital gains tax will be the same critics calling for its re-election in 2020. The NZ Council of Trade Unions and the New Zealand Public Service Association won't stop funnelling money to the Labour Party and the usual charlatans will declare that, at least, Labour is preferable to National.

And  nearly a million New Zealanders will again sit out the election because they believe that none of the political parties presently ensconced in Parliament truly represent their interests. After this dismal decision to backtrack on a capital gains tax who could honestly disagree with them?