Labour’s Parody Account – Restrictions on Foreign Ownership.

Monday Headline: Labour Protest Surveillance State While Leader Announces Command Economy.


I understand at the end of QandA over the weekend the bloke who writes satirical blog, The Civilian, announced plans for launching a political party? I only saw the start of that show and was too busy laughing to view beyond the Labour Party leader interview. I further assume  such a new political entity to be a parody party?

I wonder, did that nice young man stay for his interview at the end of the show, or did he slink off after watching Mr Shearer also?

This is Labour’s stunning strategy for the 2014 campaign: to implement policy that will destroy the value of New Zealand held assets.

That’s it.

There will be a capital gains tax on investment houses – at least that’s how it will start, this is how it will end – plus Chinese foreigners will be restricted from buying our existing housing stock, as Chinese foreigners will be restricted from buying our farms.

In this country with its tiny population - smaller than many cities - with our limited capital pool, and often skills shortages, Labour are going to campaign 2014 on making New Zealand an unattractive place to invest your money.

For all the farm and house owners in New Zealand, to give clarity here, Labour want to destroy the value you have built up in your homes and farms. Say if you’re on struggle street and have been using your Working for Families and tax transfers, perhaps your DPB, to repay, say, $20,000 off your mortgage over the last five years, in the sweep of a statute Labour want to write that value off your house, so you’re back to where you started.

Hilarious.

Labour actually want to create a country-wide Christchurch earthquake that will hit every city and every rural enclave, and the punch line is, there’s to be no insurance you can take against it this time – other than perhaps getting your money out of the country first.

And why did Mr Shearer announce this policy on Sunday morning? In a shocking revelation he looked down the camera at every home owner, every farmer, and voice lowered spoke of how in South Africa he’d witnessed, first hand if such is to be believed, some sort of clandestine trade show where businesspeople were advising South Africans that New Zealand was a great place to invest. Why leave their savings in South Africa for South Africans when they could give their savings to a Kiwi house or farm owner for them to invest and perhaps even retire on, so helping to fix New Zealand’s part of that world-wide problem of baby boomers selling their homes into shrinking markets to retire.

That’s the stunning economic policy announced by Labour this Sunday morning. If only this were a laughing matter, but of course it’s not. They mean it.

For the record, I’ve explained on this blog why foreign investment is not only nothing to fear, but a matter for us to rejoice in, certainly economically, but also culturally: there are many posts that touch it, but read especially this one, and then this one. And I challenge any Labour MP to take the challenges given on those two posts.

Our lives are ruled by these inappropriately named representatives of ours in the Fortress of Legislation, and they are first incompetent, economic illiterates, but secondly, most importantly, philosophically bereft. Turning to that other topic, look at the contradictions coming out of the Fortress over just this weekend again:

Labour MP’s on the street protesting the GCSB Bill, while their leader announces the planned economy: all seemingly unaware that a planned economy can only happen consequent on planned lives, and planned lives can only happen when our rights are taken away from us, including our right to be left alone by the surveillance state necessary to separate us from our property and income. Shearer’s announcement for the economy this weekend, is the economics, therefore philosophy, therefore politics, of the surveillance state.

And then there’s this clown again, posting from his parody account:

@PeterDunneMP And surveillance of an entire population is what? #DoTheyThinkWeAreStupid
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) July 28, 2013

To the guy at the Civilian, do you see what I mean yet? Just give up mate: the competition is too stiff in your part of the market.


Update 1:

And if there were not enough parody in all this, Rob Hosking now reports Labour haven't even done the basic proofing homework on the statistics that are informing this policy: paid link, so get a subscription, but:

It is a mark of how bogus the housing debate has become that Labour’s figures about foreign owners of New Zealand houses almost definitely include former leader Helen Clark and her four houses.

The current Labour leader and Miss Clark’s successor as MP for Mt Albert, David Shearer, claimed at the weekend there are "more than 11,000 overseas investors [who] own properties here that they don't live in".

What Mr Shearer did not say is the figure comes from Inland Revenue’s numbers about “non-resident” taxpayers who pay taxes on houses they  own in New Zealand.

"Non-resident" taxpayers are largely made up of expatriate New Zealanders and in this context are those who have gone overseas and who have rented out their properties here.