Public Interest

New research finds New Zealand's wealthiest families pay less than half the effective tax rate of ordinary New Zealanders – and the gap is growing.
Economist Tayla Forward joins In Brief to unpack her new research into how our tax system favours the wealthy. We discuss the concentration of corporate ownership, the growing tax burden on wage earners, why past reforms have fallen short, and whether a capital gains tax or wealth tax could make the system fairer.
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00:00 Highlights
00:30 Introduction
01:43 Why the IRD's landmark wealth study wasn't repeated
05:39 New findings: how little tax the wealthy pay
06:43 What counts as income for the super-rich?
10:16 How the wealthy minimise their tax bills
13:23 Fiscal drag: the growing tax burden on wage earners
16:23 How the tax system drives wealth inequality
18:10 The growing concentration of corporate ownership
21:20 Why we need both a capital gains tax and a wealth tax
23:23 Will Labour's capital gains tax make a difference?
24:32 Would a wealth tax affect ordinary New Zealanders?
25:45 Would taxing the rich cause capital flight?
29:39 Why is meaningful tax reform so difficult?

New Zealand's economy is struggling, but the country's richest people have never been wealthier. So what's going on? And how much money is too much money?
This week on The State of It, Guy Williams and Avigail Allan dive into New Zealand's Rich List, drawing on a Public Interest interview with journalist and researcher Max Rashbrooke. They explore how some of New Zealand's biggest fortunes were made, why the super-rich pay so little tax, and whether we've got our very own oligarchs.
Plus, Guy has been reading Atlas Shrugged, the bible of libertarian capitalism, which leads to an increasingly unhinged investigation into Ayn Rand, the philosophy of greed, and the surprisingly complicated sex lives of the people who invented it.
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All the parties this election are promising action to bring down the price of groceries. So whose plan is best?
Economist Geoff Bertram joins Ollie Neas to explain how New Zealand ended up with one of the most concentrated supermarket industries in the world, how the duopoly exercises its market power over suppliers and consumers, and what the competing election policies would mean in practice.
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00:00 Introduction – Whose supermarket policy is best?01:33 Why competition doesn't always keep prices down06:30 How New Zealand ended up with a supermarket duopoly12:30 Are monopolies inevitable in a small country?17:00 How supermarkets gained their market power22:00 How supermarkets squeeze suppliers and smaller competitors30:42 Are supermarket profit margins really that small?32:15 Three approaches to fixing the supermarket sector36:24 ACT – Removing barriers to competition40:39 National and NZ First – Breaking up Foodstuffs48:40 Labour – Separating wholesale from retail54:49 Greens – Establishing a publicly owned Kiwi Mart1:03:35 The Opportunity Party's approach1:04:25 Which supermarket policy would work best?1:04:38 Why Geoff Bertram wants to overhaul the Commerce Act1:08:30 Could public ownership make butter and cheese cheaper?

Doctors and nurses are sounding the alarm about chronic understaffing in New Zealand's public hospitals, with growing waiting lists and patients missing out on essential care. Is this simply the result of years of underfunding, or is the government deliberately keeping hospital positions vacant to save money?
In this episode of In Brief, Ollie Neas speaks with Grace Millar, lead author of the Public Service Association's Vacant by Design report. They discuss how New Zealand's health system reached breaking point, the evidence that government-imposed recruitment restrictions have left essential positions unfilled, and what Health Minister Simeon Brown knew about the consequences.
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Can Māori economic sovereignty be meaningfully realised within capitalism? Or does honouring Te Tiriti require us to rethink the foundations of our economic system?
In part two of this two-part episode of Undercurrents, Ollie Neas, Jane Kelsey and Matthew Scobie explore the contradictions between the recognition of Treaty rights and the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s, the opportunities and constraints created by Treaty settlements, and whether the struggle for Māori sovereignty could help build a different economic future.
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