Rich pickings

Talk of a “wealth tax” is not a conversation the government wanted to have as it seeks to walk back some of its more unpopular policies.

- JANE CLIFTON

With all the government's handbrake turns and wheelies, the Beehive may soon rival tracts of the Hutt Valley as a hot venue for boy racers of a Friday night.

A fair amount of rubber was burnt halting the Rotorua Māoriwards legislation, and the skid marks from reverse laps around the Three Waters reforms are still smoking. It's all pedal to the metal and hang the speed cameras now Labour has decided grocery regulation is urgent after all.

With Labour's re-election chances hairier than ever, more backtracks on controversial policies are likely, with potentially popular ones reaching ear-popping acceleration rates.

But oh, the whiplash when something unexpected shows up in the road. Revenue Minister David Parker's new mission to soak the rich came as a spray of road spikes. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was so spooked as to perform the equivalent of that heart-stopping accidental manoeuvre where you throw your gearbox into reverse while belting along a motorway. Her attempts to rule out a wealth tax, given Parker's Wagnerian declaration of vengeance, were less convincing than she might have hoped.

Ardern has previously ruled out a wealth tax both "this term" and "under her watch", but this week has fallen conspicuously short of reiterating that pledge with respect to next term. Her caution was probably because "wealth tax" can mean so many different things, many of which are always under consideration, from imposts on mansions, inheritance, vacant land and financial transactions to incursions into trust fund rules.

This was emphatically not the debate the government wanted to have now. What Parker announced was a new research programme into the affairs of the superrich to inform future tax-net finetuning. Alas, he made it sound as though Judgment Day was nigh. The message the media took was, “Big, fat, rich bastards' tax coming right up!"