The Green Party is asking the Prime Minister to tell New Zealanders why he failed to mention that his own lawyer was the person in the foreign trust industry he’d discussed foreign trusts with and referred on to the Revenue Minister. The Green Party revealed yesterday that the Prime Minister’s lawyer, Ken Whitney, wrote to the Revenue Minister in late 2014 with his concerns about an Inland Revenue Department (IRD) review of foreign trusts, claiming the Prime Minister had told...

The Government stopped the IRD from reviewing New Zealand foreign trusts shortly after the Prime Minister’s lawyer wrote to the Revenue Minister claiming John Key had promised him the regime would not be changed. Correspondence obtained by the Green Party shows that the Prime Minister’s lawyer Ken Whitney initiated a lobbying campaign that started with the Prime Minister and appears to have successfully stopped the IRD from reforming the foreign trust regulations in 2015. “This shows how powerful vested interests...

The Government’s failure to fix Auckland’s broken housing market has forced the Reserve Bank to keep the Official Cash Rate (OCR) higher than normal hurting exporters and jobs, the Green Party said today. The Reserve Bank kept the OCR unchanged today at 2.25 percent despite economic conditions that favour further cuts. The Bank cited high Auckland house prices and a need for additional housing supply there. “Housing market pressures are building in some other regions,” it added. “National’s failure to...

Low inflation in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) hides the way the housing crisis is hitting peoples’ pockets and distorting our economy, the Green Party said today. The CPI showed that inflation was 0.2 percent in the March 2016 quarter and 0.4 percent for the year to March 2016, but housing costs rose 3 percent in the year. MBIE data shows rents across the Auckland region rose on average 5.2 percent in the last 12 months. “Low oil prices mean...

The National Government’s failure to invest in Kiwibank has today forced Kiwibank’s owner New Zealand Post to take a step down the road to privatisation of the bank, the Green Party said. “If National had injected capital into Kiwibank, to allow Kiwibank to expand like it should have years ago, we wouldn’t be looking at a possible future privatisation,” Green Party Co-leader James Shaw said. “Bill English says he’ll buy the Kiwibank shares back if he has to in five...

The Green Party will today seek the leave of Parliament to introduce a Member’s Bill that would end the secrecy around foreign trusts in New Zealand, by imposing a registration and disclosure scheme on foreign trusts. The Income Tax (Foreign Trusts Registration and Disclosure) Amendment Bill would increase transparency by requiring trustees to disclose full information about the settlors, trustees, and beneficiaries of a trust. The IRD would publish this information in an online register. “Given the immediate risks to...

The Government must stop allowing the foreign trust industry to operate in secret here to prevent New Zealand becoming a tax haven for criminals, the Green Party said today. New Zealand foreign trusts have again been implicated in money laundering, tax avoidance, and criminal activity following a massive document leak from a Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The documents reportedly show that New Zealand is being used by overseas investors to keep tax secrets. “New Zealand is today being described...

“John Key’s got it wrong. The whole point of our policy is to strengthen Kiwibank to be a better commercial bank, not weaken it by encouraging non-commercial behaviour,” Green Party Co-leader James Shaw said. “John Key is being deliberately alarmist and making things up because he doesn’t have his own plan for improving banking for Kiwis. “The evidence from Kiwibank’s first few years shows how wrong John Key is. Back then, capital injections and lower dividends helped Kiwibank compete commercially...

Productivity growth under National’s economic management is the weakest it’s been since 1996, the Green Party said today. Productivity statistics released today by Stats New Zealand show that while productivity growth this year has been positive, productivity growth over the whole economic cycle is well below longer-term trends. Productivity is best observed in growth cycles rather than in single year figures, they say. “Productivity growth over this most recent economic cycle (2008-2015) is the weakest it’s been in twenty years,”...

The IRD warned the Government in 2013 of massive, systematic tax avoidance by multinational companies but National is still to act on it, the Green Party said today. The New Zealand Herald today released analysis that showed multinational companies operating in New Zealand could have avoided paying up to $500 million in tax last year. The IRD warned both the Ministers of Finance and Revenue in 2013 that multinationals were avoiding tax by profit shifting and that work to protect...