{"id":383011,"date":"2026-04-16T20:08:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T20:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/383011\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T20:08:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T20:08:20","slug":"mp-deborah-russell-dodges-question-on-whether-labour-capital-gains-tax-goes-far-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/383011\/","title":{"rendered":"MP Deborah Russell dodges question on whether Labour capital gains tax goes far enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

The accusation came after a new report from lobby group Tax Justice Aotearoa called for new taxes.<\/p>\n

The group called for a more comprehensive capital gains tax, a wealth tax, and windfall taxes for banks and electricity gentailers.<\/p>\n

The group also called for a tax-free threshold and GST rebates for low-income workers.<\/p>\n

Labour is proposing a 28% capital gains tax<\/a> that covers only residential and commercial investment properties, excluding the family home.<\/p>\n

Russell told Newstalk ZB the report had some good suggestions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t agree with all their ideas, but they\u2019ve got some good stuff around there on transparency, and some integrity stuff, I think. They\u2019ve got some stuff on the taxation of trusts, which we continue to work on. They\u2019ve got some stuff on remedial taxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just saying, yeah, I think this is on the right track.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell agreed the group\u2019s CGT proposal went further than Labour\u2019s.<\/p>\n

But when asked if Labour\u2019s policy goes far enough, Russell wouldn\u2019t say either way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very significant change to New Zealand\u2019s tax system. It\u2019s the policy we\u2019ve agreed to as a party, and I\u2019m comfortable with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked a further five times whether the policy goes far enough, Russell repeated she was \u201ccomfortable with it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it wasn\u2019t your question, but it\u2019s the answer I\u2019m going to give you.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re setting me up to trap me to try to get me to oppose my leader and go against my party, and I\u2019m not buying into that kind of nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier today, Russell told the Post the party would \u201cof course have more tax policy than that, but it will be centred around the integrity of the tax system<\/a> and the transparency of it\u201d.<\/p>\n

That appears to contradict Hipkins, who this morning was asked by Newstalk ZB\u2019s Canterbury Mornings whether the party was receptive to the group\u2019s ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cLobby groups can argue for whatever they want. We\u2019ve announced our tax policy, which is a simple targeted capital gains tax, and that\u2019s as far as Labour will be going in that area.\u201d <\/p>\n

National\u2019s campaign chair, Simeon Brown, said Russell is opening the door to new taxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cLabour has already announced a capital gains tax that would target households, KiwiSavers, and every single business in the country. Now, Ms Russell has made it clear they are open to going even further.<\/p>\n

\u201cLabour is all over the place on policy. Chris Hipkins has repeatedly refused to rule out expanding his capital gains tax, Deborah Russell is backing piling on more taxes, and Barbara Edmonds is nowhere to be seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell said Brown is wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is Simeon making nonsense up because he wants to.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is reading far too much into a very bland statement I made about continuing stuff around the integrity and transparency of the tax system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ethan Griffiths is a political reporter with Newstalk ZB, based in the parliamentary press gallery. He joined NZME as a print journalist in 2020, previously working as an Open Justice reporter in the Bay of Plenty and Wellington, and as a general reporter in Whanganui.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The accusation came after a new report from lobby group Tax Justice Aotearoa called for new taxes. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1288,32537,136739,23966,528,13988,5275,6721,27699,6368,111,43,139,69,90,7234,17159,9831,7493,11763,84701,7496,14905,14443],"class_list":{"0":"post-383011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-capital","9":"tag-deborah","10":"tag-dodges","11":"tag-enough","12":"tag-far","13":"tag-gains","14":"tag-goes","15":"tag-labour","16":"tag-labours","17":"tag-mp","18":"tag-new-zealand","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-nz","22":"tag-on","23":"tag-partys","24":"tag-proposal","25":"tag-question","26":"tag-revenue","27":"tag-russell","28":"tag-spokeswoman","29":"tag-tax","30":"tag-whether","31":"tag-wont"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}