Policy

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We need immediate recognition, and prioritisation, of increased housing, and cheap accommodation options, as one of the single most important and effective ways to stabilise and improve the economy and equality. Everyone knows that there is a lack of housing, but do they really understand that it is the basis for every solution?

Immigration is a social and economic trap. If we want global freedom and prosperity we have to do it right, we must protect our precious country and it's people, so that we can better serve others in the process. Yes to a NZ citizen qualification to teach our values and define our expectations. 

No excuses when it comes to animal welfare. Sensible but strong policy that recognises that people aren't “for” animal cruelty. Low standards push good farmers out of profitability and force them to compete with bad practices. 

We must find a way to protect both them and animals. The system keeps it impossible to change until we insist. With the balance of justice and freedom, live and let live. An idyllic future between humans and animals can exist only if people choose it, but real systemic animal cruelty we can and will enforce against. 

I don't believe that prison is about punishment. I believe it is about public safety and accountability. Justice. It is not right or realistic to allow people to commit serious crimes without serious consequences. 

The right to freedom applies to both victim and perpetrator, the freedom to seek proper justice should not be suppressed in favour of extreme criminal behaviour. 

We must improve the standards of prisons, and rehabilitation, and exclude cruelty and harm, that is the responsibility required to successfully have longer sentences. 

Punishment is a blunt instrument. Often, (but not always), it doesn't meet the complex requirements to satisfy real accountability, and good human outcomes, or accurately attribute blame and responsibility. Often it makes the problem worse, and doesn't provide real justice for anyone. Suffering itself is not justice. It doesn't teach right and wrong, only cause and effect by others.

This is where we recognise that the law is out of control when it is policing the lives and freedoms of decent people. They do not have the right, it will always be an extreme measure, and it must be taken seriously. 

I would insist on a system that finds opportunities for beneficiaries, supports NZ industry, and makes sure that wherever possible, people are putting in the time, in exchange for what they are being paid, if they are on a Jobseeker benefit. This means gentle but firm initiatives that allow enough freedom to find suitable work options and won't put vulnerable people in bad situations. 

A woman is a biological woman first and foremost, and we do respect the freedom of any person to live as they choose, as long as it doesn't encroach on the rights of another, so we must cater to both as best we can. Natural gender will not be erased, it will not be sidelined as a convenient solution to the requirements of trans rights. We will need to create the solutions. We stand firm on women's rights to safety and fairness, and firm on abortion rights and bodily autonomy. 

The loss of privacy is a very real threat to personal freedom. It is the risk of being controlled by the ineptitude of others, and the ineptitude of power. Surveillance and data collection must be minimised. The legality of data collection must be addressed; it is not a legitimate industry where it is done without lawful informed consent, and with coercion. 

Serious privacy violations need to be treated with seriousness under the law. It is real harm. It is wrong. We have a right to protect ourselves. 

Systems should not be built with compulsory requirements to personally use, and adopt, technology. Jobs, healthcare, government, business and retail must not take away our options to choose, and these should be protected in law. 

I would insist on unused sick leave being an entitled payment. The current system creates a disparity between people who are reluctant to use sick leave, and those that aren't. It allows for unreasonable personal discrimination. It disrupts business by incentivising taking time off. 

Just pay it. It is the only fair option. People who get sick more often are not entitled to more money than those that are healthier, or refuse to misuse it. I suggest the first 6 days per year are an accruing paid entitlement. Any more sick leave is for significant health problems only, and is not paid except through legitimate usage. No medical certificate requirement should be enforced for the paid entitlement.  

Employers should offer the option to create a savings balance at a rate that is chosen by the employee, is changeable, and that can be withdrawn from; but only a limited number of times per year. 

Similar to requirements for Kiwisaver, or holiday pay, but for short term savings. This would suit people who are naturally reluctant to request withdrawals from their employer, but may otherwise struggle to save. For example, if someone wanted to save 15% of their pay, while knowing that they could only withdraw from it once in a 6 month period. Taxed within the original pay period.    

Remove excessive administration and compliance costs. Move away from taxation. Protect against harmful wealth practices that come at the expense of others, instead of taxing wealth in general. Overreliance on capital/monetary "gain" on investments is THE reason why the country is in a debt spiral to capital owners. We must adjust.

We need to stem the flow of money going offshore with local business competition, this means we absolutely need businesses to flourish. 

Tax the profits when they become personal income instead, combine with a low capital gains tax to stop the back door on untaxed profits which already happens.

Taxing a business forces them to make awkward and untimely decisions over their cashflow, in competition with big business who can manage their expenses better.

 
Big business doesn't pay tax on profit. It is not efficient business practice to leave any profit on the table to be taxed, it is a pure loss of money. Big business can better reinvest in itself, as it should, and it launders it's profits through it's expenses.   
 

This is because tax almost always represents a monetary loss, rather than a business investment. The small amount of tax that they do pay, is just enough to appease those corrupt government officials that favour big business.
 

When they tell you that a big business only makes a tiny percentage of profit, it doesn't mean that prices can't come down, it means that they make sure to spend all of their profit, almost certainly on expenses that better benefit the business, or launder the profits.
 

Capital ownership is a conglomerate monster. The reinvestment of profits into a business, ends up in the hands of the investors who own the business, and it's growing value. This must be treated as income for tax purposes when sold. It is personal income. You made a product and sold it for profit.

They are jumping through hoops to get a better deal. Instead of allowing the funneling of profits until they go untaxed, and disadvantaging all other businesses, we can make sure that there is always a low, reasonable tax on personal income, including on investments when sold.
 

Capital investment is simply people with money, making money on the need of money. It is leverage against the poor unless there is a comfortable growth of genuine value. Making profit is income. What is the problem with fairly taxing this?
 

Profits by business will become personal income, if we let those smaller businesses also spend their own profits on their business efficiently, and as long as we patch the hole on untaxed investments, slowing the flow of money to the worst outcome.

It can be done, it should be done, make it happen. That is what Government is for.

They can either pay growers more, or lower their prices. 

For profit made on property, assets and investments, only when sold, treated as income generation, with deductions for direct expenses such as renovations. 

Present and future “realised" gains in monetary value, taxing only the profit portion. Keep it low:  10% on assets and investments, and up to 15% on property.

Excluding all personal use, such as a primary residence and assets, and accounting for overall inflation. With a high upper threshold limit on personal use claims. 

People make profit on property especially when there is higher property inflation than overall inflation, until it drives up overall inflation to match. 

A capital gains tax that adjusts for overall inflation targets the profit, and income, that is made by selling strategically at the right time for profit.

Allow for a LOSS in property value, once realised, to be deductable from a person's future personal income tax. With controls, and stagger the deduction over time.

Paid directly through a careful one year only trial of a land tax, that wants to protect property rights, and avoids the unacceptable risk of commonplace "land rent". 

Exemptions for food production, charitable use, or for the benefit of the country, and land when in commercial use. Targeting over-investment in residential property and unused land.

Too much equity stored in houses vacuums up all the cashflow out of society, and doesn't benefit normal property owners, real people, or the economy. I outline why I believe that, so that you can decide for yourself, by reading further below.

We need money to spend, we are cash-poor. Beneficiaries should also benefit from this income, especially if a “work for the benefit” system is implemented. 

Long term, a moderate land tax that targets large individual investments in unused or residential land is the answer to keeping our land assets secure for all of us, and keeping our living costs low and our wealth high.

Media is struggling. Public funding is a solid foundation, but how can we ensure that media funding is fair, and that the news media is impartial, broadly representative, readily accessible, and democratic? A new initiative to both increase, and diversify funding. As well as help to revitalise journalism in NZ. This represents a mix of additional funding, as well as adapting the funds currently provided by government.

With funding opportunities for citizen journalism by anyone and everyone.

A simple initiative to give people better choices, accessibility, and freedom over their Kiwisaver investments. A new mandate for shareholder investments to steer the ship on capital investment to sustainable "People Not Profit" models that grow real value, and represent real value returns and outcomes. Great for supermarkets! 

Open applications for free accommodation for 2000+ people, and opportunities for business ventures, on a new national cruise ship.

As well as a nationwide tourism fund to smooth out the uneven cost of national tourism, lightening the burden off of the regions and promoting tourism initiatives through fair funding.

Healthcare should be affordable and accessible. A possible reasonable standard, or example, is that the average yearly healthcare costs, for a healthy person, should be kept below the cost of a weeks wages, that of a full-time worker on minimum wage. This is a minimum for basic availability of quality care.
 

The Ease Party proposes that healthcare providers offer a non-direct option of payment that spreads the cost of any basic, personally funded healthcare over a minimum of 52 weeks. The bill gets sent to the Government, who already sets aside $10 per week of their paid personal income tax, per individual, for payment specifically to healthcare providers. At the end of the tax year, a person gets a personal tax refund if they haven't used their allotted healthcare fund. This means that healthcare is not a question of having money at the right time. Pricing is still moderated by the fact that it is your own money that you are spending. This could include purchases at a pharmacy per month. 

If you are taxed on less than $20,000 income per year, any healthcare yearly bill under $520 is absorbed by the Government, and anything over $520 is carried over to the next tax year, possibly at a higher repayment rate if appropriate. 

It also supports healthcare providers by ensuring that revenue is more closely matched to real value and demand, rather than limited and impeded by people's temporary circumstances, or a lack of freedom to choose.

This is for basic, average, healthcare maintenance, and healthcare freedom for all. Those with more complex health issues will require additional systems.

NZ business can apply for workers with subsidised pay rates from Work and Income. A worker can be subsidised for up to a year, paid at $10 per hour, for up to 25 hours per week. 

The idea is that a worker can be brought up to skill, with less performance pressures, and some extra allowances for development. As soon as a worker is skilled enough to be paid full rates in line with other employees, a business can successfully apply to train another subsidised worker.
 

All NZ businesses can apply for at least one subsidised worker at any one time, and large employers can apply for up to 5% of their total workforce, as long as employee numbers continue to be additional to pre-subsidised levels. 

Special terms for subsidised workers will be introduced to support NZ food production and growers.

The goal of this policy is to save money, support business, and to practically support Jobseekers with real work experience and opportunities. The reality is that it would be more accurate to describe it as business subsidising our current ineffectual welfare system, for mutual benefit, rather than the other way around.

WAGES CAN NOT GROW WITH INFLATION

Anyone advocating for this is either lying to you, or they are misinformed, but either way they are WRONG, and it is a disaster.
 

Wages can only grow with NATURAL INFLATION. That is the simple inflation that comes from printing money. Natural inflation does not include the foreign printing of money, because that is DEBT to us. Or the resultant prices of imports, except where they are balanced by exports.
 

Natural inflation does not include ANY inflation that is caused by scarcity, or manipulation of forced supply and demand. You CANNOT match wages to fake or forced inflation. That is avoiding the problem.
 

THERE IS NOT ENOUGH MONEY. Increasing wages beyond natural inflation is only a REDISTRIBUTION of available wealth. It is cheating the rest of society. 

The expectation that it will cut into the actual top of wealth never eventuates without accurately targeting the problem.
 

People need more money, people advocating for higher wages for themselves are worthy of real solutions and a better standard of living. 

It is because fake inflation needs to come down.   
 

You can not REDISTRIBUTE more money than the total amount that exists, and is accounted for. Borrowing money to meet fake inflation is a trap.
 

If you advocate for wages growing with inflation you MUST get the money from somewhere. If you do not get it from printing money, exports, or the wealthy, then you are robbing the poor. 

A wealth tax is not particularly fair, because you are not targeting the problem in a fair way.  You will miss the wealthy that can avoid it. This is cycling an advantage to the lowest common denominator, to the worst possible outcome. It is the ineffectual cycling of money if you do not address the fake inflation. 

The people with newly redistributed money will be paying the FAKE PRICES and perpetuating the problem of fake inflation, fake scarcity, and fake supply and demand.
 

So who ends up with the money? What happens when people treat money like it's a number, but the value of that money diminishes, because there is less value? Wealth shrinks because money is worth less.

Value is often confused with productivity metrics. Draining people of their effort will not create net value. You will sabotage real growth of value.
 

People do not want to give up the fake equity in their property. 

This is understandable, but property prices need to come down. We must draw from the fake equity stored in property, or print more money. It is that simple. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH MONEY FOR HIGHER AND HIGHER PRICES. 

You can't lower living costs without also addressing property prices.

Perhaps some people want to simply wait for the routine printing of money to SLOWLY catch up to house prices while EVERYONE SUFFERS. Extreme debt and extreme control over our economy makes this unrealistic.
 

What we can try to do, is avoid any harm being done to property owners, we can protect them by balancing the loss of equity to savings in living costs. And balance financial loss in property with income tax settings that already should only exist in relation to financial success in society.
 

We can do this because tax is circular and proportionate, and property prices going down represents a benefit to society, it balances. Storing our money in houses is costing us by making us vulnerable to the extortion of the extreme need of capital. It is unnecessary. It is a debt cycle. It limits our freedom of exchange by locking down our value. It is like salt in our drinking water, being thirsty out at sea. 

"Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink."
 

For example, if someone gave you a lump of coal, and told you that every lump of coal was worth a million dollars. It might be nonsense, but no one wants to give up their new found wealth. In a world that relies on coal for fuel, suddenly everyone is holding on to their coal, and around you the price of everything is going up. Food that used to cost $10, now costs $1000, but you're fine because you've still got your million dollar lump of coal, but over time you spend far more than a million dollars just holding onto the fake value of that coal. You're stuck in a trap. Nevermind the people that never had a lump of coal to begin with, who are paying the new living costs based on the new price of coal. It's all fake. It's all a trap. It is also extremely shortsighted or selfish in reality. 

No ambulance should take more than 30 minutes + reasonable drive time. As a legal standard. Serious consequences for those responsible for providing NZ Healthcare funding, and taxpayer funded organisational support, for breaching these standards of governing on behalf of taxpayers.

The Ease Party recognises that there are already protections in place regarding late term abortion, but that there is a risk of a lack of protections, and going too far in regards to violating the right to life of a baby.

The Ease Party supports open debate on this issue surrounding the legal role of the medical profession, while supporting the guaranteed protection of a woman's right to her own body, at any stage, without the risk of her being criminalised.

High Government debt vs high personal debt is a mixed bag, and it is not financially responsible, effective, or right, to force people to absorb more personal debt and become impoverished, in order to shift responsibility over Government debt, spending, and settings. It is all debt, it all represents value we owe.

Our money going offshore is literally just invisible DEBT. It's money that represents OUR value, and assets. And yet it is not properly accounted for by our Government, even when they claim to care about debt. Who also don't care about the value of our national assets being stolen or given away. It is REAL MONEY and REAL WEALTH. Is it deliberate treason, or does nobody understand what they are doing? Free and fair trade in global value is one thing, being robbed or cheated is another thing entirely.

Why 15 years old? Because we want to limit the possibility of enforcement of identity checks, and allow for some freedom for young adolescents.

The Ease Party supports actively discouraging young people and children from openly putting their identifiable personal details online, or from heavily investing in their personal public online profile.

This means that if a young person starts an online social media account using their real name, or identifiable photos of themselves, there is a high risk of being flagged as a young person by credible sources such as a school, relatives, or the community. 

This will serve as a very strong deterrent, and support anonymity and protections online for young people wanting to engage. Strict enforcement is not appropriate.

Popular platforms present a lot of risk as it makes young people accessible to predators (including the platforms themselves), and creates both adult-like and teenage social pressures. Platforms should be legally required to close accounts that they have reliable evidence are flagrantly or illegally overexposing the personal details of a child or young person online, including personal accounts of under 15's.

The Ease Party believes that concerns raised by personally identifying a young person online should be forwarded to, and then flagged officially by their school.