Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

An independent power company says the industry needs structural reform.

Consumer NZ has raised concern about historically high profits made last year by our biggest power companies.

Meridian, Contact, Genesis and Mercury made a combined $2.7 billion operating profits in the past year.

Consumer estimates 40,000 households couldn't afford power over the same period.

Electric Kiwi chief executive Luke Blincoe says the market is broken.

"You've got those big 4 players with excessive market power, and they're able to extract monopoly rents from Kiwi families, really."

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Well, good luck to James Shaw trying to convince Kiwis it’s a bad idea for National to give us that climate dividend as part of their tax cuts.

He's going as hard as he can. Yesterday, he said it "pissed him off" and it was “incensing him”, and today he’s put out a press release saying he’s “insulted”.

What he’s upset about is that National has used the ETS money to pay for their tax cuts. The ETS money collects from us all paying a little tax every time we do something that pollutes the planet.

So when you buy petrol, some of your bill is an ETS levy. When you pay your power bill, some of it is on the ETS, and so on.

Now, James and the Labour Government have famously used that money to help corporates cut their emissions.

So they used $140 million of the ETS money to buy the furnace for the Glenbrook Steel Mill owned by the Australian company BlueScope. And they used $90 million to help Fonterra cut back on coal burning. 

Both BlueScope and Fonterra could’ve paid for that themselves, because BlueScope declared a profit of more than a billion Aussie dollars and Fonterra declared more than half a billion Kiwi dollars.

National is instead giving us that money back. To be fair, they are wrong to call it a climate dividend, because it’s not. It’s something completely different- but they’re still giving it back to us.

And there is good reason for them to do this, because that ETS tax that you are paying is part of the reason life is more expensive.

Between February 2021 and February 2022, it sneakily pushed up petrol by 10 cents a litre, it pushed up your gas bills and pushed up the cost of your fruit and veges because the petrol and diesel cost more to truck them to the shops.

That is going to keep happening as we fight climate change and the ETS keeps taxing us more.

So good luck to James Shaw trying to convince us that as we pay more and more, the money should be given to corporates and not to us.

It is a weird day when the Green Party co-leader is more worried about helping an Australian company than Kiwis doing it tough. 

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Labour is casting doubt over National's newly unveiled tax policy that promises to end the foreign buyers ban.

National claims that their proposed 15 percent tax on overseas homebuyers will generate the revenue needed to help fund tax cuts.

Infometrics principal economist Brad Olsen says it's clear that National has looked through property price data and examined foreign purchases before the ban was implemented to inform this policy.

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National leader Chris Luxon and deputy Nicola Willis have unveiled their long awaited tax plan- as the clock ticks down to October's election.

If elected, National would shift personal income tax brackets for inflation and expand tax credits, and cover it by slashing public service spending and rolling out a 15 percent foreign buyer tax on homes.

Enable.Me's Hannah McQueen says the shifted personal income tax brackets would give Kiwi households an extra $100-$250 a fortnight- which would be helpful to New Zealand's middle class.

"For some context, if you had a mortgage of $400,000 and you were on a 3 percent rate to a 7 percent rate, your repayments have increased by $450 a fortnight- $250 of that is now going to be offset."

National also want to bring back public transport fares for children and scrap the 50 percent discount for under-25's, a policy that Free Fares NZ campaigner Steve Maran disagrees with.

"Removing that is a step in the wrong direction. Many low-income families have benefitted from this initiative, which made it easier for all of them to get to school and get to work."

The Property Council's Leonie Freeman has also voiced disapproval at National's plan to remove depreciation for non-residential buildings to pay for tax cuts.

"They've been flip-flopping on this policy for some time. The commercial property industry is in a pretty challenging time at the moment, there's already pressures like the need to upgrade for seismic strengthening."

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Scott Weenink believes his experience as chair of the players' association will aid him in his new role as chief executive of New Zealand Cricket.

The 50-year-old former Wellington first-class cricketer and businessman replaces David White, and will begin after being welcomed into the Auckland office on Friday.

He says New Zealand Cricket's biggest strength is their flexibility around contracting arrangements.

"With players like Trent Boult, there is a lot of T20 leagues around the place. So New Zealand Cricket needs to be flexible enough to try and keep these sort of players playing for New Zealand."

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It's been a choppy month for stock markets globally, with the NZX underperforming throughout August.

The NZX is currently down by 5 percent for the month, with experts concerned this dip has wiped out gains made in the first half of 2023.

Milford Asset Management analyst Jeremy Hutton says rising interest rates are a major factor in the downturn, as many economies are working to avoid recession.

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Tonight on The Huddle, Phil O'Reilly from Iron Duke Partners and Jack Tame from ZB's Saturday Mornings and Q&A joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day- and more!

National have finally shown us their long awaited tax plan- is it good? Could they have gone harder? And most importantly- is it a vote winner? 

Restore Passenger Rail Supporter Rosemary Penwarden has been remanded in custody instead of being let out on bail. Is this too extreme- or was this the right punishment for disrupting Wellington traffic?

The Ministry of Education is spending $26,000 a month to store unused face masks. They're now considering spending a further $120,000 to destroy their supply- is this a sign of poor planning?

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Labour's keeping the heat on National over its centrepiece tax policy - suggesting its promise is collapsing faster than a house of cards.

The party's election tax plan would shift income brackets for the so-called squeezed middle, using $14.6 billion found by reprioritising spending and adding taxes.

Minister Grant Robertson says that makes huge assumptions on how much would be raised, and is likely to be impacted by international treaties.

Finance spokesperson Nicola Willis insists the plan's fully costed.

"If you're buying a house on the other side of the world, then you're actually interested in that luxury part of the market. We've had a bit of house price inflation since then too."

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The Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) scheme has been expanded to cover all of London's boroughs- to the outrage of drivers.

Under the scheme, drivers must pay a charge of £12.50 a day to drive a non-compliant vehicle within the zone.

UK correspondent Gavin Grey says Londoners are taking to the streets to protest and damaging the cameras designed to monitor the zone.

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A Restore Passenger Rail spokesperson says it's a bit extreme for a judge to decline bail for a protester.

Rosemary Penwarden appeared in Wellington District Court yesterday - accused of endangering transport on State Highway One in Kilbirnie.

She's been remanded in custody, but is appealing to the High Court to instead be given electronically monitored bail.

Protest group spokesperson James Cockle says it's a big call.

"As far as I know, it's the first time in our history that a climate protestor has been remanded in custody for protesting."

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