Gareth Morgan made it clear he wasn’t keen on becoming an MP, and he stepped down from leadership of The Opportunities Party after getting a creditable but unsuccessful 2.4% of the vote (beaten by the large party imposed threshold).
The party is trying to continue on, and are currently running a party ballot to elect a Member Representative and a Parliamentary Leader. The results will be announced on 8th December – see https://www.top.org.nz/
Morgan’s deputy Geoff Simmons is putting himself forward there. He has just held a Q&A at Reddit:
As Me Anything with Geoff Simmons from The Opportunities Party
I’m happy to answer questions about policy or the future direction of The Opportunities Party.
The Opportunities Party is under a process of renewal following the 2017 election. Gareth Morgan has stepped down as leader, and the party is giving members a greater say in how it operates. As part of this, members are currently voting on a new leader. I am standing as a candidate in that election.
Learn more about the election here: https://www.top.org.nz/
Find out more about me here: http://top-candidates.webflow.io/leader/geoff-simmons
Some of the questions and responses:
If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about New Zealand, what would it be?
Simmons: The tax system. Income tax payers pay way too much tax. Asset owners, especially housing and land owners, too little. Polluters should pay more too.
Do you agree with my premise attacking NZFirst was largely ineffective last election and how would TOP hold other parties to account under your leadership?
(Morgan presented very well in public meetings but got quite tetchy and adversarial on social media, probably damaging TOP’s chances).
Simmons: Our membership have given us the message loud and clear: we play the ball, not the person.
On the TOP website it says this: To this end TOP proposes to ban junk food advertising to kids and place a 20% tax on all junk food, based on an improved front of pack labeling system.
My question is how do you plan on defining junk food and would it be a flat 20% tax or higher for worse foods lower for mediocre, etc?
Simmons: The original proposal was a corrective tax based on the healthy star rating system, which would have meant higher taxes for worse foods.
My understanding is that the science around that star system has shifted since it was created. The consensus seems to be moving towards an excise tax purely on added sugar now (not just sugary drinks). This would also be easier to implement since most of our sugar is imported.
What’s your stance on a capital gains tax?
Capital Gains tax – especially with the owner occupied exemption – is a stupid move: https://www.top.org.nz/goodbye_capital_gains_tax
Our big problem is the favouring of housing investment over business investment. A CGT will not change that because it will hit business AND housing. In fact by exempting owner occupied housing it will make the favouring of housing worse. Plus CGT is complex and inefficient as all hell.
Our tax policy is that we pay too much income tax. If we tax housing the same as other investments (as per the risk free return method) then we could all take a 30% income tax cut.
How do we mitigate the impact on high wealth low income people?
– firstly, why do you think we have so many high wealth low income people? It is tax favoured.
– secondly, phase it in so people have time to change their portfolio, or farm in a different way (ie not for capital gain).
– thirdly, elderly can defer payment – effectively it becomes a death duty.
How does TOP plan to show that they are more than Gareth Morgan, that they can have a multifaceted identity in a time where possible MMP changes could allow the party to be a viable partner?
The Opportunities Party is becoming a movement. In line with that we currently operating on crowd funding.
Longer term we will need to raise more funding than this to be viable, but even if Gareth Morgan is one of those funders, he would be one amongst many.
A lot of money (Craig, Dotcom, Morgan) has not on it’s own been successful in getting a new party into Parliament. It goes help, but not when dominated by one personality/donor.
Being a ‘movement’ is a great term, but what does that translate to? To what degree will those that align with the ideas of TOP have their views reflected in policy planning?
We are already democratising the party – members are electing a Board rep and the Leader. We have also done a Listening Tour which will help the new Leader and Board develop some values for the Party:
https://www.top.org.nz/the_listening_tour_workshop_results
Longer term our position is that members should have input on questions of values and the experts should decide on matters of evidence. We are also planning to trial some deliberative democracy (e.g. citizen’s juries).
TOP has spoken about sitting on the cross benches if they were elected to parliament, and vote on each bill on its merits. This sounds great in theory but the reality is private member bills rarely make it past their first reading. TOP could further their agenda so much more if they were in government. If the opportunity (lol) arose to enter a confidence and supply agreement, would TOP take it seriously? What would be mandatory policy agreements in exchange for TOPs support? And what would be a deal breaker?
That was the previous leader’s position. My opinion is that some issues are better dealt with as part of a portfolio (e.g. Health), others not. So it would depend on the policies that we got across the line.
We don’t have mandatory policy agreements or deal breakers at this stage. Our top four priorities are:
1/ tax reform
2/ unconditional basic income
3/ polluter pays (environment)
4/ cannabis law reform
If TOP gets into parliament, are you going to go into coalition with Labour/Greens or sit on the sidelines? Also would you consider a coalition with National if it meant compromises on key policies?
If we get into Parliament the plan is to negotiate to get the most of our policies across the line as possible. Serious tax reform has to be top of the list however.
What’s your plan for DoC and conservation as a whole?
DOC is one area that this Government is doing pretty well with three exceptions:
1/ Marine. The lack of ocean management policy is a joke – it is bad for business and bad for the environment.
2/ Revenue gathering. The Maaori concept of kaitiakitanga is not about locking places up, it is about sustainable use. The tourist levy is a good start but there is much more room for this sort of approach. DOC’s culture needs to change, and I think working with iwi can help.
3/ Balance between conservation/ recreation/ hunting. We are long overdue a conversation on this issue – it is one policy area we are looking at.
What kinds of things should you think about when considering negotiations with other parties when trying to get policy over the line?
Obviously some of our policies are going to be a better fit with some parties than others.
But the main thing is to get that King/Queen maker role. That is the way to have real leverage over policy. Just look at what Winston got from the deal compared to the Greens.
In fact it is hard to see what the Greens got that wasn’t already in the Labour Party manifesto!
What kinds of things would you refuse to do, even if it were the difference between getting into parliament or not?
That’s an incredibly broad question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_ViIPA-Gc
Like I said we recently did a Listening Tour to help us determine our values: https://www.top.org.nz/the_listening_tour_workshop_results
These will be ironed out post the leadership election. I won’t compromise on the party values.
I like some of the concepts of what they are doing, and as with all parties i agree with some of their policies and am not so keen on others.
I would like to see a party like this that isn’t dominated by a single personality and financier do well. I think it would add something worthwhile to Parliament if they find a way of overcoming the prohibitive 5% threshold – that is being talked about looks unlikely to change for the 2020 election.
And another major hurdle is the media, who favour the large parties and personalities. Colin Craig got close because of his headline/clickbait whackiness more than his policies. Same for Morgan to a lesser extent. Dotcom got a disproportionate amount of media coverage but he and Mana’s manic marriage still failed badly.
The media also seems to favour traditional politics and parties.
TOP need to somehow find a way to make their democratic processes and their research backed policies attractive. Simmons talked about being ‘a movement’, but that may take a lot of work and luck to get traction in social media.
Whatever they do, it will be a hard job for whoever takes over the leadership of TOP, and for the party.