Responding to the launch of new campaign to promote Michael Cullen’s capital gains tax, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director Jordan Williams says:

“This campaign is not a grassroots movement – it’s more like astroturf. The campaign group is a union-funded front for New Zealand’s usual left-wing agitators. They are funded by the same people who bankroll the Labour Party’s campaigns and even include the Labour Party’s recent General Secretary in their steering committee.”

“The group’s key message – claiming that ‘most’ New Zealanders support a capital gains tax – is false. Public polling consistently shows Kiwis want the Government to axe Dr Cullen’s unfair tax.”

“Despite extensive media coverage of their campaign ‘launch’, the front organisation has attracted just a few hundred signatures on their pro-CGT petition. That will be embarassing for the union cronies when more than 3,000 New Zealanders have used the Taxpayers’ Union’s email tool to tell Jacinda Ardern to axe this tax.”

“If the Government is too afraid to promote Michael Cullen’s unfair tax itself, it should scrap the proposal, instead of palming off the politics to a front group for the Labour Party.”

“Anyone with big-union money can hold a press conference in Wellington and set up a website with American stock images, but until this group can show that typical New Zealanders are engaged in its campaign, it shouldn’t be taken seriously.”

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