Anthony Albanese and Christopher Luxon turned a dispute over Labor's Capital Gains Tax plan into a joke fest in Noosa on Saturday, after New Zealand's finance minister suggested Australians could move across the ditch to dodge the tax. Asked about Nicola Willis's migration pitch at the annual two-day meeting on trade, defence and foreign affairs, Albanese grinned and asked: “What next? The Wahs signing another Jackson Ford?”
The prime minister also pointed to the scale of the trans-Tasman link, saying Australia already had 638,000 Kiwis living there and that one in eight New Zealanders lived in Australia. “Occasionally there's a bit of cheekiness to the relationship. Long may that continue,” he said, in remarks that framed the exchange as more banter than breach.
The timing matters because Labor's tax reforms, including a minimum 30 per cent tax on capital gains and a $250 a year tax offset for workers, passed the House of Representatives on Thursday. The package now heads into the Senate with its fate still unclear, and anyone tracking the bill is also watching how the debate over capital gains tax is landing politically in both countries. For readers following the broader tax fight, the arguments echo the sort of growth concerns raised in earlier reporting on Jim Chalmers' capital gains tax push and Treasury's internal split with the treasurer.
Luxon, whose coalition government is campaigning against New Zealand Labour's own capital gains tax plans, pushed back on the idea of cross-border tax competition by saying the two countries should not comment on each other's economic policy. He said New Zealand had been debating a CGT for more than 10 years and did not think it was right for his country, warning that introducing one now “would be a wrecking ball through our economy.” That is the sharp edge beneath the jokes: Australia has already moved its version of the policy through one chamber, while New Zealand is still fighting over whether it should ever follow.
Albanese, for his part, treated the jibe as harmless and said he was “very relaxed about what people say, tongue-in-cheek, overseas.” The next test is in Canberra, where the Greens have yet to say whether they will back Labor's measures in the upper house. Until they do, the capital gains tax package remains a bill that has cleared one hurdle and entered its most unpredictable stretch.
