As you may know, earlier this year I went overseas on a bit of a soul search, before coming back to lead The Opportunities Party. I was gone for almost six months in total, from the beginning of April through to the end of September.

I was travelling in South America which was dirt cheap. Even including a yoga and meditation retreat in the Amazon, my four months there cost less than $10,000. Then I had 2 months in Europe which cost about the same again. That is $20,000 all up, probably less.

A report out by UNICEF yesterday shows that New Zealand has some of the most unequal education outcomes in the world. This is partly explained by our higher than average rates of poverty, but also by our education system.

According to Stuff:

Aotearoa ranked 33rd of 38 for educational inequality across preschool, primary school and secondary school levels in Unicef's Innocenti Report Card, which looked at the gaps between the highest and lowest performing pupils in OECD countries.

What has happened to the country that once prided itself on a fair go? On equality of opportunity? The myth of the egalitarian Kiwi paradise is truly dead and buried.

It is disappointing that after one year of inaction, the coalition Government’s referendum on cannabis law reform could prove to be an expensive waste of time. Similar to John Key’s flag referendum, this could prove a masterclass in wasting taxpayer money.

The referendum was one of the few concessions The Green Party secured that wasn’t already in the Labour Party manifesto. However, if the coalition Government doesn’t take the referendum seriously very soon, it risks making a hash of the whole thing.

Of course a real win would have been to negotiate for a regulated market as proposed by The Opportunities Party in 2017. All of the concerns that the public are likely to have can be catered for by careful design of a regulated market, as we are seeing from overseas experience. Such an approach has been recommended by the Law Commission almost 10 years ago, as well as The Drug Foundation and former Prime Minister Helen Clark. However, since the referendum has already been promised, we should all focus on making it a success.

Sadly it doesn’t appear the coalition Government shares this goal. The Minister responsible Andrew Little admits he hasn’t 'given it much depth of thought at all'.

So far this year the coalition have already tripped over itself with a muddled approach to medicinal cannabis. The promise of action within 100 days now looks more like token changes within 1000 days. Meanwhile the synthetic cannabis crisis has sent the Government scurrying backwards to the “War on Drugs” - hoping harsher penalties will provide a solution. We all know they won’t.

We need to prevent the cannabis referendum descending into a similar farce. A regulated market is now the only real hope we have of removing criminals from the market, reducing harm from cannabis use and providing cost-effective help to sufferers of chronic pain.

This referendum is a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a Government-initiated popular vote on this long festering social issue. Yet the coalition Government has undertaken no consultation on the timing, referendum questions, whether it is binding and a detailed proposal for a regulated market. It is even more worrying that nothing is planned or even budgeted for into late 2019.

The risk here is that we will end up having a rushed and shallow debate marked by fear and doubt, because none of the details are clear. It all risks being a waste of time and money, much like John Key’s failed flag referendum.

Regardless of their motivations, there’s a way not to waste this opportunity and we’re here to help.

The Opportunities Party has three key suggestions for  working out the details of how the referendum will work and what it will say:

Firstly - Make the referendum binding. The Drug Foundation already does polls on attitudes to drugs, another very expensive glorified opinion poll would be pointless. Unlike a citizens' initiated referendum, a Government referendum can be binding, just like John Key’s flag referendum was.

Secondly - Use questions which matter.

Question 1: Should possession and growing of no more than two cannabis plants for personal use by adults no longer be considered a crime?

AND
Question 2: Should adults be able to purchase small amounts of cannabis for personal use from specially regulated premises?

This allows splitting the issue of decriminalisation and personal use (where there is clearly majority support in the public) from the much less well understood issue of having a regulated market. Without two questions it could be confusing what they are asking the public.

Finally - Draft legislation that provides the detail of what these two questions would look like if implemented. This would mean that voters would know exactly what they were voting on, as they would have the opportunity to read the complete law that would be the outcome of an affirmative referendum vote. It would answer everyone’s questions, and not leave people making second guesses about what they are voting for.

To do this properly means starting now. It will take setting up a new working group immediately so that the public have plenty of time to assess the options before the 2020 election.

Sure, this is more work, but as we have seen with the push to make synthetic cannabis Class A drugs, the Government can deliver things quickly when they want to. They could also abandon their work on medical marijuana since that is such a mess and would be defunct if the referendum is passed.

All of these issues should have been part of the Labour Greens coalition agreement, and the fact it was not shows how ill-prepared they were for government.

After nearly a year in power, the coalition is staring down the barrel of a referendum debacle akin to the flag referendum. We don’t need a working group to figure that one out.

Troy Bowker raised some alarmist views about possible changes to the way we tax assets, calling it “concerning and ill-conceived” and fretting about the future of the Kiwi bach. He is referring to the risk free rate of return method, which is being explored by the Tax Working Group and is similar to the tax policy put forward by The Opportunities Party at the last election.

The new report from the Salvation Army “Beyond Renting” talks about ways of getting more people out of renting and into long term ownership. This is a worthy goal, particularly given the current plight faced by renters in this country. Sadly, the concept of the government offering shared equity will only stoke the fires of our housing market, making it less affordable in the long run.

On Monday the Government released their response to our fresh water crisis. The upshot is that very little will be achieved in this term. The Government expects to start seeing improvements in the swimmability of our rivers by 2023, but if the public does return them for a second term there is no guarantee they will be in a better state than they are now.

The Tax Working Group (TWG) reported back last week, and the debate has already divided into two camps. Roughly half of New Zealanders, about the same number that vote National, will write this whole thing off as a tax grab. A typical left-wing exercise in the politics of envy, all part of their eternal plan to “eat the rich”.  The other half will support it for the opposite reason.

The Government’s reforming tenancy law—but almost nothing’s changing for Generation Rent.

Talking about tax just got a lot more interesting.

Reading the Tax Working Group (TWG) interim report was eerily like reading The Opportunities Party policy pages. While the devil is in the detail with all matters of tax, on a high level the Tax Working Group has put many TOP policies squarely on the table for public debate:

It appears that the Tax Working Group is quietly dropping the idea of a Capital Gains Tax, although the Labour-led Government is still talking up the possibility. This isn’t surprising. Despite the fact that the Government’s Terms of Reference didn’t leave the TWG with a lot of room to move, experts will struggle to find much evidence to support a Capital Gains Tax (CGT).