Alliance welcomes Labour borrowing their capital gains tax policy

The Alliance Party has congratulated the Labour Party on adopting its capital gains tax policy.

Alliance Party co-leader Kay Murray says Labour should have introduced the capital gains tax during its last term in office.

This may have helped make housing more affordable during the so-called housing boom during the last Labour Government.

Unfortunately, Labour stood by and took no action, as the dream of home ownership for many young and working class New Zealanders evaporated, and others were placed in massive mortgage debt to overseas banks.

However the Alliance says better late than never for the capital gains tax excluding the family home.

The Alliance has argued for a capital gains tax for many years.

She says the opposition of the National Government to a capital gains tax is because National think only workers should pay tax on their work to subsidize speculators.

Ms Murray says she hopes the Labour Party will now adopt the goals of the Alliance-backed Tax Justice campaign, which seeks to remove GST off all food and introduce a financial transactions tax.

"We encourage them to use as many of our policies as they want, they do not even have to give us credit for coming up with them."