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Ryan Bridge: It's obvious National and Labour are fighting for centre votes · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So Labour has seen the light on interest deductibility. That's
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  Speaker 1: where a landlord, like any other legitimate business in New Zealand,
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  Speaker 1: is able to deduct the expense, take away the expense
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  Speaker 1: of its capital borrowing, i.e. a mortgage, against its taxable income.
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  Speaker 1: After expenses, what's left over gets taxed. This is a
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  Speaker 1: genuine surprise to me. The word I've been getting from
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  Speaker 1: Labour MPs, and I've chatted to a few of them now,
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  Speaker 1: and from the industry as well, who I've been talking to,
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  Speaker 1: was that they would allow maybe a 50% deduction rather
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  Speaker 1: than the current 100%. Of course, the deduction has always
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  Speaker 1: made sense, and the arguments against it made little. Housing
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be a business because it's essential. That's the argument
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  Speaker 1: they made, which has always been a bogus line. Food, electricity, water,
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  Speaker 1: pretty essential, wouldn't you say? We all need them. We
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  Speaker 1: all use them on a daily basis. They're all free
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and able to deduct interest on their borrowing to own
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and build supermarkets or wind turbines or treatment plants, whether
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  Speaker 1: they're publicly or privately owned. So they can do it.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: What's wrong with housing? Now, there are two reasons Labour's
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  Speaker 1: done this. One of those reasons has just been outlined
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  Speaker 1: by Robin Walker from Deloitte, which I thought was interesting,
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  Speaker 1: where basically they would have been stung by the interest
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  Speaker 1: when they went to collect their capital gains tax revenue.
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  Speaker 1: So they have had to allow the interest earlier. Otherwise
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  Speaker 1: they'd be hit then and not have enough money for
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  Speaker 1: the doctors. However, there's a second reason here. It's a
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  Speaker 1: play for the centre. They're dropping in the polls. The
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  Speaker 1: nine new taxes ads are, I think, largely to blame
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  Speaker 1: for that. Continuing landlord tax cuts, as they would like
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: to call them, is a play from the same political
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  Speaker 1: handbag as national supermarket breakup. Neither party's MPs will like
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: this move. They're captain's calls. They're centre plays. But they don't.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: In their hearts, these MPs like backing them. On latest polling,
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  Speaker 1: the legacy parties, the bigger parties, are scrapping for less
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  Speaker 1: than 60% of the vote, their lowest collective share on record.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: National is trying to out-Labour Labour. Labour's trying to out-National National.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: This is an election campaign. The risk for both of
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  Speaker 1: them is that it only angers your base, who then
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: run screaming into the arms of Chloe or David. For
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: News Talk ZB from 5 a.m. weekdays or follow the
• 2:19
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