“Poll Fiction: How the Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Polling Manufactured Consent Against Labour’s Capital Gains Tax” - 25 November 2025

The NZ Herald reported on 24 November 2025 that 61% of respondents want any capital gains tax based on inflation-adjusted gains, with 69% of Labour voters supporting this position.

The poll, conducted by Curia between 2-6 November 2025 and commissioned by the Taxpayers’ Union, arrives precisely one month after Labour announced its 28% capital gains tax policy on 27 October 2025. But this headline conceals a network of financial interests, methodological manipulation, and ideological warfare designed to undermine the closest Aotearoa has come to taxing unearned wealth in a generation.

The Architects of Manufactured Dissent

David Farrar and Jordan Williams co-founded the Taxpayers’ Union in 2013, wielding Curia Market Research as their polling arm to shape public discourse. Farrar resigned from the Research Association of New Zealand (RANZ) in August 2024 after RANZ’s Professional Standards Group upheld complaints against Curia and was considering suspension to expulsion. RANZ found that Curia breached professional industry standards, including omitting critical data points when compiling survey results for the Free Speech Union, another Williams organisation.

Former ACT Party researcher Grant McLachlan testified that ACT “weaponised” astroturf organisations, claiming the Taxpayers’ Union did groundwork for ACT in the 2020 election. John Tamihere exposed how Curia and the Taxpayers’ Union breached RANZ standards by failing to publish required polling details, with full reports kept “exclusively to members of Taxpayer Caucus”—high-paying supporters.

Williams confirmed in 2023 that British American Tobacco is a Taxpayers’ Union donor, and industry funding from “grog, nicotine companies, sugar, soda” comprises less than 3% of their $3 million budget—meaning over $90,000 annually flows from corporations fighting regulation. More than 80% of income comes from small donations averaging $75-$85, but commercial property developer Bob Jones is cumulatively their largest donor through free office rent.

David Farrar and Jordan Williams, architects of the Taxpayers’ Union-Curia polling operation

The Inflation Deception: Manufacturing a False Problem

Taxpayers’ Union spokesman James Ross claimed

“more than half of the capital gains on housing over the past 10 years had just been inflation, largely caused by Government overspending”.

This is weaponised dishonesty. From 2015-2025, New Zealand’s housing index shows nominal price increases far exceeded inflation. Between 2015 and 2021, house prices increased 20.09% after inflation adjustment—real wealth accumulation, not phantom gains.

The Treasury’s High Wealth Individuals Report found that around 80% of the median high-wealth family’s economic income comprised realised and unrealised capital gains, with the median effective tax rate for high-wealth families at 8.9% on their economic income, while middle-income earners pay 20.2%. The wealthiest 311 families had a mean net worth of $276 million in 2021.

Ross’s “inflation” claim serves to launder unearned wealth as phantom value. Housing wealth is the largest and most widely held type of wealth in New Zealand, and a 10% increase in house prices causes a 0.3 percentage point increase in the wealth Gini coefficient between owners and non-owners.

This isn’t inflation—it’s systematic wealth extraction from non-owners to owners.

The Māori Wealth Catastrophe Hidden by White Grievance

The poll’s framing erases the most devastating dimension of property speculation: its role in maintaining wealth inequality between Māori and Pākehā that Labour’s CGT could begin to address. Professor Matthew Roskruge (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tama) told RNZ that

“people who make money from capital gains are disproportionately those who already have wealth”.

In 1936, 71% of Māori lived in dwellings the whānau owned. By 1991, ownership had fallen to 56%. By 2013, it was 43%—likely below 40% today. The 2023 Census showed 27.5% of Māori owned or partly owned their own house, compared to 47.8% of Europeans. If home ownership continues declining at the rate since 1991, Māori will be almost entirely renters by 2061.

The 1991 “Mother of All Budgets” significantly reduced state market interventions, triggering a downturn and significant rise in Māori unemployment. Neoliberalism’s property speculation regime systematically transferred wealth from Māori to Pākehā property owners. Between 1980s and 1991, Māori home ownership grew 12%—over a percentage point per year. From 1991-2013, it declined 13%. This isn’t market failure—it’s market design.

Roskruge warned that Labour’s CGT could impact Māori entities like iwi collectives investing in commercial property, noting

“if there’s going to be a negative impact on the Māori economy, that’s where it’ll show”.

Yet the Taxpayers’ Union poll makes no mention of Māori economic impacts, Treaty obligations, or rangatiratanga—only the manufactured grievance of wealthy speculators forced to pay tax on real gains.

Labour’s Electoral History: The CGT Graveyard

Labour ran on a CGT in 2011 under Phil Goff and 2014 under David Cunliffe, losing both elections. In 2019, Jacinda Ardern abandoned a broader CGT after failing to win over NZ First, vowing never to revisit it while leader. Before the 2023 election, Chris Hipkins ruled out a CGT or wealth tax, prompting revenue minister David Parker to resign.

Hipkins later put all tax options “back on the table”, and the caucus approved the current CGT in a near-unanimous vote. The policy would apply from July 2027 to profits from commercial and residential property (excluding the family home and farms) at 28%, with revenue dedicated to three free GP visits annually.

A week before the Taxpayers’ Union poll, the NZ Herald-Kantar poll showed 39% supported Labour’s CGT and 39% opposed it—a dead heat, not the landslide opposition the Taxpayers’ Union sought to manufacture. By weaponising the “inflation-adjusted” framing, the poll sought to fracture Labour’s base and seed doubt.

New Zealand’s two-tier tax system: the wealthy pay 8.9% while workers pay 20.2%

Cui Bono: Who Benefits from This Polling Theatre?

Every single hidden connection points to beneficiaries of the status quo. Curia conducted National’s internal polling for years, with John Key publicly thanking “the best pollster in New Zealand… David Farrar”. Williams worked closely with ACT through astroturf campaigns. Tobacco companies fund the Taxpayers’ Union while opposing regulation. Bob Jones, who has built commercial property wealth for decades, provides their office.

The wealthiest benefit from continuing to pay 8.9% effective tax rates while middle-income earners pay 20.2%. Property speculators benefit from tax-free capital gains fueling the housing crisis. The coalition government benefits from polling that undermines Labour’s flagship redistributive policy.

The Moral Verdict

Hipkins stated Labour had not considered accounting for inflation, defending the prospective-only nature of the policy. He refused to comment directly on the poll, noting “depending on how you ask the question would very much depend on the nature of the answers that you get”—a polite acknowledgment that Curia’s question was designed to generate opposition.

The poll question asked: “Do you think any capital gains tax should levy tax on the nominal gain made by selling an asset, or levy it on the inflation-adjusted real gain?”—framing that implies nominal gains are somehow unfair phantom wealth, despite real housing appreciation far exceeding inflation.

This is not research. It is propaganda with footnotes. Every methodological choice, every funding stream, every institutional affiliation serves those profiting from untaxed wealth accumulation while Māori slide toward landlessness and the middle class drowns in rent.

Research Process Transparency

This analysis used web search tools to verify all claims, consulting sources including Te Ara, RNZ, NZ Herald, RANZ, Inland Revenue, The Beehive, and academic repositories. Research conducted 25 November 2025 using 50+ verified sources. All URLs tested and live. All citations anchor substantive factual claims requiring verification per RANZ standards that Curia itself violated.

Hei Whakamutunga

The Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll is not neutral measurement—it is class warfare disguised as methodology. It protects the 311 wealthiest families paying 8.9% tax while teachers, nurses, and cleaners pay 20%+. It accelerates Māori toward complete landlessness by 2061. It manufactures consent for a tax system that rewards speculation over work, inheritance over innovation, whiteness over whakapapa.

Ivor Jones The Māori Green Lantern Fighting Misinformation And Disinformation From The Far Right

E kore e ngaro te mana Māori i te kūare o te tangata. The mana of Māori will not be lost through the ignorance of others. Name every pollster. Name every donor. Name every beneficiary. The Ring of Truth illuminates what they hide.