by Kate McFarland | Jul 19, 2016 | News
Geoff Simmons and Gareth Morgan, economists at New Zealand’s Gareth Morgan Foundation, have called universal basic income (UBI) an “idea whose time has come” — pointing out that we already know (at least) ten types of people who would be better off with a UBI, even without waiting for results from impending experiments.
As they claim in the recent article, however, we don’t yet know enough about how to finance a UBI:
[T]he real challenge of any UBI proposal is the fiscal cost and how it is to be funded. In order to be credible, any proposal has to outline the cost and indicate who specifically is supposed to pay for it. This is the hard part, where there are winners and losers. Instead the overseas pilots are testing the easy stuff and ignoring the difficult issue, which is their glaring weakness.
Simmons and Morgan’s column sends an important and valuable message, which we should all consider as we press forward in the global movement for universal basic income.
Read the full article here:
Geoff Simmons and Gareth Morgan, “UBI: the radical solution to tax and work which even Silicon Valley is now investigating,” The Spinoff, June 21, 2016.
Image: Geoff Simmons speaks on basic income on Gareth Morgan’s YouTube channel.
by Kate McFarland | May 23, 2016 | Research
Basic Income in Australia and New Zealand, a collection of 10 essays, is the latest addition to Palgrave Macmillan’s “Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee” series.
From the publisher’s description:
“This book is the first collective volume of its kind to ask whether a basic income offers a viable solution to the income support systems in Australia and New Zealand. Though often neglected in discussions of basic income, both countries are advanced liberal democracies dominated by neoliberal transformations of the welfare state, and therefore have great potential to advance debates on the topic. The contributors’ essays and case studies explore the historical basis on which a basic income program might stand in these two countries, the ideological nuances and complexities of implementing such a policy, and ideas for future development that might allow the program to be put into practice regionally and applied internationally.”
Mays, J., Marston, G., and Tomlinson, J. (eds.), 2016, Basic Income in Australia and New Zealand: Perspectives from the Neoliberal Frontier, Palgrave Macmillan.
Photo: Milford Sound in New Zealand CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Loïc Lagarde
by Andre Coelho | Apr 1, 2016 | News
Andrew Little at WelTec. Credit to: Stuff.co.nz.
Following the lead of countries like Finland, Netherlands and Canada, New Zealand is now making its first steps towards a basic income. In a recent Stuff news article, Andrew Little, leader of the Labour Party, the second largest party in the New Zealand’s parliament, says Labour is considering a basic income. This interest is mainly motivated by the rise in structural unemployment, which guarantees profound changes in how New Zealanders work. Automation and precariousness of employment, self-employment and new business models are all affecting the way people work, and these structural changes occupy a central place in present day Labour Party concerns.
Indeed, the Party made these concerns – as well as the possibility of a basic income to address them – central to its Labour’s Future of Work Conference, which took place earlier this week, on the 23rd and 24th of March. The Future of Work Commission has released two background papers on universal basic income, one of which can be found here. This paper, by researchers Max Harries and Sebastiaan Bierema, analyses basic income in general and in the New Zealand context, also mentioning that a pilot programme could be an important first step into a future fully-fledged basic income implementation.
What Labour Party leaders in New Zealand will do, it’s hard to say. However, Keith Rankin, a New Zealander author who has written about basic income, highlights some possibilities in a recent article. These possibilities are similar to other basic income tax reform ideas presented, based on income tax redistribution. Keith proposes taxing income from both labour (work wages) and land (property) at a rate between 33 and 37%, and redistributing that money to all adult residents.
More information at:
Blake Caryton-Brown, “Labour leader Andrew Little promises debate on universal basic income”, Stuff.co.nz Politics, March 14th 2016
Chris Weller, “New Zealand is debating a plan to give people unconditional free money”, Tech Insider, March 14th 2016
Keith Rankin, “Universal Basic Income and income tax reform”, Briefing Papers, March 22nd 2016
André Coelho, “Miguel Horta: “Negative Income Tax in Portugal [Negative Income Tax em Portugal]””, Basic Income News, June 3rd 2015
New Zealand Labour Party, “The Future of Work” website.
Max Harris and Sebastiaan Bierema, 2016, “A Universal Basic Income for New Zealand”, Proceedings of the Conference The Future of Work, New Zealand
by Andre Coelho | Nov 26, 2015 | News
Lowell Manning (credit to BINZ)
Activism for Basic Income (BI) in New Zealand is growing fast and gaining visibility. The new group BINZ – Basic Income New Zealand – is setting up actions to “bring the ‘universal basic income’ to the forefront of New Zealand’s public awareness”. It has been already formalized with an incorporation status under New Zealand law, and submitted an affiliation request with BIEN – Basic Income Earth Network.
The group has already developed a website, a Facebook page, a startup newsletter and first press release. The core team constitution gathers names such as Lowell Manning, Gaylene Middleton and Karl Matthys, who felt compelled to formalize BINZ after professor Guy Standing’s visit to New Zealand earlier this year. Manning, for instance, worked for 15 years in the NZ Democratic Party as a policy director and, besides skilled in economics, is one of New Zealand’s recognized BI experts.
There is a long tradition in the basic income concept in New Zealand, with local groups advocating for it for more than 20 years. BINZ aims to be a beacon of light to spread even further the BI concept in the country, as well as through joining the larger international BI community of activists.
Karl Matthys (credit to BINZ)
More information at:
BINZ website
BINZ Facebook page
Hastings District Council, “Is a basic income the best medicine?“, Hastings District Council News & Public Notices, September 9th 2015
by Josh Martin | Mar 31, 2015 | News
Deirdre Kent is the co-founder and co-leader of the New Economics Party in New Zealand, and she writes on the three main economic issues her party seeks to address: “the monetary reform movement, (including reforming the national currency and having a whole range of complementary currencies), the tax reform movement to move towards land and other resource taxes and away from income tax and sales tax, and thirdly the movement for a basic income, giving an unconditional, basic income to all people where paid work may not be available for all people.”
Deirdre Kent, “Combining resource (including land) taxes, monetary reform and basic income is the political challenge of our time”, New Economics Party, 10 February 2015.
