Mike's Minute: We are becoming, again, the magnet that we should be
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The most uplifting part of the news weekend (apart from the Warriors) was the Stuff story quoting the head of an Australian investment firm confirming what is clearly already underway.
Which is either New Zealanders returning to New Zealand, or Australians seeing our country as a better option than theirs.
What's particularly uplifting, according to Ed Carlson who runs TrueBridge Capital, is the people coming are the bright and go-getters.
It cannot be overstated what a gargantuan cock-up the last Australian budget was.
Although it was delivered at the start of last month, the fallout has been unrelenting and culminated last Thursday in a humiliating series of backdowns around capital gains taxes and who pays them.
It is, if they want to look and learn, a salutary lesson for the New Zealand Labour Party that taxing success is a direct pathway to political ruin.
It's an age old lesson - capital and brain power moves to where it's best treated.
And the reason it does that is because it can.
Most of us don’t mind paying our fair share. But all of us have a subliminal line where when the unfairness encroaches, we do something about it.
Some adjust their tax position and some move countries.
Do not underestimate the narrative behind all of this. How uplifting is it to contemplate the idea that we are actually starting to outperform Australia in terms of attractiveness.
Can I also be a little blunt and suggest that no small number of Kiwis that left for Australia in the mad post-Covid flight out, might well have been at the less useful end of the spectrum and may well be languishing in places like Queensland wondering why the largesse from the state isn't quite what they thought it might be?
If they come from Australia and they bring money and ideas and entrepreneurialism, we are off to the races.
A country that is a magnet is a country going places.
Last week's GDP showed us the tide has turned. This current war period will hurt, but for the rest of the year I think we are good to go.
Clearly, according to Ed, I'm not the only one who sees it.
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