Inside TOP's Teal Card and political strategy

TL;DR: The Opportunities Party’s Leader Raf Manji is hopeful the party’s new Teal Card, a type of Gold card for under 30s, will be popular with students, and not just in his Ilam electorate where students make up more than a quarter of the voters and where Manji is confident he can outpoll two low-profile candidates from National and Labour.

I spoke with Manji in the podcast above about:

• TOP’s Teal Card announced yesterday;

• TOP’s electoral and Parliamentary strategies;

• how TOP aims to win Green and other voters who want a party sitting on the cross-benches in Parliament, rather than joining one or other of the big parties in a coalition or cooperation agreement after that trading away support in Budget supply and confidence votes in Parliament for ministerial and policy wins.

TOP’s Teal Card would ensure anyone under 30 would have:

• full publicly funded healthcare;

• free public transport;

• a $5,000 Universal Savings Boost payment for 18 year olds after an Outward Bound-style National Civic Service course; and

• a $1,500 electric bike or scooter voucher.

The NZ$1.5 billion/year cost would be paid for by:

• a 1% point rise in the corporate tax rate to 29%;

• a new top income tax rate of 45% for those on wage incomes over $250,000 per year; and,

• a rise in the 39% income tax rate to 42%.

I asked for some help from paying subscribers via Chat for questions here:

Here’s a summary of the responses I got during the interview. The full interview is available for all in the podcast above.

Here’s the 6 things to know at 6 am I put out for paying subscribers earlier

And here’s a few useful links sent to paying subscribers via chat and email earlier.

Ka kite ano

Bernard