In this year’s royal honours list, Rocket Lab’s CEO, Sir Peter Beck, received a knighthood for essentially making New Zealand a military target.
This follows the line Australia has taken in becoming a strategic military base for the US Empire.
Australia has become a special economic zone for the US Empire, with the majority of satellite communications to Israel and Gaza going through the US-run Pine Gap base in the Northern Territory.
In 1975, there was a coup conducted by the CIA against a Prime Minister who threatened to close US military bases in Australia. The Governor General at the time was a former CIA asset and anti-communist who tried to run for President of the CIA funded Australian Association of Cultural Freedom.
Recent AUKUS deals have forced the Australian government to pay $368 billion for four nuclear submarines that the Australian public will never see or need.
While New Zealand’s anti-nuclear laws and position meant we didn’t join this agreement, the New Zealand government is making moves in the private sector.
In 2015, New Zealand quietly joined the 5 Eyes spy network’s US Space programme. This allows Rocket Lab to launch US Military satellites from their launchpad on the Mahia Peninsula.
Rocket Lab’s links to the CIA’s venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel, were exposed in 2016 by The Intercept, but was not reported on by New Zealand’s corporate media.
In-Q-Tel invests on behalf of the CIA and the broader US intelligence community in companies whose products may have national security applications.
In 2021, Green MP Teanau Tuiono called for law changes to prevent Rocket Lab from launching weapons into space on behalf of foreign powers.
“The Government has a responsibility to make sure technologies sent into orbit from New Zealand soil do not assist other countries' armies to wage war,” he said in a Facebook post.
In 2012: ‘Instant Eyes’ was tested in preparation for NATO and US Military users. Rocket Lab denied that it was deployed or used in this area, but it was.
In 2015: Rocket Lab made a contract worth US$99,964 for DARPA, exploring the launch of small vehicles and use Automated Flight Termination technology.
In 2016: Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck spoke among speakers such as the then-FBI Director, at a summit of In-Q-Tel portfolio companies. Another contract worth US$5.7 million for the Air Force Research Laboratory.
In 2017: Details of the company’s defence involvement were removed from their website by the time monitoring legislation came into law.
In 2018: Rocket Lab received $206 million in funding from investors, including the government-owned ACC, from the then-National government. The largest contract, worth, US$6.5 million, saw Rocket Lab launch a secret spy satellite into orbit.
In 2019: Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck spoke among speakers such as the then-FBI Director, at a summit of In-Q-Tel portfolio companies.
ACC’s investment guidelines specifically prevent it from investing in companies involved in nuclear bombs, mines, and cluster munitions.
They can’t invest in Lockheed Martin or its subsidiaries due to its funding of nuclear weapons. Rocket Lab works closely with Lockheed Martin spacecraft, yet ACC gave them funding.
The Prime Minister, before a week or so ago, owned seven properties, each worth over $2 million, a total of $21.145 million.
His property portfolios grew by $4.3 million in 2021, and he made $90,000 in capital gains every week in 2022, more money than he made as CEO of Air New Zealand.
He was the wealthiest MP as Leader of the Opposition, and once Prime Minister, he chose to give $3 billion in tax cuts to landlords.
This month, he sold one of his Auckland properties.
On that property, that he bought for $650,000 in 2015, it was listed at a set price of $945,000. That’s a capital gain of $295,000, which he paid no tax on.
Earlier this year, the government repealed the old bright line thresholds, opting instead for two-year period.
The bright line test has gone back to its initial two-year period, as was firt introduced in October 2018.
The new bright line test applies if you have sold a property on, or after, 1 July 2024.
That means any residential property sold within two years of it purchase date with be subject to tax on any profit made from the sale. Property owners buying after this date will only have to pay tax within in that two-year period.
That’s just under the amount of time that he’s owned the property, meaning he’ll pay no bright line and no capital gains tax.
New research from Victoria University has found that the richest people in Aotearoa are paying less tax than others in nine similar OECD nations.
We are one of only a few who have no tax on capital gains, no kind of wealth tax, and have the most pathetic income tax rate.
The Prime Minister and almost every other sitting member of Parliament own multiple properties and have investments in businesses, giving them all an interest in keeping the tax system stuffed and the housing market in favour of landlords.
They don't work for us. We work for them.
UPDATE (4 December, 2024):
The PM has sold his third house this year after changing the brightline test, meaning he made $300,000 tax-free on this sale - likely over $760,000 in profit on all properties sold this year.
Luxon just sold a two-bedroom unit in Onehunga for $930,000 - more than $309,500 than he paid for it in the first place ($620,500).
Had his latest property sale been the same as his asking price, he would have made total capital gains of $769,500 from the three sales. But he won’t actually tell us.
Original images sourced from NZME, RNZ, 1News, Three News, unless stated otherwise