# Tax Lies, Perverse Pay Packets and Social Media Meltdowns

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106/tax-lies-perverse-pay-packets-and-social-media-meltdowns
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106/tax-lies-perverse-pay-packets-and-social-media-meltdowns.md
Podcast: [Cross Party Lines](https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106)
Published: 2026-08-31T16:30:00+00:00
Episode link: https://crosspartylines.substack.com/p/tax-lies-perverse-pay-packets-and
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/213519279/bc9550ae85d67e4f6177eecdeada9d95.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/cross-party-lines-7562106/episodes/tax-lies-perverse-pay-packets-and-social-media-meltdowns
Duration seconds: 2958

## Resource

Hosted by Phil Goff and Chris Finlayson , Cross Party Lines returns in a week dominated by tax promises nobody can keep, a CEO pay packet that defies all decency and a rare moment of cross-party agreement on social media and children that both men want to see survive the campaign. All thanks to Frank Risk Management - the 100% Kiwi owned insurance brokerage and proudly the foundational partner of Cross Party Lines. In this episode: * The tax debate nobody’s having honestly — National is running a campaign claiming Labour will introduce nine to eleven new taxes. Labour is talking about one: capital gains. But Phil is equally unsparing about his own side — jumping on the bandwagon to promise no fuel excise increase, regardless of the road maintenance bill that creates, is not honest politics either. Chris reaches back to George H.W. Bush’s “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge — delivered in New Orleans in 1988, broken within two years for entirely good economic reasons — as the canonical warning against definitive promises in election campaigns. * $30 million for a CEO while the stock tanks — and what it says about corporate governance — The revelation that a major New Zealand CEO received $30 million in remuneration while the company’s share price was falling prompts one of the more animated exchanges of the episode. Phil draws a direct line between runaway executive pay, the collapse of faith in institutions, and the rise of populism. Chris is equally blunt: a board that approves that package while the stock is declining has failed its most basic governance responsibility. * Social media, children and a rare cross-party moment worth protecting — In the episode’s most substantive segment, Phil and Chris give a thorough and genuinely cross-partisan treatment to the social…

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## Transcript

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