Opinion: TOP is Not a Left-Wing Party

The Opportunities Party (TOP) is suddenly close enough to Parliament to be taken seriously. After recently polling at 4.6%, just shy of the 5% threshold, TOP has been rebranded by some as the sensible, fresh, almost-left alternative for voters tired of the old parties.

The Coalition parties have been criticising TOP as a left-wing party, citing their Citizens Income Policy as evidence. On the surface, it is easy to see why—TOP proposes paying up to $370 a week to almost every adult, funded through a land value tax. Universal payments sound progressive. A tax on land sounds redistributive. 

But the policy is actually deeply conservative.

For starters, the Citizens Income Tax is a Universal Basic Income (UBI) policy, which is classically neoliberal. The ideology was that by providing a universal income instead of welfare resources, there would be less expenses related to bureaucracy, therefore creating a smaller state. This was obviously attractive to conservative parties, who desire to reduce the size of government.

TOP proposes to replace existing welfare schemes with a Citizens’ Income—promising, in its own words, “simplified welfare with savings of at least $1.5 billion in administration costs.” The purpose of the policy is therefore clear: to reduce the cost of administering welfare. That places TOP’s proposal squarely within the neoliberal conception of a UBI. By replacing existing welfare programmes with a single simplified payment, the government saves money, bureaucracy is reduced, and the state becomes smaller.

There have also been UBI proposals that are not rooted in neoliberalism, such as the Green Party’s Income Guarantee, which functions as a supplement to existing welfare programmes rather than a replacement. This is liberal; the aim is increasing the size of the welfare state and government, not reducing it. 

Maybe this still looks left to you, I mean everyone gets money, so what is the problem?

TOP’s policy necessitates public sector job cuts. By automating the payment of benefits, people who currently work in the administration of public services will be replaced with a computer, leaving them jobless. We have seen National and ACT similarly call for the slashing of bureaucracy, and this is TOP’s much quieter way of making the same call.

So, do you think welfare should be expanded? Then, you are probably a Greens voter. Do you think that welfare is an administrative burden that needs to be reduced? Congratulations; TOP is the party for you.

The second trap is the funding model. TOP’s Citizens’ Income is funded through a land value tax. To be clear, there are good arguments for taxing land. New Zealand’s housing market has rewarded wealth-hoarding for decades, and landowners have benefited from untaxed gains while renters and workers have been locked out of the housing market. A land value tax is not, by itself, a bad idea.

But TOP’s version ignores wealth redistribution. A flat-rate land value tax is not the same as a wealth tax aimed at the richest people in the country. Land matters, of course, but it is not the only way wealth is accrued. Wealth also sits in shares, trusts, companies, inheritances, financial assets, and corporate profits. A land tax may reach one part of the problem, but it does not confront concentrated wealth as a whole. In effect, the top 1% remain the top 1%. 

The Greens’ approach is different because it is explicitly redistributive. It asks those with the most accumulated wealth to contribute more, and uses that money to strengthen incomes at the bottom. 

In other words, the real question is who should pay for inequality. TOP’s answer is: everyone who owns land, through a flat land tax. The Greens’ answer is: those who have benefited most from the system. If your politics are redistributive, that distinction matters.

The danger for left-wing voters is that TOP’s policy is being misconceived as left when it fundamentally is not. The policy revolves around one goal: shrinking the size of the state. And shrinking the size of the state, need I remind you, is the core of conservative politics.

Some of you have mistaken teal for green—and that is exactly what TOP is counting on.