Budget 2023 will be the first big act for Chris Hipkins’ still-fresh premiership and will set the stage for a low-key election in October, without much ‘stardust’ scattered around.
It is looking likely to be a really, really tight campaign. Labour has been gaining ground since Jacinda Ardern’s resignation and is neck and neck with the National Party in polling averages.
The two parties' natural coalition partners, ACT and the Green Party, have been polling at around 10% and 8%, respectively. Not enough for either bloc to command a majority.
On current polling, the election would be decided by Te Pāti Māori. A political party which has partnered with National in the past, but is unlikely to join a coalition that includes ACT.
This puts Hipkins in a surprisingly good position to secure a term as Prime Minister with the support of a broad left-leaning coalition government. And so he doesn’t want to rock the boat.
Oddly, this was a position occupied by an entirely different Chris until very recently.
Christopher Luxon took over leadership of the National Party in late 2021 and, as the NZ public tired of pandemic restrictions and daily crisis briefings, quickly took the lead as the ‘not-Jacinda’ candidate.
The feeling at that time was that the National Party only had to look competent and non-controversial, and anti-Labour sentiment would hand them the election.
But then Ardern resigned, and suddenly there was a new ‘not-Jacinda’ candidate to contend with: Chris Hipkins.
Safest set of hands
Although he was virtually hand picked as her successor, Hipkins has not been afraid to break with the former leader and dramatically reinvent the sixth Labour government.
He has been careful not to directly criticize Ardern, who is still beloved by party members, but has dropped hints in that direction.
Take, for example, his recent pre-Budget speech in which he promised to focus on fiscal restraint and delivering a few priorities well.
“The reality is the Government was previously doing too much, too fast, and the effect of that was being tied up with issues taking time and money away from where our primary focus needed to be,” he said.
Reprioritization work was already underway from December, when Ardern was still leader, but Hipkins has really run with it and made it his own.
Budget 2023 has been pitched as the No Frills Budget and Hipkins as the No Frills Prime Minister. It's not much of a legacy, but the every-man act might win him three years at the top.
While the election campaign might be a close run race, don’t expect it to be packed full of transformative policies and big dreams for the future of the nation.
The interesting policies of this election will come from the minor parties.
An emboldened ACT has been winning public support and will want a prominent voice in any coalition arrangement.
The Green Party co-leaders will negotiate more aggressively than previously, after almost being ousted for not getting enough results over the past six-years.
And, Te Pāti Māori may well be able to name its price — should it find itself the Kingmaker.
Meanwhile, centrists Chris H and Chris L will be competing to be the safest set of hands to see off the last of the pandemic chaos; leaving the project of nation-building to future Prime Ministers.
107 Comments
The last three paras here sum it up. It’s not so much the major parties and their respective leaders it’s the potential make up of the coalition that will outturn. TPM may well be the kingmaker but there is only one monarch on offer for that isn’t there. So that will provide NZ with a government consisting of Labour with a faction in its caucus breaking ranks over racial ambitions, the Greens infighting and rancour aplenty and TPM which will require much more than a tail to wag. If in 2020 a segment the electorate deliberately switched to Labour in order to stymie the Greens from being in actual government then it is more likely that sort of sentiment could only increase at the prospect of the above coalition, introducing two extreme agendas, as this time obviously Labour would have no option other than to have the other two with them in cabinet.
Hipkins has not been afraid to break with the former leader and dramatically reinvent the sixth Labour government.
Eh. He's a new shade of lipstick on the same old pig, but as we saw back in 2017, that's all it takes to convince most people. National were going after the increasingly popular "anyone but Ardern" vote, but now with Hipkins at the helm, you don't have to vote National to get rid of her anymore.
So yes, it will likely be a tight race again, between two similarly aligned parties who will maintain the status quo. And as long as we keep treating elections like a popularity contest, that's all we're ever likely to get.
Check the facts. How many people in the last 50 years have been killed by people driving between 40 and 50kph in areas previously 50kph limited, now 40kph limited? None. or very close to it. Drivers killing others have normally been going way over 50kph anyway, so reducing it does no good . The whole policy is driven by the anticar people who are trying to drag us, one step at a time out of cars and into other forms of transport.
Please note that there has never, ever, ever been any figures released showing the accident, damage, injury, and death stats for between 40 and 50 kph limits, thus showing the benefit of the reduction. That is because, of course, if they do exist, they would show no benefit.
Christchurch City Council seeking public consultation on reducing all city speed limits to 30kph. The fact that that process is in place simply means the decision to do so, has already been taken. One councillor stridently declares this will meaningfully mitigate climate change. Yet this same identity is one of five that voted to build an international jet airport 4 hours drive away in Central Otago. Go figure!
It was his council that let thousands of houses be built about 50mm above sea level wasn't it? If driving at 30kph instead of 50kph helps climate mitigation, would someone please tell me how much of NZ's 0.17% of the world's bad emissions will be reduced by this action?
The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party seem like a trustworthy bunch - single issue party, so you can be pretty confident that if elected they would actually attempt to do what they campaigned on, and not much of anything else. Most other parties seem to lack even this basic level of credibility, so I'll be voting ALCP this year.
Plus it might help cheer up all the Sadly Van Sadpants crew here.
"The boomers done ruined society! Productivity is bad and the migrants arent making me wealthier!"
*Takes hit on Te Puke Thunder*
"What was I saying again? I feel like I was taking life a bit too seriously. Life's actually kinda cool"
*Goes outside and plays hackysack*
Te Pāti Māori may well be able to name its price — should it find itself the Kingmaker
A radical, race-based political party calling the shots in a coalition led by gutless leadership who have failed to bring rogue Cabinet ministers into line in the past.
Albanese couldn't have reopened the pathway to citizenship for Kiwis at a better time than this.
No, but they have tropical locales with much lower living costs just a hop skip and jump away.
People huffing, puffing and holding their breath threatening to leave are more often all talk and no show.
If the place sucks and you think it's better elsewhere, shut the hell up and just go already. Nothing fundamentally is changing in the short term in NZ (it's probably going to get worse before it gets better), so you're just going to waste more life energy being sad.
The world’s best and brightest are always queuing up to move to the US. NZ is not even close to that position where we can downplay the current skill outflow situation, like Hipkins has been doing.
We’re slowly starting to piece together that Nz isn’t as desirable to genuinely skilled migrants as pollies make it out to be.
Got a ANZ Australia account a while back via ANZ Aussie phone call.
Verified ID with passport at local NZ branch and transferred dosh when it was priced right.
Can only get Progress account until in Australia then you get the ANZ plus with debit card and the App
Transferring dosh is fee free so far and good live rate
Ah, yes. And we could be number 714,999 on the list of current projected migrant intake looking for a home and a job.
And who knows what the intake will be for the next allocation. Something about "The UK has 65 million pole in a country a fraction of our size. So wee need to get cracking to saturate our land with as many mouths to feed and water as possible"
https://theglobalherald.com/news/australias-migration-intake-to-top-715…
I feel bad for recent skilled migrants who came here to escape a non merit-based system created by pollies there that gives preferential treatment to certain sections of the population.
Talk to your colleague or friend from South Africa, India or Malaysia as to where this road leads.
It depends where you go and what you do. I think your example is a little extreme. But, yes, it’s only much better if you have the desired skills to earn significantly more or work in mines etc. For the average unskilled or lowly skilled person it’s pretty much the same as NZ or harder in the big Aussie cities. Healthcare is MUCH better though from my experience. That might make the difference for some people.
I might be getting you mixed up with Kiwikids but aren't you retired or at least close to it? Might be harsh to say but retirees and those close to retirement moving to Aus has very little economic impact on the wider economy. In fact in might be deflationary as retirees are spending and costing more than they bring in, might help reduce the trade deficit as well. If we lost one retiree for every worker we bring in that would actually be a massive economic win (from a purely economic standpoint, terrible for families and communities ect)
The real issue is us losing all of our young educated workers overseas which will have a real impact on the economy, and those workers aren't leaving because of political leadership typically but because of low wages and high cost of living which has been mostly driven by extortionate housing costs.
As they say, demographics are destiny.
The effect of globalisation is so strong that we cannot keep NZ fun for everyone anymore.
20 thousand workers brought in from overseas in last month and just wait for the numbers in May and June. There is an influx is cheap semi educated labour in the country.
One contractor can get 12 headcount from over seas without any real checks.
What are we making our country?
Less productive since it creates no incentive to improve productivity through capital investment. It is purely about suppressing wages and getting extra manpower for the FIRE economy.
It is literally no different to the importation of cheap slaves in any other historic empire, it disempowers the ordinary citizen and empowers the rich. This Gracchi despairs for his homeless countrymen.
How many people have you employed?
Unfortunately migrants the world over generally are more productive than the indigenous population. It's why Hindus are wealthier than protestants or Catholics in the USA. It's often not about paying less, it's about trying to get a decent level of effort full stop. Our employment levels have exceeded our population of capable workers.
The problem in thinking everything to do with productivity is about capital investment, is it ignores that there's still wildly varying levels in the quality of your workforce. A 1 unit of head count isnt immediately interchangeable with another, there's still factors like experience and attitude - well I guess it might not be if your capital automation just required a human to press a button saying "make expensive thing, robot".
Productivity is value produced per hour of work.
Many things can impact the productivity of labour. Someone with a combine harvester is going to product more value of wheat per hour than someone with a scythe or sickel.
If the job is performed by a human, the productivity per worker can vary wildly. I operate commercially in a world that ascribes value based on volume of product produced, weight, cubic metres, lineal length, etc. There can be a 3-fold difference in the volume of product a worker can produce in a day, irrespective of the tools, mostly down to experience and motivation.
In countries with an over abundance of labour, your workforce is not only going to cost less per hour, but are likely going to be more consistent, if perhaps less creative. That's why we don't make much stuff here no more.
The problem is we seem to be bringing in workers to do low productivity work. Should we even be encouraging these businesses that actually contribute very little to the wider economy? Is it actually improving the economy if we bring in someone who, in effect, costs more than they earn because of the pressure put on infrastructure and housing?
We need to be encouraging high-value, high-productivity work, but neither government seems to have any policy regarding improving that. We need to be somewhere talent wants to live, and realistically, that can't be through high wages. So, what we can offer is lifestyle, because for a lot of people, New Zealand is a great place to live. But by importing too many people and driving up the cost of housing, we are really undermining ourselves in this regard.
That's the pipe dream, NZ cultivates some unobvious, but highly lucrative, export service sectors that any of the much larger sovereign wealth funds who are also competing for the same labour pool and trying to do the same thing haven't already attempted.
Someone should get onto that pronto.
In the meantime we still got all this labour intensive agrarian export economy we need to keep going to keep the lights on. A Pacific Islander usually pumps out 2-3x more value per hour than someone on work experience who's forced to go. The theory says that if we paid $130 an hour to pick nectarines then we'd finally attract quality indigenous candidates or invent a robot to do it. And nectarines would be $25 a kilo.
Did you read my comment below? I think we are somewhat in agreement, but it really does depend on what sector they are going into. My main issue is tourism and hospitality are getting propped up by our loose immigration. Neither of these industries actually bring much real value. In the Callaghan talk I linked below, he talks about the value a tourism worker brings in per capita is dramatically lower than someone working at Fonterra, for example. That part of the talk is around 8 minutes in if you want to check it out.
We need more businesses like Southern Spas, Tait Communications, Weta, F&P Healthcare, Gallagher, but the government does nothing for these industries. We have some of the lowest R&D spending in the world, and we wonder why we are sliding backwards. We could do something about this, but neither party seems to have any interest in it. Instead, people write it off as "too hard" and ramp up immigration to artificially inflate GDP through low-wage, low-productivity industries.
The government does much for many industries:
- billions in subsidies for the film industry
- billions every year in tertiary subsidies
- hundreds of millions in r and d grants
The cost and energy that goes into some of the "high productivity" jobs is actually pretty steep, and for every winner the government backs, they have to court many losers also.
The problem in NZ is it lacks a capital market that's prepared to take medium term losses for potentially higher long term payoffs.
I think that is unnecessarily dismissive.
I agree our capital markets are the primary issue. Mostly caused by an excess of capital being soaked up by the real estate market due to tax incentives encouraging speculation over any other kind of investment. That hasn't paid off. It very well may have cost the nation its future.
But what do you want? Do you want us to cut all that spending? Should we have everyone outside digging holes with shovels and picking berries for minimum wage? Those subsidies are probably some of the best ROI spending the government makes. Where would our film industry be without them? How many jobs and talented individuals would we lose without them? The tertiary subsidies are a great concept that is harmed by low entry standards and far too many pointless degrees that contribute little value. The R&D grants are a rounding area on the budget and have allowed hundreds of companies to grow and thrive despite the tiny amount on offer.
Below is what was outlined by Sir Paul in his talk on encouraging economic growth in the knowledge economy. It's not a silver bullet and it certainly isn't the easy road but it's better than what we are currently doing.
Commitment to Education
Tell the stories of the job opportunities for New Zealand kids at home
(Getthe kids and teachers visiting the smart businesses)Significantly boost science and mathematics education in schools
Build school programmes in entrepreneurship
Boost university engineering and science capability
Refine PBRF to reward commercialisation work
Commitment to R&D
Boost science and engineering research from 0.52% GDP to 0.70% GDP
(a mere $300 million)Enhance R&D credits to the knowledge sector
Compel CRIs to give IP share of benefit to employees and allow employee spin outs
Help establish incubators, business/engineering/science synergy
Commitment to Branding
Understand the value of the conservation estate, liveable cities, quality of life
Identify and "call out" phony environmentalism and "science-phobia"
Market NZ as the "smart country, a place where talent wants to live"
Commitment to Leadership and vision
Bipartisan approach
Evidence basis for decisions - understand what works for us
This is all from more than 10 years ago though and I fear it may be too late to go down this path, and our future may already be set in becoming a declining nation that's more of an expensive retirement home than a dynamic place where talent wants to live.
There's been several instances in the last decade or so where the subsidies for some of these more glamorous industries have been brought into public light. I'm not saying anything definitive there either way, but it looked like for film in particular, the return on investment by the state was a marginal proposition, but counter-acted ironically by the added tourism traffic attributed to our feature film industry.
I agree our capital markets are the primary issue. Mostly caused by an excess of capital being soaked up by the real estate market due to tax incentives encouraging speculation over any other kind of investment.
This is a commonly held assumption, but it's flawed as it assumes that funds for housing would transfer over into high risk, long term bets on moonshot investment.
This is a commonly held assumption, but it's flawed as it assumes that funds for housing would transfer over into high risk, long term bets on moonshot investment.
Neither of us really has any rock-solid evidence either way if we are being honest. But what I am saying is if we fostered a culture and government incentives that made investment in R&D more tenable we probably would be in a better place than we are now. Look at Israel for example, invest record amounts into their R&D sector and their economic growth is outstripping ours.
I agree with you on the first point to a degree, politicians like throwing money at the glamorous and sexy industries rather than more broad base support for more niches that could actually be more profitable. I don't have anything against tourism I just don't think it should be one of our primary exports.
It would also depend what industry they're going into.
Hospitality and tourism? That is making us poorer and we should be discouraging that.
Tech, healthcare and agriculture? Stronger arguments there for immigrants to fill needed roles.
We punch above our weight in producing local engineering talent as well, way better than the Aussies for sure.
In 2020, our space sector was generating $1.69 billion in annual GDP. A big achievement given the government spends less than $10m a year on funding this sector.
Our aerospace sector has been booming despite getting sweet f-all from Sir Key and some picket change from Ardern/Hipkins. Players in these sectors have also reported significant bureaucratic delays in regulatory processes.
Imagine how more generous and targeted support would turbocharge such sectors.
It's honestly miraculous how functional our R&D sector is considering how little support they receive. The engineering & design talent in this country is way better than it has any right to be. I imagine a lot of Aussies engineering talent is directed toward the mining and defense sectors where ours is more dispersed through different niches.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/488987/recovery-visa-sold-for-more-…
Yeah more productive for some using the system to make money and rotting the place.
Well that’s a tough choice! The ACT party are more insane than their leader makes them look. The greens were ok a few years ago under Shaw but there are a lot of extreme left nutters in there now.
I think there are some differences between the major parties. National think we can fix NZ by doing more of what they have done to break it. At least Labour have some good ideas even if they struggle to implement any of them.
What is missing right now, the world is not in 1996 or 2000. The irrelevant elections of 1996/1999/2002 were over minor issues. There was no sense of cultural and social malaise, there wasn't anywhere near the same Homelessness, Housing and Inequality problems.
The attempt to keep politics 'in the centre' is a delusion for refusing to imagine any different future to what we have now. The two big parties are obsessed with adjusting the knobs and wheels of government without any attempt to provide longer term solutions or building institutions to solve these problems.
The whole discourse of the 'centre' and the 'extremes' implies some sort of idea of moderation or balance, as if all ideas had been weighed and balanced for their appropriate usefulness. That somehow, outside the 'middle', the politics are invalid and wrong/evil etc. But ever since the radical visions of the political wings have disappeared, we have this neoliberal consensus politics where nothing ever changes; yet things constantly grow worse.
I find that IRD study curious as its focus was on capital gains as opposed to land value tax. Seems somewhat disingenuous, particularly given the gains are going south at the moment. The sceptic in me thinks Labour may have wanted to head off TOP's LVT proposal at the pass - as it really is the only tax switch that makes good long-term economic sense AND which is unavoidable.
The IRD report was a crapshoot, once you've counted and taxed unrealised gains, you'd be locked into them increasing forever to keep collecting revenue. LVT has significant benefits in that regard, but not the same 'eat the rich' vibe that Labour is wanting (I would suggest more to head off the Greens than anything else).
Incidentally, the Greens have been using this report, which drew on a few hundred families, as evidence for the need for a wealth tax, but that needs to be caveated with their $1m threshold from the last election; i.e. it's not about taking plutocrats down a peg when you're proposing a threshold that would be overrshot by the average Auckland home, and it's not logical to apply that to all regions at the same time.
This is also my beef with an LVT. People in deepest darkest Gore shouldn't pay less on what might give them a far higher standard of living because of a) decades of broken land allocation within major cities like Auckland and b) there are other significant costs that come with living in cities like Auckland that pale in comparison to the value of the land, which only generally matters when you are buying, selling or refinancing; like traffic, access to public amenity, etc. A land tax across all regions at the same rate is going to absolutely ruin Aucklanders and be barely a glancing blow to those in the regions and should be adjusted accordingly.
How are we going to fix broken land allocation then? Are we just going to keep it as is and watch it get worse and worse. A small land value tax is unlikely to cripple homeowners unless they are living in something ridiculous. They always have the option to sell and move somewhere cheaper which is a lot more options that those currently priced out of the market have.
Gore also has far less public ammenities compared to Auckland how would it be fair to charge them the same. Living in a city does have its costs and at the moment all those costs are externalised onto a small group of income earners and renters. A land value tax would make it a lot more fair in paying for the benefit people have derived from land ownership.
It would seem like that, wouldn't it? The best part about a Land Value Tax is that it actually applies to everyone, as ultimately, we are all utilizing land one way or another. Some will be paying directly, and others will be paying indirectly. And everybody has a choice in how much land they would like to utilize, so it isn't massively unfair in any direction. If we want to move away from speculation and start building a real economy it makes the most sense.
I have voted for National or labour for the past 8 elections, and have been let down by all of those governments. Those votes of mine were wasted as we have continued to regress as a nation.
I am also very concerned about the Maori members from Labour as I believe they are controlling the labour leadership. In fact they are the NEW Maori party in disguise.
So the only viable party for all Kiwis is TOP. At least they have sound policies, go to there website and check them out, at least you will have info to make an informed decision.
As a former Ilam electorate voter, I agree that there is a strong possibility Manji could do well. He's recognised, well-spoken and has some good ideas. He seems to put in genuine effort, which I like.
The current Labour MP (name escapes me) doesn't appear to have shown her face locally since the election, at least not according to my friends and family still there. Every time I go past the electorate office it appears to be shut. No idea who the National candidate is, couldn't even make an educated guess.
If I hadn't moved to Megan Woods' stomping ground I'd vote for Manji as my electorate choice for sure, even if it's just to bring a fresh perspective to the table.
However, I do think Manji will have to work hard to overcome the negative connotations that many have of TOP owing to the Gareth "Kill All Cats" Morgan era, taxing grandma for breathing etc. Ilam also has a lot of people who presumably do well from capital gains, so convincing them not to go Two Ticks Blue by default will be a challenge.
No, he's gone list-only.
And that's why Raf has a shot: he ran in 2017 and came second to Brownlee, ahead of the Labour candidate. Labour won in 2020 on the back of COVID.
So now it's Raf vs an unknown nat and Sarah Pallet the invisible Labour MP in a traditionally conservative seat. Christchurch voted in Jim Anderton for years so there's an understanding of MMP electorate politics here.
Just remains to be seen if either party will have a cup of tea with Raf.
The state of the nation is aptly summed up by this quality news article.
Stuff news >>>
A street light the size of an armchair has collapsed near a frequented walkway to a Wellington government building.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/wellington/131902596/light-the-size-of…
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