I have a natural-and-episcopal interest in the forthcoming NZ general election (7 November 2026). The "natural" bit is that I have always been interested in politics, the "episcopal" bit is because our Cathedral ReOpen Project is looking for $15m of further funding commitment in order for us to re-open our cathedral's nave, tower and west porch. With such commitment, we begin construction again, without it, well, we have some difficult conversations ahead of us.
One possibility for a further commitment of required funds lies with Winston Peters and the New Zealand First party who have pledged to bring support for $15m of central government funding for the project to the coalition negotiating table if they are invited to that table. Pretty much every political set of tea leaves points to that invitation only occurring if the "centre right" gets to form the table of negotiation. If the "centre left" gets to form the table, they will not need to invite NZ First to discussions about the formation of a new government.
To date, the polls undertaken by different polling entities seem united in their refusal to offer a clear prediction of the winning left or right combo, so it looks like the only thing to do is to be patient, wait quietly (both Christians virtues!) and turn on the television and/or radio on the night of 7 November. Of course it is possible that by the end of that evening, the results might be still too close to call - special votes to be counted over the next couple of weeks etc. More patient waiting required! If NZ First does get to the table of negotiation it could be weeks (or weeks and weeks) until clarity emerges about what, from each party's policy wish list, has crossed the line into common policy for the new government. More patient waiting required.
For clarity, this post is not intended to persuade you to vote for any party in the election, not even for NZ First. But please vote. I do think not voting at all hands decision-making to others. In a democracy every citizen should weigh matters up and vote so the end result represents the influence of all citizens. I understand that there is no perfect party for everyone, and often that lack of perfection is keenly felt by Christians (How can I vote for the party with the best economic credentials when it also supports, say, a more liberal abortion law?). But politics is the art of compromise and just sometimes Christians ought to compromise - voting in a general election or a local body election is one of those "sometimes."
What is at stake in our coming election? Quite a lot, as it happens, though perhaps we would say that about every election. Here is a not-comprehensive list:
- the economy (what can we afford by way of priorities in health, welfare, education, defence, social services (including police, corrections)? We currently borrow money to pay for things and tax ourselves to pay for things: could we borrow more? Should we borrow less? Ditto, tax more, tax less?);
- the economy (how do we lift productivity, something many economic pundits (from all sides) observe is that NZ has scarcely lifted productivity in recent decades, and one explanation for our sliding descent down various rankings of OECD nations is due to this lack of decent productivity lift?);
- the economy (what is the right level of commitment to the things government (assisted by the tax payer and borrowings) pays for? To take an extreme, presumably we could pay for the most advanced level of healthcare in the world, including the most expensive treatments for cancers if we canned all superannuation payments ... but no one is going to vote for that, but we (rightly) argue what level of healthcare should be provided and whether superannuation at current settings is affordable as we look ahead with precise predictions re population of seniors increasing etc!);
- the economy (what does the Treaty of Waitangi mean in respect of how we live in partnership, Maori and Pakeha, with observable economic disparities between Maori and Pakeha, one example of which is that if the age of superannuation was lifted, even fewer Maori would get to enjoy superannuated older age).
OK - a bit of bias here - I think politics is heavily inter-connected with economics! We look to the government to do things for us (as individuals, as communities, as Maori/Pakeha, men/women, seniors/youth/children, school leavers and graduates looking for work, city dwellers/rural dwellers, etc/etc) but nearly everything we seek costs $$$. More schools, $$$. More teachers in existing schools, $$$. School lunches, $$$. You get my drift.
In this election, each party (I notice) is offering to do things, things that cost $$$, and more (or less) giving some kind of plausible account of how the $$$ will be found to do these things. What is arguably fascinating about this election is the strong sensitivity by all parties as to the economic situation we are in: parlous (there are not many spare $$$) and perilous (uncertainty about the global economic situation is high, very high as fuel prices surge, wars are fought and peace is avoided by certain leaders of nations not called Aotearoa New Zealand). No party is promising the earth, yet no party is promising an austerity pathway to new economic prosperity.
Of course other things are interesting about the election: neither Labour nor National seems able to command support consistently above 30%, and their combined totals on recent polls is the lowest ever for our two major parties. Does this betoken an interest in minor parties seemingly in common with what is happening in (say) Australia, UK, France, Germany? Or are the minor parties here (none of which, thankfully, is extreme as the extreme minor parties of afore-mentioned countries) showing policy boldness the two main parties ought to be showing?
All will be revealed ... on, or after, 7 November 2026!
13 comments:
In the last 40 years, at least since the rise of neo liberal "Rogernomics", successive governments (both Labour and National) have supported or at the very least perpetuated an economy where the wealthiest 10% now own 50% of the wealth, the middle 50% hold 47% of the wealth, and the poorest 40% own 3% of the wealth in New Zealand. In this economy, the wealthiest NZers also pay about half the tax rate that middle NZ pays (according to IRD).
I wonder what Jesus and the prophets would make of such an economy and the politics that perpetuate it?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/307458/10-percent-richest-kiwis-own-60-percent-of-nz's-wealth
That survey was 2016… I wonder if any political party is willing to investigate current percentages?
Yes I'd love to see 2026 figures! I imagine they are even more unequal now. The National Business Review has published figures showing that in the past year, the 150 wealthiest families in teased their wealth by 27 billion just in the last year.
We could end child poverty (and rough sleeping etc etc) tomorrow if that were a political priority. We choose not to by sticking with the current taxation system.
Hi Mark. What is the tax change which would both solve those problems and retain wealth creators in our tax system?
Well at the moment the lowest 50% of the population hold 6.7% of NZ’s wealth in 2026.
It is well reported that NZ wealth distribution has become increasingly skewed.
National burnt their bridges with me two days ago when they said they would ‘reduce’ aka punish people on jobseekers benefits if they were unable to find employment after a set period of time. How arbitrary is that? Unemployment is not higher than in 2023 but it is the ‘lookers’ fault and not the state of the market. They quote the number of Public Sector Ministries as being higher than anywhere in the OECD and that was the reason for mass layoffs off’s, however, they don’t compare like for like - Ireland about our population size outstripped our old public servant sector hands down in regards to the number of people working in the sector NOT the number of ministries.
Act well they weren’t ever even close to my list but today with their attitude to saving money by reducing the people on disability benefits with a specific target for those suffering from mental health. Grand, let’s target those for whom a large number are suffering the effects of abuse and add more to their plate. Not only is it not original, the total amount NZ spent on supporting people with disabilities and supporting caregivers is 80% less than the cost of white collar crime in NZ every year. Where is the attention given to that, why focus on those in need rather than those ripping off a system? Surely there must be programmes to target white collar crime, however, one has to ask why it is the social welfare support is made a political issue by politicians? Easy target? Easy to tap into the emotional susceptibility of us all that we are pulling our weight more than other are - pitting the ‘in work’ against the ‘out of work’?
I think there is a wide awareness of the global issues and the struggling economic situation but I do not think false economy is the answer. False economy for me is like the recent cutting of home help to the elderly - if you got an hours help for housework every two weeks from about 7 months ago you only now get half an hour. And yet the mantra is National want to get people to stay in their own homes - it’s cheaper than rest homes. Well it costs more than $1000 per week for someone in a rest home; cutting help to the elderly who are at home logically makes them more prone to falls/isolation/not coping and logically will lead to more people in rest homes or hospital care - that is what I call false economy. I suspect economically you would save more on higher level care for the older population if the opposite was implemented, as in more help for people who still lived at home.
Okay that’s my rant.
Hi Peter. Do you think the billionaire families create wealth for us? Alone? When the inequalities are so stark? Do you believe the line that if more actual wealth is taxed in NZ (capital gains, super millionaire wealth) then much investment funding will be taken offshore? Do you think that large corporations that have done so well financially lately (e.g. banks, supermarkets), when so many of us have really struggled, will make life so much worse for us if we change the rules on their massive "wealth creation" somewhat? Do you think the best thing is to carry on as we have been, with a little tinkering here or there, whether Labour or National? I think a lot of people, especially younger generations, sons and daughters of the boomer generation who have had it so good, and have largely led successive governments, have exhausted answering yes to these questions or hoping the good times are just around the corner if only we can hang on.
Oh one more haha, no more taxes… I would give back the extra $3 dollars I got per week from the tax cut National bought in at the beginning of their term if the $16 billion dollars it cost was put into our health system. We have one of the flattest tax rates in the world. We even have super wealthy people wanting to pay more tax and ‘give back’. Why the allergy to tax. No one wants to be taxed beyond reason, but give me tax and no beggars on the street over the situations I see in the USA where it’s show us your credit card before we treat you health care, or countries where there is no social welfare and homelessness, beggars etc numerous.
I don’t have the knowledge to answer you re our productivity +Peter but I was oh so wanting the current government to step in to help save some of the recent factory closures such as fisheries in Nelson, Wattie’s, Paper Mills up North - again false economy. To not help appears to be prudent but with growing freight costs, the economic stability those industries give to local business and the potential down the track for the global demand in these areas to rise - to me investment in them would be more prudent as the high money making industries at the moment such as crypto currency are ephemeral one day people will cotton to the fact that it is nothing at all as it is has no real value and it will crash big time. Then people will suddenly realise the greater value of tangible assets.
From the IRD website: High-earning individuals in New Zealand actually face a significantly lower overall income tax burden than those in most comparable Western countries
I quite agree, Jean. There are so many scapegoat policies coming from parties like ACT - get tough on mental health beneficiaries, get tough on youth offenders, cut disability "wastage", pare back luxurious school lunches. It's woeful scapegoating that is playing with crumbs, comparatively, financially, and deflects us emotionally and cognitively from the great injustice of the current tax system, as above comments speak to.
And you're right, how come tax is such a goblin word? Labour have swallowed National's tactic on this. Make the case for tax as a positive contribution to the common good! Only a few parties seem brave enough, sane enough, to do so.
The relationship between tax, income, wealth and government borrowing is always challenging, and people seek to minimise tax via legal arrangements made possible by, er, parliament. One question is how to maximise tax with minimal damage to the economy (e.g., to take an extreme, if the government tax my income 100%, I have nothing left to help the grocer make a living); and to not so minimise tax that there is maximal damage to people's lives and the social fabric of society (e.g. to take another extreme, if the government tax my income 0%, the government cannot support the vulnerable who are unable to earn an income (unless they borrow money) [to be cont'd]
Agreed +Peter. I think addressing our flat tax rate would help with this. Given ours is flat compared to most western countries changing it isn’t going to radically change our ability to attract people to NZ, it would benefit those most struggling (in Australia the first $18 000 earned is tax free), and those in the top tier are actually unlikely to notice too much (one has to have quite the income to be in the top tier on a more progressive tax rate and it’s only the amount above the threshold that is taxed at the higher rate as you will know) - I suspect a large reason people come to NZ is due to our ‘relatively’ safe and friendly communities, natural environment, and getting not so much but still there for the well off decent health care and education systems. These things are there because historically NZ erred towards looking as much after the common welfare as economic profit. Incidently there has been an awful lot of wealthy US immigrants of late lol… I think it is helpful not to see NZ as a good place to invest or live for the wealthy other than from a financial point of view such as the price of housing or tax rates - quality raw products, quality of living etc I suspect have more weight than they are given in the current financial equations.
The difficulty I see with focusing on economic profit alone is shown with the likes of Temu. Mass production for small gains and large harms. Locally I see Temu products flooding op shops as people either seeing the quality or having excess pass them forward. The cost - such waste and waste that is primarily environmentally damaging (while being produced in the country of origin and when it ends up in our landfill - as the products are largely synthetic); the workers in the country of origin, I do not see how a product whose material value outstrips it’s sale price (e.g. if the materials were bought wholesale in NZ where decent labour law as are in place the wholesale price of the raw materials are more than what Temu sells the end product goods for), could mean the workers are being paid enough to have quality of life; retail - local retail have no chance at competing with such equations and the empty shops here locally are scary; quality goes out the window and instead the cultural way becomes buy discard buy discard; the money generated all goes off-shore; designs and images used to sell products are often stolen from people who have invested time, money and talent to produce them and the monitoring of this is scarce because the products cross international borders.
While Temu is an off-shore example its effects on New Zealand’s economy at the moment don’t take much attention to notice. The question is, do we want to go down this route locally and globally? Is welcoming Ikea into our land really an economic gain in the long run? It may be in the short term. Short term gain for long term pain?…. Unfortunately many people succumb to the temptation to buy from Temu, acknowledging there are some people for whom they are struggling so much Temu is the only option primarily from what I have witnessed the majority of people are attracted by the price even if they have the means to buy more ethical alternatives. The cost is not ‘seen’ - people do not connect the dots between the environmental cost, the empty local shops and loss of income from ‘stolen’ work. Likely they would be livid if they learnt their neighbours artwork was mass produced and sold to make millions but being removed from the consequences all they see is cheap goods.
It is a lesson that has actually been learned by countries who created special economic zones to attract economic investment and ended up loosing in terms of both money and the social welfare of their residents. The advice from the International Monetary Fund, True Drivers of Success: Core fundamentals—such as reliable infrastructure, good governance, regulatory efficiency, available labor, and integration with the domestic economy—matter far more than tax exemptions
One of my economic heroes is my wife. She started making all of her own clothes some years ago. I think this was mostly to survive the overwhelm of being a parent, early childhood teacher and partner to me! She now makes all her own clothes and a good many of our daughter's, too.
And she repairs everything, or as much as she can. Her approach is repair first, look for second hand second, and only thirdly buy new.
So much globalized products are made in the most appalling conditions, and/or take profits overseas, and/or are engineered to be sold at "competitive market prices" which means they are of poor quality and made according to the principle of "planned obsolescence", i.e. deliberate shortening of the lifespan of a product to force people to purchase functional replacements, a key part of what Pope Francis called our "throw away economy".
But many people these days have lost these old world skills - how to sew.
One of my colleagues used to work as an accountant for Lane Walker Rudkin and dearly regrets the loss of little sewing hubs in towns such as Ashburton, Leeston etc. Little hubs of women who would gather each day to sew Canterbury jerseys, talk, and create social fabric, livelihoods, and basic lifelong support and connection as well as cloth and products for markets.
Our economies have become so dehumanized. Our "investment" thinking so myopic. Our politics so short term.
Picking up from my comment above (and noting appreciatively comments about how modern life works, to the detriment of individual skills, community life, etc), so, there always should be healthy debate in a democratic society about how much tax needs to be raised, should be raised, and what it is spent on (noting that some comments here raise the possibility of government funds not only supporting basics of welfare, education, health, defence etc, but also specific economic interests so that some local businesses continue to operate against competition from global corporations) ... with each election effectively being a renogotiation of the socio-economic contract according to which our government leads, we support and, hopefully, our society flourishes).
So far, this discussion concerns income earned, tax paid on it. We are also now GST embedded, so we are used to (even if we wish it were not so) paying tax on goods and services we purchase (which, effectively, is another tax on our income, but to a degree optional since we could choose not to buy a new TV, though we cannot choose not to buy food, pay the power bill, etc).
Capital gains tax is also an income tax: I gain profit on sale of a capital item and pay tax on that gain, with the gain enabling me to afford the tax. (That's not the whole story on CGT - there are considerations about CGT affecting the role of business in an economy (e.g. does a CGT on businesses contribute to inflation?). Should CGT be paid on all house sales or just on "second" or "third" houses, the family home remaining intact etc?)
A wealth tax is not something I am keen on because it is not clear to me where income is earned to pay tax on mere possession of wealth/an asset.
Naturally I expect that where wealth generates income (interest earned, dividends paid) then these are taxed and I am not aware of any NZ billionaire being convicted for not paying taxes owed in this way.
My final point about a "wealth tax" is, what does it mean to be a billionaire? My suspicion is that the people publicly named as billionaires do not put their billions into the bank and/or shares but invest some/most of their funds into businesses ... which if they make a profit pay tax, and if they don't then no tax is paid. Such investments can do good for the NZ economy!
The interesting thing about this year's election is that several tax options are on the table for voters to consider and to make a choice about: CGT [Labour], wealth tax [Greens] and (I think) GST compensation for some taxpayers (Te Pati Maori).
Finally, I note that in various discussions about what we would like the government to spend money on if only it could tax more money for itself, there is very little mention made of the billions the government is now spending on interest on borrowing previously and currently incurred!
Dear Peter,
If you part vote Green you could achieve a tax cut for 96% of NZers (paid for by a modest 2.5% tax on super-millionaires who have had records profits during a - what?! - cost of living crisis)!
That is the most Gospel-centric policy I have heard thus far in this election campaign!!
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