A Crisis Response Designed to Exclude

There's something almost admirably brazen about the way this government operates. When a crisis arrives, one that affects every household in the country regardless of income, employment status, or circumstance, the National-led coalition reaches instinctively for a mechanism that excludes the poorest New Zealanders by design. Not by accident. By design.

The Strait of Hormuz crisis, caused by the United States and Israel launching an illegal war of aggression on Iran, has driven petrol prices to levels not seen in this country's recent memory. Every family that owns or depends upon a vehicle is being squeezed. 

The retired couple driving to their medical appointments. The solo parent on a Jobseeker benefit ferrying children to school across a city with inadequate public transport. The person on a supported living payment who has no realistic alternative to a car to get to their treatments or those on jobseeker support who are required to attend job interviews. All of them are being hit. All of them are suffering.

On 25 March 2026, RNZ reported:

Fuel crisis package: Nearly 150,000 families to receive $50 a week

Speaking to reporters, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the package struck the right balance.

"It is a hard reality that we cannot alleviate the pressure of rising fuel costs for everyone. And as we have learned from the Covid response would do more damage to our economy, which has just started growing again."

The government's response, announced by Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, is to deliver up to fifty dollars a week to approximately 143,000 families through a temporary boost to the In-Work Tax Credit.

The measure will cost an estimated 373 million dollars over a year and has been fastened, with some precision, to an existing mechanism that carries within it an explicit exclusion clause: no person receiving a main benefit from Work and Income may receive it.

On 25 March 2026, RNZ reported:

Who Will Be Eligible to Get an Extra $50 a Week as Part of the Fuel Crisis Package?

It excluded beneficiaries, superannuitants and those without children.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Willis said for beneficiaries, there would be usual increases on April 1 which "working families" did not automatically get.

"And I'd also note, working families face the obligation to get to and from work each day. Beneficiaries do not face that obligation," Willis said.

 

Read that again. The In-Work Tax Credit, by its very architecture, bars beneficiaries from receipt. This was not an oversight. It was a political choice made years ago, and it is a political choice being enthusiastically renewed today.

Willis, when pressed on why families on core benefits were excluded, offered the observation that welfare payments would increase from the first of April through the usual annual inflation adjustments. This is the kind of answer that requires a certain composure to deliver without embarrassment.

Half of NZ's most vulnerable children excluded from fuel relief packagehttps://t.co/zv6DR1CCQh

— Newstalk ZB (@NewstalkZB) March 26, 2026

Those inflation adjustments, modest by any measure, are entirely unrelated to a sudden and severe fuel price shock. They were calculated before the Strait of Hormuz became a flashpoint. They address a different problem.

To offer them as an equivalent response to a specific and acute crisis is not fiscal prudence. It is sophistry dressed as compassion.

On 25 March 2026, the NZ Herald reported:

Fuel Relief: How New Zealand's $50 Support Package Compares with Support Overseas

New Zealand’s newly announced fuel relief package will give about 143,000 “squeezed middle” families $50 a week through a boost to the In-Work Tax Credit.

However, unlike many overseas responses to the oil supply shock, it does not directly reduce the price of petrol at the pump nor offer support to businesses.

There’s also no targeted support for beneficiaries or superannuitants, with neither eligible to receive the boost, which begins on April 7 and will be paid weekly or fortnightly, depending on when people are paid.

What is revealing here is not merely what the policy does, but what it says. The language surrounding the announcement has been carefully chosen. Families in the "squeezed middle." Parents "working hard for a living." The implicit contrast, as always, is with those bottom feeders who are not working hard, who are not deserving, who have made, in the preferred framing of this coalition, poor choices.

The In-Work Tax Credit has always carried this ideological freight. It is a payment that rewards employment with an almost moral fervour, as though being in paid work is itself a virtue sufficient to entitle one to support during a crisis, while being unemployed, elderly, disabled, or otherwise reliant on the state is a condition that forfeits such entitlement.

On 25 March 2026, RNZ reported:

Is Fuel Support Package 'Generous' or Not Enough?

Isaac Gunson, spokesperson for the Child Poverty Action Group, said it would help working for families but there was nothing for people relying on benefits.

"Close to a quarter of a million children live in households receiving a core benefit and the idea that there's no additional support for them that will be made available is pretty outrageous."

While Finance Minister Nicola Willis said they were potentially less affected because they did not have to travel to work, Gunson said they would still need to travel for groceries or job interviews.

He said the 3.1 percent increase in benefits from April 1 would not be enough.

"The idea that benefit dependent households won't face as big a downturn in their finances because they don't have the same obligations to go to work… that just doesn't stand up."

The Child Poverty Action Group has noted the obvious and the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services has called for the package to be extended to beneficiary families. The Green Party's co-leader Chloe Swarbrick has also pointed out, correctly, that the government has simultaneously pushed people out of work through its neoliberal economic settings and is now withholding crisis relief from those same people.

The current government has increased unemployment by 35% since coming to power, a very sobering figure that should guide peoples voting preferences come November 2026.

On 30 March 2026, the NZ Herald reported:

Fuel Crisis: About 140,000 Families to Receive $50 a Week to Help with High Fuel Prices

The Green Party’s reaction was far more critical, saying it left too many New Zealanders behind.

“The Government’s narrow tweaks to tax credits leaves behind the tens of thousands of people their economic plan has pushed out of work, only to then punish with new obligations and sanctions,” said Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.

“So much for planning for the ‘worst-case scenario.’ There is no plan to support people on to public transport and reduce fuel demand, no plan to prevent corporations price-gouging while families cut back on groceries.”

It is worth pausing on the numbers. The income cut-off for the In-Work Tax Credit sits at around $89,000 for a family with one child, rising with each additional child. This is, in practical terms, a payment that can flow to families earning near six figures, while a solo parent surviving on a benefit well below the poverty line receives nothing. The government calls this targeted. One might call it something else.

The increased GST from the first 6 months of rising fuel costs will easily cover the estimate $373 million WFF in-work tax credit for the year. This financial relief should be expanded to all Kiwis on low incomes. Cheapskates, @NZNationalParty. #CostOfLivingCrisis #nzpol pic.twitter.com/oD6gCfnmvd

— Jackal (@Jackalblog) March 24, 2026

This isn't an aberration. It fits precisely into the pattern that has characterised this coalition since it took office: benefit cuts, sanctions, the scrapping of the New Zealand Income Insurance Scheme before it even began, and the steady withdrawal of support from those most deprived of state help while tax arrangements continue to favour those at the top.

The fuel support package is merely the latest expression of a governing philosophy that regards poverty as a personal failure and welfare as a reward to be withheld.

New Zealand has a Child Poverty Reduction Act. It has commitments, statutory ones, to the wellbeing of children regardless of what their parents do for work. Those commitments are being quietly set aside while the government congratulates itself on its fiscal discipline.

The squeezed middle, at least, appears to have the government's attention. Those below the middle can, it seems, be squeezed a little harder.

The GST Windfall Willis Doesn't Want You to Know About

When a Finance Minister invokes the authority of Treasury, the public is generally entitled to assume that what follows is an accurate rendering of the advice received. That assumption, it appears, does not hold in the case of Nicola Willis and her recent remarks on GST, fuel prices, and the fiscal consequences of the global oil shock caused by Trump's illegal war on Iran.

Speaking in the wake of the Strait of Hormuz disruption that has pushed 91 octane petrol to around $3.30 per litre nationally, with some Auckland forecourts already touching $4.00, Willis offered the following reassurance when questioned about a potential GST windfall for the Crown.

Here's Nicola Willis' 24 March post on Facebook:

Many Kiwis have asked me if the Government will receive windfall tax-gains as a result of rising fuel prices. Short answer: NO! It's a fair question though, so here's what you need to know.
New Zealand's petrol excise tax is a fixed number of cents per litre, not a percentage of the pump price, so the tax take does not increase when fuel prices go up.
 
GST revenue on fuel theoretically rises when pump prices increase, but I'm advised that in the context of current price increases, this is expected to be offset by reduced fuel demand and by lower discretionary retail spending elsewhere as households adjust their budgets. Put another way, as Minister of Finance, I've not been told to expect an increase in the GST-take as a result of the fuel-price spike. 
 
I know this is something many people have asked in good faith, so I'm disappointed to see Chris Hipkins making factually inaccurate claims in response. It's simply misleading for him to allege that the global oil-price shock will somehow benefit the Government at the expense of everyday Kiwis. The simple reality is that petrol price increases will not benefit the Government financially - in fact the opposite is more likely to be the case.

The statement is constructed to suggest that Treasury has assured Willis that higher pump prices will not materially enrich the Crown, because New Zealanders will simply buy less petrol and spend less on everything else. It is, on close examination, a misleading conflation of two quite separate things: the trajectory of GST specifically, and the trajectory of total Crown revenue.

Let us deal with the first claim, that reduced fuel demand will offset the GST gain. This argument rests on the assumption that demand for fuel is highly elastic, that is, when prices rise sharply, people simply stop buying.

The evidence from New Zealand's own context tells a rather different story. Research published by the Motu Institute places the price elasticity of petrol demand in this country somewhere between negative 0.1 and negative 0.66, with short-run estimates at the lower end of that range. At a mid-point estimate of around negative 0.4, a 27 percent price increase would reduce consumption by approximately eleven percent. The GST take on the remaining 89 percent of purchased fuel has still risen by 27 percent. You do not need a Treasury economist to recognise that the arithmetic does not support a cancellation effect.

The second claim, that reduced discretionary spending elsewhere will neutralise the gain, is even weaker. The spending substitution Willis describes is not a disappearance of economic activity; it is a reallocation of it. A household that spends less at a restaurant in order to fill the tank has not removed that money from the GST-liable economy. It has moved it from one GST-bearing transaction to another. Fifteen percent of one hundred dollars spent on petrol raises precisely the same GST as fifteen percent of one hundred dollars spent at a cafe. The total take is, in this respect, broadly unaffected.

What Willis has carefully avoided discussing is perhaps the most consequential dynamic of all: the savings draw-down effect. 

New Zealand's household saving rate was already negative as recently as early 2025, and with wages stagnant in real terms, many families will not simply cut discretionary spending to absorb a $25 to $35 weekly increase in fuel costs. They will reach into whatever savings they have.

That money was previously sitting in a bank account, entirely outside the GST system, generating no consumption tax for the Crown whatsoever. Once it is withdrawn and spent on essentials, 13 cents in every dollar flows to Inland Revenue as GST. Far from reducing the Government's GST take, this dynamic actively increases it. The struggling family dipping into its savings to keep the car on the road is, in effect, funding a portion of its own relief package.

Independent analysis from Infometrics suggests the Crown could receive somewhere in the vicinity of $180 million in additional GST revenue from higher fuel prices over a hundred-day crisis period. Factor in savings drawdown, and the realistic upper bound reaches well beyond $300 million for 100 days, a figure not far removed from the estimate put forward by Opposition Leader Chris Hipkins, whom Willis incorrectly dismissed due to her own disinformation.

On Tuesday, The NZ Herald reported:

 

Fuel crisis: Nicola Willis slams Chris Hipkins’ ‘factually unbased claims’ over Govt’s tax take 

“Put it this way, as Minister of Finance, I’ve certainly not been advised that I’ll be getting windfall tax gains out of the current global crisis, in fact, I’ve been told to brace myself for the opposite, which is that this is likely to reduce Government revenue.”

Willis said she had been “disappointed” by Hipkins’ “factually unbased claims”.

“I think it’s really disappointing to see the leader of the Opposition grabbing what is a fair question but then providing Kiwis with misleading information. This is a time for cool, calm heads.”

 

Treasury's concern about total Crown revenue declining is almost certainly genuine and well-founded. A lack of any government growth strategy and a sustained fuel shock will compress corporate profits, slow economic activity, reduce PAYE receipts, and, if the Reserve Bank is forced to respond to inflation exceeding four percent, tighten financial conditions at exactly the wrong moment. These are serious risks to New Zealands fiscal outlook and Willis should be taking them seriously.

However, what the Finance Minister isn't entitled to do is apply a broad macroeconomic revenue warning specifically to GST in order to deflect from a perfectly reasonable question about whether the Government is quietly pocketing a windfall while ordinary New Zealanders struggle at the pump. Treasury would not have advised her that GST revenue is going to fall, because the evidence strongly suggests the opposite. Any economist who advised this should be sacked!

The Minister would do well to be straight about the distinction, rather than allowing the public to draw an inference that her own officials almost certainly did not intend.

The Coalition of Chaos Is Sinking New Zealand

There's a particular kind of arrogance that afflicts those who ascend to positions of power for which they are manifestly ill-prepared. It is not the arrogance of competence, of someone who has mastered their brief and knows it, but rather the breezy confidence of those who have never been seriously tested, and who mistake the trappings of office for the substance of competent governance.

It is precisely this brand of arrogance that has come to define the National-led Coalition of Chaos, and New Zealanders are now paying a very heavy price for it.

Let us begin with the Minister of Finance. Nicola Willis holds a degree in English literature and a postgraduate diploma in journalism, credentials that would serve her admirably as a book reviewer or a parliamentary press gallery correspondent, but which represent a curious qualification for the stewardship of a $400 billion economy.

One might charitably observe that some of New Zealand's more capable Finance Ministers have also lacked formal economics training. The difference, however, is one of disposition. Where her predecessors such as Bill English  listened to advisers, Willis has demonstrated a troubling tendency to do precisely the opposite.

When fifteen or more of the country's leading economists wrote open letters warning that her austerity programme would deepen and prolong the recession: that you cannot, as the PSA put it with admirable clarity, cut your way to prosperity. Willis's response was, in essence, to disagree and move on. The $43 billion in spending cuts she regards as a badge of honour are, in the view of those who actually study these things, a principal reason why New Zealand's economic recovery has been so anaemic, so halting, and so persistently disappointing.

The consequences of this ideological stubbornness are now documented not merely in the arguments of domestic critics, but in the assessments of global financial institutions. Fitch, the international credit ratings agency, has placed New Zealand's AA+ rating on negative outlook, warning that debt reduction is becoming "more difficult to envisage" as fiscal consolidation has been repeatedly delayed.

General government gross debt is now forecast to rise to 56% of GDP by June 2027, a figure that sits grotesquely above the 36.1% projection made when New Zealand was last upgraded in September 2022. That the delays have occurred across successive governments does not absolve the current administration; it indicts it, for it was handed a roadmap of warnings and chose to ignore them.

Meanwhile, Reuters has laid bare the structural fragility that underlies the government's cheerful forecasts. For decades, New Zealand has relied upon a rising housing market to engineer economic recoveries. That playbook has now failed.

On Monday, Reuters reported:

New Zealand struggles to regain economic mojo without housing recovery

At the same time, economic growth cooled in the fourth quarter, data showed last week, with construction slumping and consumer spending weak, even before the massive distruptions created by the ​war. The unemployment rate stands at a decade-high of 5.4%.

...

Government efforts to stoke growth have been lacklustre, even with an election looming on November 7 that is sure to be dominated by ​voter dissatisfaction over the economy. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has offered little aimed at reviving the labour market, which is still reeling from waves of public sector layoffs last year.

Even after the Reserve Bank slashed the Official Cash Rate from 5.5% to 2.25%, house prices remain some 20% below their pandemic peak, hollowing out the wealth effect upon which so many households depended. Borrowers are being squeezed, construction projects lie stalled, and a wave of New Zealanders, precisely the professionals and entrepreneurs a genuine growth strategy would seek to retain, have lost hope and are quietly departing for better opportunities in Australia.

Into this fraught domestic picture now falls the additional chaos of Donald Trump's war in the Middle East. Oil price inflation is pushing up borrowing costs globally, potentially forcing the Reserve Bank into a more hawkish stance at precisely the moment the economy can least afford it. New Zealand's substantial dependence on energy imports makes it acutely vulnerable.

Christopher Luxon, a former airline chief executive who has consistently demonstrated that managing a corporate balance sheet is rather different from governing a sovereign nation, appears to have no coherent response to this gathering storm beyond the ritual recitation of talking points about fiscal responsibility, the same fiscal responsibility, one might note, that Fitch has just formally called into question. It's that kind of incompetence that New Zealanders are starting to notice en masse.

Yesterday, The Guardian reported:

New Zealand PM’s ratings dip as fragile economy fails to impress before November election, poll shows

National leader Christopher Luxon drops in preferred PM stakes with rise in people saying country heading in wrong direction

The RNZ-Reid Research poll, released on Monday, also found a growing number of people felt that New Zealand was heading in the wrong direction.

Luxon slid two points to 17.3% in the preferred prime minister stakes – his lowest result across major polls since he became leader in 2023. Labour’s Chris Hipkins also dipped 0.4 points, to 20.7%.

The prime minister’s net favourability – the difference between those who rate his performance as good versus poor – has also dropped from -14 in January to -20.6, his weakest result in the Reid Research series since he became National’s leader in 2021.

Meanwhile, Luxon’s National party has slipped nearly five points behind the main opposition party, Labour. If an election were held today, the parliamentary left and rights blocs would face a hung parliament.

The cruellest irony of this government's tenure is that its most zealous cuts have fallen upon the very investments in science, in public services, in wages, and in housing infrastructure, that might have produced the growth it so loudly claims to want.

While minimum wage workers have absorbed a third consecutive real-terms pay cut, and while $12 billion was stripped from pay equity settlements affecting predominantly female workers, landlords have had their interest deductibility restored and tobacco companies have breathed a sigh of relief to the tune of $3.2 billion dollars.

New Zealand deserves better than a Finance Minister with an English literature degree who dismisses the warnings of fifteen economists, led by a Prime Minister who cannot read a room and remains fluent only in corporate double-speak. Reuters did not mince words: Luxon has offered little aimed at reviving a labour market still reeling from the waves of public sector layoffs his own government inflicted. The Coalition of Chaos has not merely failed to provide a growth strategy. It has actively dismantled the conditions under which one might have been possible.

National Has Failed New Zealand

The coalition government's incompetence is on full display as unemployment soars, costs increase and Kiwis pay the price, all under the unqualified watch of Nicola Willis and the bumbling leadership of Christopher Luxon.

It's been over two years since the National Party-led government slithered into power, promising a solution to the cost of living crisis. 

Remember that old chestnut from their campaign trail? Well, fast forward to 2026, and what we've got is more like a rock bottom fiasco with no solutions in sight.

Last week, RNZ reported:

 

Unemployment rate highest in a decade as it rises to 5.4%

Unemployment rose to its highest level in more than a decade, with more people chasing work than jobs created, while wage growth slowed further.

Stats NZ numbers showed the unemployment rate rising to 5.4 percent in the three months ended December, from 5.3 percent in the previous quarter. It was the highest level since March 2015.

"Over the quarter, we saw higher levels of engagement in the labour market as both employment and unemployment increased," macroeconomic spokesperson Jason Attewell said.

A total of 165,000 people were unemployed, a rise of 4000 on the previous quarter and 10,000 on a year ago.

The signs are clear to see: a prolonged downturn that's squeezing the life out of ordinary New Zealanders, skyrocketing unemployment, stubborn inflation creeping above the Reserve Bank's target, and a surge in homelessness that's as predictable as it is heartbreaking.

If this is what governing looks like, then Christopher Luxon and his crew are woefully out of their depth, unfit for a second term, and frankly, a danger to the nation's wellbeing.

Let's start with the economy, shall we? Since National took the helm, GDP has contracted repeatedly, with the latest figures showing a dismal 0.9% drop in the June 2025 quarter alone. Projections for 2026 aren't much brighter. The OECD forecasts a meagre 1.8% growth, barely enough to crawl out of the hole they've dug for ordinary New Zealander's.

The current government is taking no responsibility for their economic mismanagement. Unemployment has hit 5.4% in the December 2025 quarter, the highest in a decade, leaving 165,000 Kiwis without work. That's not just a statistic; it's families struggling, young people scarred by joblessness, and a generation burdened with an average $26,000 student debt while facing double the national unemployment rate at 12.5% for under-30s.

If you think that National keeping people poor is good for the nation, then be my guest...keep voting for a government that is hellbent on inhibiting our young citizens and our great countries future potential.

Inflation? It's at 3.1%, again edging above the RBNZ's 3% upper limit, fueled by government-administered hikes in fees, rates, and utilities (read taxes) up 10% in 2025 alone. What was it that National promised again?

Wage growth lags at a pitiful 2%, meaning real incomes are shrinking while costs soar. How convenient for a government that blames everything from the previous administration to global tariffs, but never their own slash-and-burn austerity that is driving down wages and forcing people overseas.

At the centre of this mess is Finance Minister Nicola Willis, a woman whose qualifications for the role seem as thin as the excuses she peddles. Economists should be lining up to call for her resignation, but once again the mainstream media is falling in line with the status-quo and not properly reporting.

Even the right wing is getting sick of the incompetence. Former Finance Minister Sir Roger Douglas labeled her "not up to the job," while University of Auckland's Robert MacCulloch accused her of having "no plan" beyond slashing public services. A group of 20 prominent economists penned an open letter in October 2025, slamming her policies as short-sighted and contributory to the recession, but a toothless mainstream media hasn't put any pressure on this complete failure of a Minister.

Under Willis, borrowing has ballooned more than under her predecessor Grant Robertson, despite a lack of any actual economic disasters or worldwide crisis. What exactly is her excuse?

Public debt is on track to hit 100% of GDP in decades, and the bureaucracy she promised to shrink has barely budged. Her response? A flimsy denial: "I don't agree," as if this is enough of a response while New Zealand's economy goes down the drain.

This is the same minister who claimed she was building a "rock solid" economy, while critics, including those on the right side of politics like the Taxpayers' Union accused her of fiscal fudgery. Unqualified? Absolutely. Inept? Undeniably.

And then there's Prime Minister Christopher bloody Luxon, the former airline CEO who can't seem to land a coherent sentence let alone a credible vision for New Zealand.

His popularity has tanked amid economic woes, with hecklers at Waitangi Day 2026 shouting "treason" over Treaty rollbacks and indigenous rights erosion. If tanking New Zealand's economy without any reason isn't treason, what is?

It's the same old chestnut of divide and rule. There is no doubt that the National Party and their coalition partners have used Māori as a bogyman to try and gain support from the racists and white supremacists. But that tactic will hopefully do more damage to their brand in the long-term.

It's not just left-wingers like myself who've noticed. Critics such as political commentator Matthew Hooton have eviscerated the so-called Prime Minister, calling Luxon lacking in intelligence, depth, and connection with Kiwis, reduced to empty slogans while the coalition fractures.

Luxon's response to coalition infighting and an economy in decline is to regurgitate the same old and tired business speak that nobody understands. A complete failure to connect with everyday Kiwi battlers who are just trying to survive.

But how can he manage New Zealand out of recession when he can't even manage his own speech paralysis, incompetent economic Minister or inept government?

Under Luxon, we've seen no real plan for prosperity, just more pain for the vulnerable. The human cost is stark. Homelessness has doubled in Auckland, thanks to National's cuts to emergency housing grants...down 65.5% in applications approved. Funding slashed by $78 million, leaving thousands exposed to the gruelling prospect of living on the streets.

The Cost of living crisis? Groceries, rents, and utilities keep rising, with no relief in sight as the RBNZ holds rates steady into late 2026, with Luxon's big plan for energy security a sunset industry of LNG imports at taxpayers' expense. So much for cheaper power prices.

Meanwhile, poverty surges, with over 410,000 on welfare benefits. Imagine if resources were shared more equitably instead of persecuting vulnerable families by removing benefits just to provide landlords with $2.7 billion in freebies.

Imagine if the government was actually doing what we employ them to do like boost social housing targets, fund preventive homelessness programs such as expanding Housing First beyond its paltry 300 new spots, and invest in public services rather than tax cuts for the wealthy and already bloody sorted.

We could halve rough sleeping, stabilise rents, and lift wages through fair redistribution of the great wealth that New Zealand actually has, creating a society where quality of life improves for all, not just the sorted and elite.

But under National, that's a pipe dream. This government wasn't ready to govern in 2023, it isn't ready to govern now, let alone for another three year term. Kiwis deserve better than Nicola Willis' economic mismanagement and Chris Luxon's weak word salad.

New Zealand's Housing Crisis Needs a CGT Cure

The Labour Party has finally released it's long-anticipated capital gains tax (CGT) policy, and despite the resulting and predictable right-wing backlash, it's a thoroughly researched and measured approach, targeting profits from the sale of residential and commercial investment properties at a flat 28 per cent rate, commencing July 1, 2027, exempting family homes, farms, and inheritances.

The revenue, projected at $385 million in its first full year rising to $1.35 billion thereafter, would fund a "Medicard" granting every New Zealander three free GP visits annually. This is no radical upheaval, but a pragmatic alignment with global norms...a quiet assertion that untaxed windfalls from non-productive bricks and mortar should shoulder some burden for the public good.

On Wednesday, 1 News reported:

 

'Bring it on': Hipkins targets Luxon in capital gains tax debate

National has been poised to jump on Labour's long-awaited tax policy and has already pushed out a series of attack ads on social media.

Asked about those ads, Hipkins said he was more than happy to debate Christopher Luxon about his personal finances.

"Bring it on. He sold four houses last year and made more money, tax free, from doing that than he made in the prime minister's salary, which he paid tax on every dollar of.

"Why should he be able to make more than $600,000 in one year from flipping properties whilst the people who go out and work hard every day for a living pay tax on every single dollar that they earn?"

However, as with any whisper of equity in our overheated fiscal debates, the response from the governing coalition has been a cacophony of outrage, a theatrical overreaction befitting a Shakespearean farce. Christopher Luxon, from his perch in Malaysia, decried it as "a tax on every single business in New Zealand," a handbrake on growth that would inflate consumer prices. Finance Minister Nicola Willis echoed the Prime Minister's alarmism, branding it a "terrible idea" that burdens small enterprises. ACT's David Seymour invoked "tall-poppy politics," while New Zealand First dismissed the rollout as a "trainwreck."

The problem for the incumbents is that their fear-mongering, dressed as fiscal prudence, is being laughed out of the room. Their reflexive defence of the status quo where capital accrues to the few while the many scramble for scraps is clearly not supported by the majority of New Zealanders, particularly those who haven't secured a family home yet.

Labour Leader Chris Hipkins rightly countered those who want the housing crisis to get worse by succinctly pointing out that it's "the most progressive tax change in a generation," a simple mechanism to redistribute the fruits of speculation towards healthcare for all.

The right's hysteria ignores a plain truth: New Zealand stands anomalous among OECD peers in shunning a comprehensive CGT. Only Mexico joins us in this outlier status; the rest, from the United Kingdom to Canada and our trans-Tasman kin, levy such taxes on capital gains, often at rates exceeding 20 per cent, without precipitating economic Armageddon. Denmark tops the scale at 42 per cent, Norway close behind at 37.2 per cent, yet their economies hum with innovation and productivity those within New Zealand's current government can only dream of.

These nations prove that taxing unearned gains does not stifle enterprise; it channels investment from speculative housing towards ventures that build lasting wealth and safeguard society from the dysfunction of rampant inequality. In our own backyard, the absence of such a levy has fuelled a property obsession, distorting capital away from productive ends and into the hands of flippers who treat homes as mere commodities. Non of their hoarded wealth trickles down.

Worse still is the National Party's parade of disinformation, a deliberate sleight of hand to obscure the proposal's narrow scope. Luxon and Willis peddled the myth that it ensnares "every business," when Labour's design spares shares, KiwiSaver, and most commercial operations unless tied to property sales. This is not oversight; it is calculated distortion, echoing past disinformation campaigns where National accused opponents of "tax and spend" follies. The truth, as Deloitte's Robyn Walker affirms, is a "sensible middle ground" that mirrors the 2018 Tax Working Group's pragmatic recommendations.


On Tuesday, RNZ reported:

What you need to know: Seven questions about a capital gains tax

The minority view of the report said it agreed there was a strong case for extending taxes to untaxed capital gains.

But it said the comprehensive capital gains tax as proposed in the group's wider final report would outweigh the benefits.

"In our view a comprehensive approach would impose efficiency, compliance and administrative costs that would not be outweighed by the increased revenue, fairness perceptions, and possible integrity benefits of the broader approach. Instead we support a more moderate approach of extending current rules taxing gains, to property categories, only to the extent that benefits clearly exceed costs."

Robyn Walker, tax partner at Deloitte, said Labour's proposal was a sensible middle ground that mirrored that view.

"I think it's a good compromise, I guess, and it means that hopefully we're not like in the weeds on the details of capital gains taxes for the next 12 months, which even as a tax person, I don't want to do that."

 

The right-wing's fear tactics betray a deeper unease: the proposal unmasks the coalition's own indulgences. Consider Luxon himself, whose property portfolio has been a study in untaxed bounty. Before entering politics, he amassed seven Auckland holdings. Recent sales, a Grey Street, Onehunga unit for a tax-free gain potentially exceeding $250,000, and another Onehunga unit netting $295,000, have swollen his coffers, all shielded from capital levies. His on-paper gains topped $4.34 million last year alone, a sum nearly nine times his parliamentary salary.

Luxon claims transparency, yet his property flips evaded scrutiny under the old bright-line test. This is the man decrying a CGT as a growth-killer, while his government eases the very rules that once curbed such unproductive profiteering.

Under National's watch, the bright-line test, Labour's 2021 extension to 10 years, was slashed to two years from July 1, 2024, allowing quicker flips without tax. Interest deductibility for rentals, phased out by Labour to cool speculation, has been restored: 80 per cent from April 2024, full by 2025. These tweaks supercharge flipping as a "business," rewarding those who treat housing as a casino rather than a human right.

Many coalition MPs ledgers brim with numerous investment property assets. 33 National MPs command a whopping 117 investment properties, making their own personal interest, not the public good, their driving philosophy. National's coalition partners aren't much better. ACT's Parmjeet Parmar for instance lists seven Auckland holdings, making property value increases a paramount driver in all policy development. Scandals abound, from David Seymour lying about his three properties while claiming he couldn't afford one on an MPs salary to numerous National MPs in 2013 shielding rentals in superannuation schemes to recent trust-shuffles, like National MP Carl Bates' 25 properties tucked away pre-election, evading the pecuniary register. Trusts, those opaque veils, largely conceal Member's spousal assets and valuations, rendering parliaments so-called transparency a farce.

Flipping houses shouldn't masquerade as legitimate enterprise in a nation where shelter is a cornerstone of dignity and a requirement for survival. Speculating in property has birthed a deepening crisis: Stats NZ reports homeownership at only 66.0 per cent, with young Kiwis (25-29) at just 44 per cent, down from 61 per cent in 1991. The median multiple (house price to income) hovers at 7.7, "severely unaffordable", with Auckland at around ten times what the average household earns. Median prices linger at $761,000 nationally, $909,000 average value, while rents strain at $635 per week. 51 per cent of Kiwis cite high prices as the paramount barrier, 49 per cent the rental squeeze. Renters, 83 per cent aspiring to own, despair: 62 per cent deem it unattainable. They have given up on the Kiwi dream of owning a house and having a family or will be moving abroad.

A CGT is no panacea, but it is a vital corrective, curbing the frenzy that prices families out and starves public services, an issue compounded by those in positions of power, which is a vital step to safeguarding New Zealand's future. The coalition's propaganda, laced with Luxon's own gains and their asset-hoarding mentality, rings completely hollow. It's time to tax the flippers, not those who aspire to home ownership. Only then might we reclaim a housing market for the many, and not just the vested few.

National’s Austerity Disaster is Plunging NZ into Recession

In the hallowed halls of New Zealand's Parliament, where grand visions are meant to translate into tangible economic relief, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has presided over a year of economic despair that would make even the most stoic Kiwi reach for the smelling salts.

Remember the halcyon days of the 2023 campaign, when Luxon, with the earnest zeal of a corporate retreat facilitator, pledged a "laser focus" on the cost-of-living crisis? "We'll get New Zealand back on track," he intoned, promising tax relief and a booming economy to ease the squeeze on households battered by inflation and stagnant wages.

Fast-forward to September 2025, and that laser focus appears to have been swapped for a funhouse mirror: distorting reality while delivering nothing but hot air. The latest Stats NZ figures paint a grim portrait: gross domestic product plunged 0.9 per cent in the June quarter, a sharper contraction than the paltry 0.3 per cent dip forecast by the Reserve Bank. Annual GDP is down 1.1 per cent, per capita output has nosedived 1.1 per cent, and the economy has now shrunk for three of the last five quarters. This isn't a blip; it's a full-throated recession, broader and deeper than the Global Financial Crisis in per capita terms.

Enter Finance Minister Nicola Willis, ever the loyal deputy, clutching at straws with the veracity of a rabid pit bull. In the wake of the June quarter's dismal data, having worn out National's usual blame Labour spin, she pinned the blame squarely on Donald Trump's tariffs, decrying them as the villainous force derailing New Zealand's fragile recovery.

Yesterday, RNZ reported:

Economy contracts sharply as GDP falls 0.9% in June quarter

The economy had a worse than expected slump in the middle of the year as weaker manufacturing, construction, and agriculture activity fell sharply, backing the case for further interest rate cuts.

Stats NZ data shows gross domestic product (GDP) - the broad measure of economic growth - fell 0.9 percent in the three months ended June, to be 1.1 percent lower than a year ago.

Expectations had been for a quarterly contraction of about 0.4 percent, although growth for the previous quarter was revised marginally higher to 0.9 percent.

"GDP has now fallen in three of the last five quarters," Stats NZ spokesperson Jason Attewell said.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis was pinning the blame for the economy's slump on global turmoil and uncertainty driven by the United States' tariff roll-out.

In a statement, she said the US announcement resulted in firms and households putting off spending decisions.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis cried foul, claiming Trump's tariffs "disrupted my momentum" as if U.S. protectionism single-handedly sank New Zealand's economy. But the facts paint a different picture. The 0.9% GDP contraction hit in the April–June 2025 quarter, with economic activity tanking well before the full impact of Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs, announced on April 2, 2025.

While a 10% tariff on Kiwi exports took effect on April 5, with a hike to 15% delayed until August, the economic sting from these measures lagged, hitting exporters months later. Willis' attempt to pin the blame on Trump is just another dodge, sidestepping the harsh reality that her government's own policies have been the true wrecking ball.

Today, RNZ reported:

Nicola Willis rejects accusations she is doing nothing for a 'tanking' economy

An economist says the finance minister has not been a responsible manager for the country's finances.

But Nicola Willis is shrugging off calls to resign, saying Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has confidence in her and the plan to revive the economy.

And at a media briefing on Friday, Luxon threw his full backing behind Willis to carry on as minister of economic growth.

"I don't think there's a single New Zealander that could do a better job than Nicola Willis," he said.

"Nicola Willis is the best finance minister New Zealand's ever going to have, she's an outstanding person, she's an outstanding person, she's an outstanding finance minister, economic growth minister, she's doing an exceptionally good job in a very tough situation.

"I totally back her. I'm very very proud to call her my friend, I'm very very proud to have her in the role that she is and she's outstanding."

Luxon blamed the dip in the economy in the June quarter on the global situation saying one in four of New Zealand's jobs were tied to trade.

"The good news is that that's in the past, we're growing now, we're projected to grow more strongly going into the next quarter."

Luxon said he had a very short conversation with Willis after the criticisms, telling her she had his full backing and that everything was "full steam ahead".

Willis was the best person to be finance minister and economic growth minister in the country, he said.

"Nicola's done an outstanding job of you know getting our fiscals in shape in terms of that's lead to low inflation, lower interest rates, it's going to get the economy growing, it's going to get people back into employment again which is fantastic, but we also keep talking all the time - what more can we do?"

Luxon called criticisms from former minister Sir Roger Douglas that Willis was not up to the job "absolute rubbish".

Since National slithered into power in late 2023, the coalition's austerity playbook has been as predictable as it is punishing. Public sector redundancies have ballooned to over 10,000 jobs axed, from Health New Zealand's 2,042 cuts (including 500 confirmed redundancies) to the Ministry of Education's 303 fewer full-time equivalents by July 2025. These aren't faceless figures; they're nurses, teachers, and administrators whose departures have hollowed out essential services.

Funding cuts have followed suit: baseline budgets frozen or trimmed across ministries, with the 2025 Budget delivering a $1.1 billion gouge in spending allowances. Add in the repeal of fair pay agreements, the cancelling of 3000 state house builds, the axing of the Clean Car Discount, and a bonfire of infrastructure projects like Wellington's public transport upgrades, and you've got a cocktail of downward pressure that's left the economy sputtering. Manufacturing and construction have shed over 18,000 jobs in the past year alone, while businesses shutter at the fastest rate in a decade.

Broken Promises, Broken Economy: Nicola Willis’ Fiscal Train Wreck

📍OPINION: Finance Minister Nicola Willis, who once promised to transform New Zealand’s economy with a surplus by 2027, has instead driven it into a mire of contractionary austerity and unfulfilled commitments.… pic.twitter.com/gjRTSaQ1sP

— Kelvin Morgan 🇳🇿 (@kelvin_morganNZ) September 18, 2025

And here's the rub: while Willis wails about Trump's tariffs, nations far more exposed to the U.S. trade bazooka aren't reeling like we are. Australia, our trans-Tasman twin, clocked 0.6 per cent growth in the same quarter despite similar tariff headwinds, buoyed by diversified exports and less draconian fiscal pruning. Japan and South Korea, slapped with 25 per cent duties, still project OECD growth above 1 per cent for 2025, their supply chains more resilient than our austerity-ravaged one. Even the U.S. itself, epicentre of the tariff storm, eyes 1.6 per cent expansion this year, per OECD forecasts, down from 2.2 per cent pre-tariffs, but hardly a nosedive. New Zealand's woes? Homegrown, courtesy of a neoliberal government more keen on tax breaks for the wealthy than actual stimulus.

The chorus of discontent is growing, even from the right's own choir. Commentators like Matthew Hooton and Roger Douglas, hardly the bastions of the left, have piled on, bewailing Willis' fiscal folly and Luxon's inertia amid self-inflicted recessionary headwinds. Whispers in Wellington's corridors suggest even insider Tories are fidgeting, with calls for Luxon to boot Willis before she drags the ship under. Small wonder: Luxon's approval ratings are in freefall, slumping to a net -7 in April's 1News-Verian poll, his preferred PM score dipping to 19.6 per cent in the latest RNZ-Reid Research poll, his lowest in two years. Labour's Chris Hipkins, for all his post-election torpor, now outpolls Luxon as preferred leader. Luxon doesn't have any solutions, just spin: National's propaganda machine churns out tales of "momentum" and "green shoots" while families ration the Weet-Bix and retailers bolt the doors.

Ah, but that "laser focus" on the cost-of-living crisis? What a joke, a punchline delivered with the straight face of a man who's never queued at a supermarket let alone stood in line at the food bank. National's FamilyBoost flagship, meant to hand 21,000 households $150 fortnightly, has flopped spectacularly: a year on, just 153 families have claimed the full whack. The rest? $7 a week, not even enough for a block of butter. Luxon's rhetoric ignores the shuttered shops, the tens of thousands of young Kiwi emigrants fleeing to Oz for a brighter future, the quiet desperation etched on people's faces from Kaitaia to Bluff. This isn't leadership; it's a sleight of hand that leaves Kiwis holding an empty wallet.

As the austerity deepens New Zealand's economic malaise, one can't help but ponder: if Luxon's plan is this threadbare, what hope is there for a recovery while National are in power? The emperor's wardrobe is in tatters, and the court jesters, Willis chief among them, are entirely out of valid excuses.

National Government Gaslights over Economic Downturn

New Zealand’s economy is languishing, and the National-led coalition, with Finance Minister Nicola Willis at the helm, has been quick to point fingers at Labour’s Covid-19 spending.

The problem for the coalition of chaos is their narrative is a masterclass in gaslighting, deflecting blame from their own disastrous economic policies while misrepresenting the past. Let’s unpack their mess, because the truth is far uglier than the coalition’s polished spin.
 

Earlier this month, Stuff reported:

The $66 billion Covid spend up: Treasury asks if the Government went too far

Finance Minister Nicola Willis was quick to draw attention to the Tresuary’s conclusions. She has long blamed current economic challenges on the previous Labour Government.

She said this report proved that, as she has said previously, the Labour Government was fuelling inflation.

“Unfortunately, the Labour government ignored [officials’] advice. The consequence was undisciplined spending that pushed up inflation, eroded New Zealand’s previously low public debt position, and fuelled a cost-of-living crisis,” she said.

“The lesson from Labour’s mishandling of the Covid response is that while there are times when governments have to increase spending in response to major events, the fiscal guardrails should be restored as soon as possible,” she added.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Labour, under Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins, rolled out a lifeline to keep businesses afloat and workers employed. The Wage Subsidy Scheme alone, costing $18.3 billion, ensured millions of Kiwis kept their jobs, while the $70.4 billion Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund (CRRF) propped up health, aviation, and small businesses.

This was no reckless spending spree; it was a calculated response to a global crisis, with Treasury initially urging broad-based support like wage subsidies to stabilise the economy. The result? New Zealand’s unemployment rate dropped to a 40-year low of 3.2% by December 2021, and GDP rebounded faster than in any other OECD country. Labour’s spending wasn’t perfect, but it kept the nation afloat when the world was drowning.

 

In 2021, Stuff reported:

NZ dollar tipped to head higher as economy rebounds from Covid

The New Zealand dollar is heading higher as the economy recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic, which will make exports more expensive and imports cheaper.

Fitch Solutions on Wednesday lifted its forecast for the currency, and now expects it to average US74.34 cents over the remainder of this year, having averaged US71.84c over the first five months. The kiwi was at US72.52c around midday on Wednesday.

Economic growth would probably pick up by 3.6 per cent this year after a 1.2 per cent contraction last year, which would encourage investment flows into the country and tighter monetary policy, pushing the currency higher, Fitch said.

“We attribute the New Zealand dollar’s robust uptrend in recent months to the country’s strong economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic,” Fitch said.

Enter the National Party, clutching a Treasury report that claims Labour blew $66 billion. Sounds damning, right? Except it’s a sleight of hand. That figure includes general government expenditure, not just Covid-specific measures, inflating the narrative of Labour’s supposed recklessness while Willis has been borrowing even more than former Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson.

National’s comparison of New Zealand’s Covid spending to other countries while Labour was in power is equally dishonest, as those nations often exclude general expenditure from their Covid budgets. It’s a classic case of cherry-picking data to paint Labour as profligate while ignoring the global context. This isn’t analysis; it’s propaganda from a dishonest government that can only blame others for their own economic failures.

Meanwhile, the coalition of chaos has embarked on a slash-and-burn mission. Since taking office in 2023, they’ve axed 10,000 public sector jobs, including 2,000 in health, and imposed 7.5% cuts across ministries. Wellington, the public service hub, is reeling, with house prices down 6.8% and 19,500 jobs lost since January 2025. The downturn in the capital city is palpable.

 

In May, Reuters reported:

New Zealand's budget cuts punish public sector, business and workers

"We were told survive until 2025 and it will get better. Well, we're now in May 2025 and it doesn't feel better," said Thomson, who is currently doing paid freelance work.

New Zealand's conservative coalition government releases its annual budget on Thursday and is expected to continue to push fiscal discipline with many ministries not expected to see budget increases.

Spending cuts since December 2023 have been felt across the wider economy but perhaps most acutely in Wellington, a city of nearly 210,000 where the government has historically been a major employer.

House prices in Wellington have plunged 6.8% over the past year, far exceeding the national decline of 1.1%. Population growth stagnated in 2024, contrasting with a 1.7% increase nationwide. Consumer and economic sentiment in the city remains lower than in many other regions, with businesses and residents expressing concern over the city's prospects.

In Auckland, businesses are folding at twice the rate of last year, surpassing even the 2008 GFC failure rate. The coalition’s austerity obsession is sucking confidence out of the economy, leaving workers and businesses stranded and tens of thousands of young New Zealanders heading overseas to find a brighter future.

Worse, National’s policies are hammering the most vulnerable. Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden’s 1.5% minimum wage increase to $23.50, well below the 2.7% inflation rate, is in real-terms a pay cut. Welfare cuts and increases in the cost of living further erodes people's purchasing power, hitting the elderly and disabled hardest. Even for people with a little bit saved, nobody is spending because nobody feels confident in the current government's economic agenda.

With household costs up 5.4% in the year to June 2024, driven by a 9.0% rise in rent, an 8.7% increase in mortgage interest payments, and higher food and energy prices, Kiwis are struggling to keep up. These pressures, that even the RBNZ's tweaks are not addressing, compounded by a projected 5% rent increase and persistent inflation in 2025, are bleeding many households dry. This isn’t fiscal discipline; its economic sabotage, draining demand and ensuring an increase in business closures due to reduced cash flow.

 

Earlier this month, RNZ reported:

A boom in businesses going bust

New Zealand is riding its highest wave of company liquidations in more than a decade, with thousands of businesses folding and countless livelihoods caught in the crossfire.

Many more are holding on, but just.

In the first half of this year alone, 1270 businesses have shut their doors - a 12 percent increase on this time year.

It's now anticipated that the total number of liquidations for the year will surpass 2024's 10-year high, when 2500 companies folded. That was an increase of nearly 700 compared to 2023. 

Wellington economy shrinks as 177 businesses shut in a year – does Nicola Willis accept some blame?, via @nzherald https://t.co/TyMqKqrn3Y

— Jan Renwick (@nettieg3) August 26, 2025

Nicola Willis, the architect of this misery, has the gall to blame Labour while implementing austerity on the poor and pushing policies that fuel inflation. Treasury forecast inflation would be as low as 1.8% in 2025, but National’s policies have kept it at 2.7% and climbing.

National, and their coalition bedfellows, are becoming increasingly desperate, and are throwing everything they can to prop up their golden goose, the floundering housing market. Foreign buyers might make the numbers look good on paper for a while, but they'll do nothing to ensure New Zealanders quality of life improves through increased home ownership rates.

The coalitions much-touted Fast-Track Approvals Bill, now being spruiked as an economic saviour for families unable to afford basic food items, offers zero cost-of-living relief for everyday Kiwis. It’s a sop to developers, corporates and the existing supermarket duopoly, not families facing skyrocketing bills at the checkout.

Willis’ rhetoric about cleaning up Labour’s mess is pure gaslighting, obscuring the fact that her austerity is deepening the economic downturn.

The coalition of chaos is driving New Zealand into an economic abyss, while they attempt to cloak their failures in Labour-bashing and dodgy numbers. The Covid hangover is real, but it’s Willis’ heartless cuts and misguided priorities that are keeping the economy on its knees.

Butter Should Be Cheaper in New Zealand

In New Zealand, the land of dairy abundance, the price of butter has become a bitter pill for Kiwis to swallow. A 500g block now costs an arm and a leg, a staggering 46.5% increase in the year to June 2025 and a jaw-dropping 120% higher than a decade ago. The stats are even worse when you compare the April 2024 with April 2025 prices, a 65.3% increase. For a nation that produces a third of the world’s trade in dairy products, this is nothing short of scandalous.

The National-led coalition, under Chris Luxon and Finance Minister Nicola Willis, has failed to address the cost of living crisis, with the price of butter in particular an affront to household budgets, instead offering hollow platitudes and tax tricks while the ability of voters to purchase basic necessities worsens. It’s time to demand real relief, starting with making butter affordable again.


On August 6, Stuff reported:

 

Global butter prices have dropped by 3.7%, this is what it means for us

The Global Dairy Trade (GDT) revealed that butter prices had dropped 3.8%, but what does that mean for shoppers?

Butter prices are up around 47% annually in the past year according to Stats NZ, with the average price of 500g sitting upwards of $8.

A tub of butter worth a whopping $18.29 was even spotted at an Auckland supermarket in early July.

Brad Olsen, Chief Executive and Principal Economist of Infometrics, said butter prices dropped or held steady during the last three GDT auctions, declining around 8.6% since the second half of June.

So if global prices have fallen, will we start to see cheaper butter?

Nowhere, not immediately at least.

New Zealand’s dairy industry, led by Fonterra, is a global powerhouse, yet ordinary Kiwis are paying international prices or higher for a staple produced in their own backyard. Export parity pricing means we’re hostage to global market rates, driven by demand from China and the Middle East, despite our five million dairy cows grazing local pastures and polluting local rivers. We're paying a premium to ship our own dairy products abroad.

This system prioritises Fonterra’s yearly NZ$22.82 billion revenue over the needs of New Zealanders struggling to afford the basics.

Nicola Willis, whose past ties to Fonterra as a senior manager raises questions, has become conspicuously silent on challenging this dishonest pricing model. Her refusal to consider a fairer two-tiered system, where domestic consumers pay less than export markets, smacks of loyalty to corporate interests over constituents, and flies in the face of their pre-election promises.

Willis’ claim that supermarkets, not Fonterra, set retail prices dodges the core issue: a lack of competition in the grocery sector, dominated by Foodstuffs and Woolworths, allows unchecked margins to inflate costs further. But all we get from the coalition of chaos is promises of doing something, not any real quantifiable action.

The National-led coalition’s broader economic mismanagement has only worsened the cost-of-living crisis. Luxon’s repetitive mantra, “people are doing it tough,” rings hollow when paired with policies that fail to deliver any tangible relief. Two-thirds of New Zealanders, according to ConsumerNZ, have low confidence in this government’s ability to tackle the affordability of basic necessities...and they're not wrong.

Removing GST from dairy, as some have suggested, was dismissed by Willis due to a supposed $3.3bn–$3.9bn revenue hit, an excuse that prioritises fiscal optics over struggling families, struggling families that will still spend any savings from cheaper butter on other basic necessities. In effect there's no net loss for the government in making butter prices cheaper for consumers, raising a valid question about whom exactly Nicola Willis serves?

The coalition’s tax cuts, touted as relief, have done nothing for low-income households facing skyrocketing prices for essentials like butter, which isn't just a spread but a cultural staple in Kiwi baking and cooking.

In a country that produces enough food to feed 40 million people, no one should be going hungry. Yet 500,000 New Zealanders are accessing food banks or food support services each month, indicating a complete failure by the current system to distribute the nations wealth equitably. Impoverished kids, people the Prime Minister views as "bottom feeders," cannot simply make a Marmite sandwich when their school lunches are inedible if there's no butter in the house, Mr Luxon.

Small businesses, like Kayes Bakery in Southland, are being crushed, forced to import cheaper Australian butter or raise prices, risking declining revenues and closure. This irony, importing butter into a dairy nation, highlights the absurdity of the status quo, and the absurdity of National's neoliberal policies that ensure many New Zealanders miss out.

Consumers are resorting to desperate measures, from driving hours to Costco to churning butter at home, reflecting a deep frustration with a system that feels entirely rigged.

Then there's the environmental cost of intensive dairy farming (polluted rivers, cancer causing aquifers and increased climate emissions) adding insult to injury, as Kiwis pay a premium while bearing the ecological fallout and costs.

The high butter prices aren't helping to pay for the cleanup. Instead, they're effectively subsidising the dairy industry’s massive profits and increased farmer payouts, which aren’t being spent in the struggling economy. Instead, much of these profits service debt, which only enriches foreign-owned banks.

Luxon’s rhetoric and Willis’s inaction are emblematic of a government out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders. We need bold action: regulate supermarket margins, explore domestic price controls, remove GST off of essential items and challenge Fonterra’s export-driven model that is turning New Zealand into a wasteland, all while providing dairy products only the wealthy and sorted can afford.

Willis’s Fonterra connections demand scrutiny...her reluctance to confront the dairy giant suggests a conflict of interest that undermines public trust. But the crux of the matter is that butter should be cheaper in New Zealand, not just for affordability but as a matter of fairness in a dairy-rich nation.

A Four-Year Term Would Further Erode Public Oversight

In a move that reeks of further disdain for democratic accountability, New Zealand’s National-led government is making moves to implement a four-year parliamentary term, a proposal that would further erode the public’s ability to hold governments to account. This audacious bid, championed by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, comes at a time when the coalition is railroading through a slew of socially destructive policies that no one voted for.

In February, 1 News reported:

Govt announces four-year parliamentary term legislation to be introduced

The Government has agreed to introduce legislation that would allow the parliamentary term to be extended to four years - subject to a referendum - Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says.

Previously, coalition partners New Zealand First and ACT have both voiced support for four-year political terms, and the proposed Bill was modelled on the ACT Party's draft Constitution (Enabling a 4-Year Term) Amendment Bill.

The current three-year limit is entrenched — meaning it can only be overturned through a supermajority in Parliament or a referendum.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has previously indicated the Government planned to propose a referendum for four-year Parliamentary terms at the next election, and has been critical of the current three-year term which he said pushed governments into short-term decision-making.

On Wednesday, the NZ Herald reported:

NZ Government allocates $25m for referendum on four-year parliamentary terms

The Government has set aside $25 million for a referendum on four-year parliamentary terms, pencilled in to run alongside next year’s election.

The three-year term is a vital check on power, allowing voters to reverse course before ill-conceived policies wreak havoc. It’s a mechanism that can keep governments honest, or at least, as honest as they can be. Extending the term to four years would not only shield government's from scrutiny but also entrench their reckless agenda, leaving Kiwis to bear the consequences of decisions made without any mandate.

Why the rush to reduce oversight? Perhaps because this coalition knows their policies lack legitimacy. From tax breaks for tobacco companies to slashing essential services, the National-led government is implementing measures that were conspicuously absent from their campaign promises. The electorate didn’t vote for this economically damaging agenda, they voted for vague assurances of “getting back on track,” not a wrecking ball through our social fabric.

Take the tax breaks for tobacco companies, extended to three years in a move that blindsided health advocates and the public alike. This wasn’t a policy National, ACT, or NZ First campaigned on; it was a backroom deal that prioritises corporate profits over public health. The repeal of smokefree legislation and $300 million worth of tax breaks to increase cancer rates is a stark example of this government’s priorities.

Meanwhile, essential services like healthcare, education, and social housing are being gutted. The 2025 Budget saw $11 billion redirected from pay equity, KiwiSaver, and Best Start to fund tax cuts that disproportionately benefit landlords and multinationals. These cuts hit the most vulnerable hardest, with low-income earners, Māori, women, and the self-employed bearing the brunt, as highlighted by Retirement Commissioner Jane Wrightson.

The coalition’s disdain for voters is palpable, and further highlighted by their often negative rhetoric. Luxon’s infamous quip referring to New Zealanders as “bottom feeders” betrays a corporate arrogance that views the public as mere “customers” rather than citizens with rights. ACT leader David Seymour’s dismissal of those who missed voter registration as “drop kicks” further reveals the coalition’s contempt for the electorate and people's right to vote.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis had the gall to even suggest Kiwis should be grateful that unemployment, now at 5.2%, hasn’t climbed higher. This patronising rhetoric underscores a government that sees itself as above the people it serves, pushing policies that serve narrow interests while ignoring the broader public good.

She’s arrived at the ‘bitching about the ungrateful punters’ stage already, and that doesn’t usually appear until the third term. https://t.co/TRGJglEuRl

— Scott Nickerson (@totaraforest) August 6, 2025

The coalition’s socially destructive agenda extends beyond tobacco and tax cuts. The dismantling of the Māori Health Authority, the minimisation of te reo Māori in public services, and the push to reinterpret the Treaty of Waitangi through ACT’s controversial bills are moves that inflame division and undermine decades of progress. These policies, driven by David Seymour and Winston Peters, were not endorsed by voters but are being foisted upon the nation under the guise of coalition necessity. Talk about the tail waging the dog.

The result? A deepening recession, rising unemployment, higher inflation (CPI 2.7% compared to 1.8% forecast), and growing public discontent, with polls showing National’s support plummeting. A four-year term would only embolden this type of neoliberal government to double down on its unmandated agenda, with the passage of time and lolly scrambles towards election time somewhat shielding them from the electoral consequences of their negative policy decisions.

Adding insult to injury, the proposed referendum on a four-year term is itself a waste of taxpayer money, a waste of taxpayers money that only a paywalled article is reporting on. Talk about a complete failure of the fourth estate. Nobody asked for this vote; it’s a pet project of a government already haemorrhaging public trust and money. At a time when essential services are being significantly cut and cost-of-living pressures are squeezing households and closing businesses, funnelling resources into an unrequested referendum is yet another example of this coalition’s skewed priorities.

The three-year term ensures that voters can relatively swiftly correct course when governments veer into chaos. Luxon’s coalition is banking on an extra year to entrench policies that prioritise corporate mates over ordinary Kiwis, all while dismissing public discontent as the grumblings of “bottom feeders” and "drop kicks". If this government truly believed in its vision, it wouldn’t fear facing the electorate every three years.

The push for a four-year term isn’t about stability, it’s about evading accountability. New Zealanders deserve better: a democracy that listens, not one that lectures.

Luxon Blames Labour for His Declining Popularity

It's been 21 months since Christopher Luxon’s National-led government was elected, yet the Prime Minister seems incapable of taking responsibility for his own policy decisions. His latest gaffe, blaming Labour for the booing he copped at a recent netball event, isn't just a laughable misstep...it's a stark reminder of his inability to own his government’s numerous failures.

Luxon’s attempt to deflect criticism onto his predecessors is as transparent as it is desperate. It paints him as a leader out of touch with a public growing weary of his hollow rhetoric. At the netball event, Luxon faced a chorus of boos from the crowd, a visceral expression of discontent that should have been a wake up call. But rather than reflecting on why he might be so unpopular, Luxon defaulted to his worn out playbook: blame Labour. It’s a tired refrain that’s starting to sound like a broken record.

 

Yesterday, RNZ reported:

Watch: Christopher Luxon booed at netball premiership finals

Prime Minister Chrisopher Luxon appears to have been booed by spectators at the ANZ Premiership netball finals over the weekend.

Luxon was on stage to present awards after the final game.

Loud jeers from the crowd could be heard as Luxon was introduced, video from the official broadcast shows.

What prompted the crowd's reaction is unclear.

The Mainland Tactix broke their ANZ Premiership drought, dethroning two-time defending champions Northern Mystics 58-46 in the grand final at Auckland's Trusts Arena.

Comment has been requested from the prime minister's office.

He's due to speak to reporters at the Beehive about 4pm for this regular post-Cabinet press conference.

When pressed on the issue at his standup yesterday, Luxon proceeded to blame Labour for the crowds discontent. However, the crowd wasn’t booing Labour; they were booing Luxon’s leadership, or lack thereof. From slashing public services to pushing regressive tax cuts that favour the wealthy, his government’s policies have hit ordinary New Zealanders hard. The boos likely stemmed from specific grievances: the gutting of health and education funding, the cancellation of infrastructure projects, and the relentless cost-of-living squeeze that Luxon’s promised tax relief has done nothing to alleviate.

To suggest Labour, out of power since 2023, is somehow responsible for the public backlash isn't just dishonest, it’s downright delusional.

Luxon’s penchant for pointing the finger at Labour isn’t unique to him; it’s a National Party hallmark. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has repeatedly blamed Labour for the “bare fiscal cupboard,” whenever there's something the government doesn't want to fund, conveniently ignoring that her government’s choice to prioritise $2.9 billion in tax breaks for landlords instead of investing in frontline services has driven New Zealand backwards.

National MPs like Chris Bishop have often dismissed Labour’s critiques as the whining of a “failed team,” yet it’s National’s policies, like public sector cuts and a failure to address housing affordability, that have deepened the economic malaise. The Stats NZ data is damning: Real GDP per capita in New Zealand has declined by approximately 3.4% since National took power, with a technical recession directly linked to their neoliberal policy direction. Around 138,670 New Zealand citizens have emigrated away from New Zealand (a net loss of approximately 98,000 Kiwi) since Luxon took office. Unemployment has climbed to 5.1%, with over 15,000 public sector jobs axed under Luxon’s watch. This has had far reaching consequences for the New Zealand economy.

Yesterday, RNZ reported:

One year, 27,850 jobs gone Stats NZ latest data shows

New data shows there were 27,850 fewer jobs in New Zealand in June compared to the year before, and young people are feeling the impact of the weak labour market.

Stats NZ's latest data shows the number of filled jobs was up 0.1 percent month-on-month but down 1.2 percent year-on-year.

Compared to the year before, construction had lost 12,169 jobs, or 6 percent, manufacturing 5850 jobs, or 2.5 percent, professional, scientific and technical services 5150 jobs, or 2.7 percent, and admin and support services 4860 jobs, or 4.7 percent.

Education and training and primary industries added jobs.

People aged 15 to 19 had 10 percent fewer jobs, those 20 to 24 had 3.5 percent fewer and those ages 25 to 29 had 3.9 percent fewer.

These aren’t Labour’s numbers; they’re the direct result of National’s austerity obsession. Luxon’s claim that Labour’s “economic vandalism” is to blame for the downturn, and subsequently his unpopularity, is particularly galling when you look at the facts. Nearly two years into his first and hopefully last term as Prime Minister, and the statute of limitations on blaming the previous government has well and truly expired.

Data from Stats NZ today demonstrates how far we have fallen in the labour market. Between June 2019 and June 2023, we put on 225,000 new jobs. Since then, we have lost 31,216 jobs. A job lost every 34 minutes. A thread pic.twitter.com/Oq6cBtHTzB

— Craig Renney (@CLRenney) July 28, 2025

The coalition of chaos' policies, slashing public investment, undermining workers’ rights, and doubling down on the proven failure of trickle-down economics, have exacerbated the economic challenges Aotearoa faces, not alleviated them. The general public and those who attended the netball finals aren't stupid; they see through Luxon’s dishonest spin. His insistence on deflecting responsibility only underscores his lack of a coherent plan to address the prolonged recession, rising unemployment, and stagnant wages.

This blame-shifting is also endemic of Luxon’s campaign of misinformation. During the 2023 election, he promised tax cuts that would magically fix the cost-of-living crisis. However, the promised relief pales against soaring rents and astronomical grocery bills. We're seeing thousands of businesses close, not just because of unaffordable power, but because National is sucking billions of dollars out of the economy. His rhetoric about “getting New Zealand back on track” rings completely hollow when his government’s actions, such as cancelling social housing projects, unfair pay equity changes, and disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters will leave millions of struggling Kiwis worse off.

The boos at the netball event weren’t about Labour; they were about a Prime Minister who overpromised and underdelivered, all the while pointing the finger elsewhere when the cracks in National's propaganda are evident for all to see. Luxon’s leadership is looking increasingly like a corporate PowerPoint presentation: rehearsed, and devoid of any real substance or value.

Luxon's refusal to own his government’s numerous failures, whether it’s the economic downturn, job losses, or his own declining popularity, makes him look not just out of touch but downright foolish! Kiwis deserve a leader who takes responsibility, not one who hides behind tired excuses. The netball crowd knew it, and so does the rest of New Zealand.